Aces

Description

Aces is a celebration of the bold fighter pilots who earned the accolade and joined the ranks of flying aces during World War II aviation combat.

Since World War I, fighter pilots have been seen as a breed apart, fighting their battles high above the mud and muck of the battlefields—“knights of the air.” During World War II, tens of thousands of aircraft engaged in deadly dogfights in the skies over Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific. In this hellish battle for survival, hundreds of pilots claimed five or more victories to become aces. These are their stories.

This informative history book includes a wealth of biographies of WWII’s most daring aerial knights. Each major country in the war (and some of the minor ones) had Aces. You can learn about where they came from, who they fought for, who they were outside the cockpit, and see their brave young faces that were ready for whatever the war threw at them. Packed with rare historical photos as well as modern images to see how their work impacted history, Aces paints a full picture of these featured flyers.

Among aviation warfare, the title of “ace” sets some above the rest. While it technically marks the pilots as having five enemy kills in aerial combat, it means a lot more than that in military circles. On the battlefield, they were enemies, diametrically opposed, but when they were firmly planted on the ground, they were respected colleagues.

Learn all about the daring men of valor from:

• US Army Air Forces, US Navy, and US Marines
• British Commonwealth
• Germany
• The Soviet Union
• Poland
• Japan
• Italy
• France
• And other Allied and Axis forces

This fascinating account of the greatest pilots of World War II is a great gift for the history buff in your life and an excellent way to fall into history.

Bill Yenne is the author of more than three dozen nonfiction books on historical topics. His books on aviation and military history have included Area 51 Black Jets—which T. D. Barmes, formerly with NASA High Range and Area 51 Special Projects, described as “not a book that the reader will lay down and not finish. It holds one’s interest from front to back.” Yenne has also contributed to encyclopedias of World War I and World War II and has been featured in several documentaries that have aired on the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Smithsonian Channel, and ARD German Television. The Wall Street Journal notes that Yenne writes “with a cinematic vividness.” Yenne has also authored ten novels and has penned several books on beer and brewing history.

INTRODUCTION
 
CHAPTER 01 THE U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES
Baumler and Tinker: The Volunteers
Hill: Flying with the Tigers
Wagner: The USAAF’s First Ace
Bong: America’s Ace of Aces
McGuire: He Died Trying
Kearby: Top Pacific Thunderbolt Ace
Gabreski: The USAAF Top Man in Europe
Johnson: The Country Boy Ace
MacDonald: With Lindbergh in the Pacific
Preddy: The Top Mustang Ace
Meyer: Most Likely to Succeed
Gentile: An American Ace in Two Air Forces
Zemke: From Wolfpack to Stalag
 
CHAPTER 02  THE US NAVY AND MARINE CORPS
McCampbell: The Navy’s Top Ace
O’Hare: The Most Daring Single Action
Harris: Second Place Naval Ace
Valencia: Kamikaze Killer
Foss: A Marine Matches Rickenbacker
Boyington: The Black Sheep
Hanson: Top Corsair Ace
 
CHAPTER 03 GERMANY
Hartmann: There Is Only One Number One
Mölders: First to Top the Red Baron
Galland: The General Was an Ace
Barkhorn: Also Over 300
Rall: Germany’s Number Three Ace
Nowotny: The Austrian Expert
Rudorffer: Thirteen on One Mission
Bär: The Top Me 262 Jet Ace
Steinhoff: The Man Without a Face
Marseille: The Best Fighter Pilot Ever?
 
CHAPTER 04 THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
Deere: A Hero of the Battle of Britain
Pattle: The Top Ace in the Royal Air Force
Johnson: The Top-Scoring Englishman
Malan: The Sailor Was an Airman
Tuck: The Caged Eagle
Bader: The Legless Ace Who Couldn’t Be Caught
Beurling: The Highest-Scoring Canadian Ace
Woodward: Canada’s Number Two Ace
Caldwell: The Top-Scoring Australian Ace
Gray: New Zealand’s Top Ace
Wade: The Yank in the Royal Air Force
 
CHAPTER 05 JAPAN
Anabuki: Top IJAAF Ace
Nishizawa and Iwamoto: The Two at the Top
Sakai: The Man Who Lived to Tell the Tale
 
CHAPTER 06 THE SOVIET UNION
Kozhedub: The Soviet Union’s Ace of Aces
Pokryshkin and Rechkalov: Top Runners-Up
Litvyak and Budanova: Not All the Aces Were Men
 
CHAPTER 07 ITALY
Visconti: Number One
Lucchini: Baracca Della Segunda Guerra Mundial
 
CHAPTER 08 FRANCE
Clostermann: In the Shadow of René Fonck
 
CHAPTER 09 POLAND
Skalski: The First and Finest
Horbaczewski: On Skalski’s Wing
Gladych: Five Air Forces and Three Lives
 
CHAPTER 10 THE OTHER ALLIED AIR FORCES
Czechoslovakia
Norway
Netherlands
Belgium
 
CHAPTER 11 THE OTHER AXIS AIR FORCES
Slovakia
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Croatia
Spain
 
CHAPTER 12 FINLAND
Juutilainen: Finland’ Ace of Aces
Wind: Finland’s Second Highest-Scoring Ace
 
INDEX
 

Additional information

Dimensions	0.85 × 9.1 × 11.25 in