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Best Nonfiction of 2020 -- Kirkus ReviewsOne of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force's 617 Squadron.The attack on Nazi Germany's dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force's 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story—and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron—has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis's mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams—the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron's valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest. In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses—making the mission a success. An example of Churchill's “military theatre” at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology—a story to be told for generations to come.Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.

Beginning in 1942, the Eighth Air Force began a precision bombing raid offensive deep into Nazi Germany, embarking from bases in rural England. Nearly 350,000 Americans were transplanted to English soil, joining their British colleagues for this joint Allied offensive. For many it was a period of great risk, and arguably the greatest adventure of their lives.With Wings As Eagles celebrates the heroics of these pilots and their missions. A lavishly illustrated, full-color, hardcover original, the narrative is the result of the author's exclusive interviews with many of the pilots and crew, as well as research from contemporary diaries, journals, and scrapbooks. Readers relive the nostalgia and vivid reminiscences — of days of seemingly endless boredom and fatigue, the loneliness of soaring in an aluminum cocoon four miles over an intended target, and a surprising account of parachuting onto German soil and being captured by women and children.With Wings As Eagles relives the drama and history of an heroic era.

A great wave of fundraising ‘patriotic'associations followed in the wake of Great Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 4 August 1914, at home but also right across the empire. The most successful public campaign of all was launched in London at the beginning of 1915. Known as the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla, the scheme aimed to attract contributions towards aircraft production costs from throughout the British Empire. Any country, locality, or community that provided sufficient funds for an entire ‘aeroplane'could have it named after them. It was promised that when the machine crashed or was shot down, the name would be transferred to a new one of the same type. Margaret Hall examines the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla as a facet of imperial history. She analyzes the fundraising efforts in Canada and Newfoundland; the Zanzibar Protectorate; Fiji, Mauritius, and the Caribbean; Hong Kong; the Malay states and Straits Settlements; West Africa, especially Gold Coast; Southern Rhodesia; Basutoland; Swaziland and the Union of South Africa; the Indian empire and Burma; (British subjects in) independent Abyssinia and Siam; in the Shanghai International Settlement, and the British community of Argentina; Australia; and New Zealand. This remarkable and detailed book discusses the propaganda and counter-subversion usages of the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla—and what the support for the imperial war effort reveals about contemporary national and regional identities and aspirations.

Das Buch widmet sich einem bislang übersehenen und verdrängten Phänomen im Bombenkrieg gegen das Deutsche Reich: Übergriffen und Morden an abgeschossenen alliierten Flugzeugbesatzungen. Der Bombenkrieg als Trauma einer ganzen Generation ließ bislang eine Beleuchtung dieser Gewaltverbrechen kaum zu. So erhielt sich die von der NS-Propaganda aufgebaute Vorstellung einer aufgebrachten Bevölkerung, die Rache an ihren Peinigern nahm. Der Autor durchbricht dieses Bild, beleuchtet die Wirkungskomplexe des Bombenkrieges und zeichnet anhand von Fällen aus Österreich und Ungarn nach, welche Funktion dieser Form der Gewalt im Rahmen einer NS-Herrschaft »unter Bomben« zukam. Anhand von umfangreichem Quellenmaterial zu über 1.000 Flugzeugabstürzen sowie 26 detaillierten Fallstudien wird dieses Phänomen erstmals umfassend erschlossen.

Most famous for the dambusting raid in the darkest days of the Second World War, the No 617 Sqn were a vastly experienced crew. It was the first, and only, squadron to use certain equipment and weapons in combat. This study covers the history of the No 617 Squadron. It explains the men, aircraft, weapons and operations of this squadron.

For as far back as school registers can take us, the most prestigious education available to any Irish child was to be found outside Ireland. Catholics of Consequence traces, for the first time, the transnational education, careers, and lives of more than two thousand Irish boys and girls who attended Catholic schools in England, France, Belgium, and elsewhere in the second half of the nineteenth century. There was a long tradition of Irish Anglicans, Protestants, and Catholics sending their children abroad for the majority of their formative years. However, as the cultural nationalism of the Irish revival took root at the end of the nineteenth century, Irish Catholics who sent their children to school in Britain were accused of a pro-Britishness that crystallized into still recognisable terms of insult such as West Briton, Castle Catholic, Squireen, and Seoinin. This concept has an enduring resonance in Ireland, but very few publications have ever interrogated it. Catholics of Consequence endeavours to analyse the education and subsequent lives of the Irish children that received this type of transnational education. It also tells the story of elite education in Ireland, where schools such as Clongowes Wood College and Castleknock College were rooted in the continental Catholic tradition, but also looked to public schools in England as exemplars. Taken together the book tells the story of an Irish Catholic elite at once integrated and segregated within what was then the most powerful state in the world.

Florence Nightingale is famous as the “lady with the lamp” in the Crimean War, 1854—56. There is a massive amount of literature on this work, but, as editor Lynn McDonald shows, it is often erroneous, and films and press reporting on it have been even less accurate. The Crimean War reports on Nightingale's correspondence from the war hospitals and on the staggering amount of work she did post-war to ensure that the appalling death rate from disease (higher than that from bullets) did not recur. This volume contains much on Nightingale's efforts to achieve real reforms. Her well-known, and relatively “sanitized”, evidence to the royal commission on the war is compared with her confidential, much franker, and very thorough Notes on the Health of the British Army, where the full horrors of disease and neglect are laid out, with the names of those responsible.