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Aviation History Magazine
On April 1, 1915, Roland Garros took off in a Morane-Saulnier L from an airfield in northern France, planning to play an April Fool’s Day trick on the Germans....
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Military History Magazine
Kevin Patrick Muncer flew nocturnal bombing missions in Avro Lancasters until a Junkers Ju-88G made him a German prisoner. Born in London and raised in Kent, Kevin Patrick Muncer was working as an analytical chemist when World War II broke...
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Military History Magazine
A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: The Forgotten Heroes of World War II by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2004, $29.95. After Poland fell to the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army in 1939, tens...
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Military History Magazine
From serving as waterboy for his preppie football team to becoming the hero of the hour at Pearl Harbor a few short years later, that was the George S. Welch story…but only part of it. The Pearl Harbor part alone, coming with the...
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Military History Magazine
Beaufighter Aces of World War 2 by Andrew Thomas, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, England, 2005, $19.95. Looking like a pug-nosed Bristol Blenheim with an attitude, the Bristol Beaufighter seemed every inch the hybrid bomber-turned-fighter that...
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Aviation History Magazine
Simulations usually fall into one of two categories, survey simulations or study simulations. The survey simulation is a product featuring multiple aircraft, delivering variety at the expense of some detail. The study simulation focuses on...
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Aviation History Magazine
Boeing B-17s clad in their war paint of olive drab and neutral gray were a common sight over Europe during World War II. Many artists have depicted formations of heavy bombers heading off under leaden skies to targets across the Channel....
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Aviation History Magazine
The highest-scoring German ace of WWII—and of all time—chalked up an incredible 352 aerial victories. The Soviet pilot German warplanes. It was May 8, 1945—Adolf Hitler had been dead for over a week, and Germany was surrendering....
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Aviation History Magazine
Flying a British plane with the aid of British radar, an American aircrew shot down what may have been a secret Nazi flight over the Mediterranean. The Bristol Beaufighter shrouded in the darkness of the winter night of December 28, 1944....
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Aviation History Magazine
After a calamitous combat debut, the Bristol Fighter became a formidable mainstay of the Royal Air Force during World War I— and into the 1930s. Any discussion of World War I air combat usually brings to mind the image of nimble...
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Aviation History Magazine
Followers of air combat lore know that pilots are no strangers to luck. Combat pilots undertake years of training to develop skill, yet veterans always give Lady Luck her due. What pilot hasn’t said, “It’s better to be lucky than...
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Aviation History Magazine
Not until 49 years later did B-17 pilot ‘Woody’ Woodward learn why his 15th mission had been such a disaster. September 12, 1944: 5:02 a.m. Lead pilot Ellis M. “Woody” Woodward’s crew was delighted with their short takeoff run in...
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Aviation History Magazine
With the Battle of Britain won, Biggin Hill was at the forefront of a new RAF Fighter Command strategy. Leave was out of the question. The tension and realization of what was about to happen was clearly etched on the pilots’ faces....
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Aviation History Magazine
Employees of thE Glenn L. Martin Company rolled the B-26B Marauder that would soon be dubbed Flak-Bait off the Baltimore production line on April 26, 1943. Identified as B-26B-25 MA Bureau No. 41-31173, the twin- engine medium bomber...
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Aviation History Magazine
It was just after 10:30 on the morning of March 2, 1945, when ground crews of the 509th Fighter Squadron pulled the chocks on 16 Republic P-47Ds. As the Thunderbolts taxied out for takeoff, a few of the veteran pilots wondered why this...
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Aviation History Magazine
By the time World War I ended on November 1, 1918, the airplane was universally recognized as a weapon that no modern nation could afford to be without. It has since been largely forgotten, however, that when the war began four years...
