Air Forces

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the acclaimed author of Seabiscuit comes the incredible true story of survival and salvation that is the basis for two major motion pictures: Unbroken and Unbroken: Path to Redemption. “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic...

This classic history of America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is "a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real" (New York Times Book Review). From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful...

From the author of national bestsellers The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter comes "a rousing tale of little-known heroes" (Booklist). The Few tells the dramatic and unforgettable story of eight young Americans who joined Britain's Royal Air Force, defying their country's neutrality laws and...

Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. Malcolm Gladwell reexamines moments from the past and asks whether we got it right the first time....

Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany....

Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. Flyboys, a story of war and horror but also of friendship and honor, tells the story of those men. Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi...

John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest US fighter pilot ever....

The heart-pounding true story of the daring American women who piloted the most dangerous aircraft of World War II through the treacherous skies of Britain.

Masters of the Air is the riveting history of the American Eighth Air Force in World War II, the story of the young men who flew the bombers that helped bring Nazi Germany to its knees, brilliantly told by historian and World War II expert Donald Miller....

The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread....

With more than half a million copies sold, Robert Mason's Chickenhawk is one of the best-selling books ever written about the Vietnam War....

Stephen E. Ambrose, acclaimed author of Band of Brothers and Undaunted Courage, carries us into the skies of World War II aviation, flying aboard the crowded and dangerous B-24 bombers as their crews fought to destroy the German war machine and secured Allied victory. The young men who flew the...

In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times bestselling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family -- imprisoned by the Japanese--and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way. From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his...

They began operations out of England in the spring of '43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom....

The inside story of the most expensive and controversial military program in history, as told by those who lived it....

Korey Blathewick’s The Battle of Midway: A Turning Point in the Pacific War offers an incisive, deeply researched exploration of this pivotal moment—examining not only what happened, but why it mattered, and how its impact reverberated far beyond the atoll’s coral reefs.

Death Waits in the Dark: Six Guns Don't Miss is a thrilling story about a Night Stalker at war. This is the story of an attack helicopter pilot who flew with the renowned 160th Special Operations Regiment (Airborne)....

There are few moments in American history in which the course of events tipped so suddenly and so dramatically as at the Battle of Midway....

The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes....

The astonishing untold story of the WWII airmen who risked it all in the deadly race to become the greatest American fighter pilot. "A heart-pounding narrative of the courage, sacrifice, and tragedy of America's elite fighter pilots." —James M. Scott, New York Times bestselling author of The...

The prizewinning historian and internationally bestselling author of D-Day reconstructs the devastating airborne battle of Arnhem in this gripping new account. On September 17, 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the groaning roar of airplane engines...

In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal....

“Viper Pilot is fantastic….A great read!” —Dale Brown, former USAF Captain and New York Times bestselling author of A Time for Patriots Action-packed and breathtakingly authentic, Viper Pilot is the electrifying memoir of one of the most decorated F-16 pilots in American history: U.S...

At the height of World War II, LOOK Magazine profiled a small American community for a series of articles portraying it as the wholesome, patriotic model of life on the home front.

Few perspectives epitomize the sheer drama and sacrifice of combat more perfectly than those of the fighter pilots of World War II. As romanticized as any soldier in history....

Formed in the fall of 1943, the Fifteenth Air Force was popularly known as the "The Forgotten Fifteenth," as its achievements were overshadowed by more glamorous exploits of the Eighth Air Force in the air war over Germany. Nevertheless, the Fifteenth's contribution to Allied victory was crucial, and a vital part of that was the role played by the escorting fighter groups from the Fifteenth Fighter Command who protected the B-17s and B-24s from the Luftwaffe in the skies over Romania.

The United States has no shortage of famous military units, from the Civil War’s Iron Brigade to the 101st Airborne, but one would be hard pressed to find one that had to go through as many hardships off the field as the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American pilots who overcame Jim Crow at home and official segregation in the military to serve their country in the final years of World War II.

In April 1975, the Vietnam War ended not with a treaty or a victory parade, but with helicopters lifting from a collapsing city. Operation Frequent Wind was the final evacuation of Saigon, carried out as South Vietnam disintegrated and the last American personnel prepared to leave a war that had exhausted political will, trust, and time. In Operation Frequent Wind, Miles Dunsford delivers a clear, human account of those final days. Moving from Washington’s political paralysis to the pressure inside the U.S.

The brief was correct. Three men are still dead. Major Frank Cable flies the A-10 Warthog — the ugliest, slowest, most lethal close air support aircraft in the American arsenal. Staff Sergeant David Reyes controls fires from the ground, guiding the aircraft to its targets through a nine-line radio brief that leaves no room for error. Their only connection is a radio frequency. Their only shared language is the protocol. Over nineteen days in the Syrian desert, Cable and Reyes execute the mission with the precision the system demands. The preflight is correct. The nine-line is correct. The...

Just as vital as the battle on land or the struggle at sea, the air war ultimately tipped the balance of power in World War II. Many campaigns rode on the capabilities of their airforce, as British Spitfires were pitted against Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Japanese Zeros. Aerospace expert David Baker explores this battle in the skies, detailing the technical leaps that were made and little-known histories about the men and women involved, from pilots to factory workers.