99th Bombardment Group

The 99th Bombardment Group was a B-17 group that served in North Africa and as a strategic bomber unit from bases in Italy.

98th Bombardment Group

The 98th Bombardment Group was a Liberator group that served in the Mediterranean theatre from August 1942 until the end of the Second World War.

90th Bombardment Group

The 90th Bombardment Group was a Liberator group that took part in the campaigns in the south-west Pacific and the Philippines

88th Bombardment Group

The 88th Bombardment Group was a heavy bomber unit that served as a training unit based in the United States.

Douglas B-7

The Douglas B-7 was the company’s first monoplane bomber, and although it wasn't produced in large numbers did help the US Army Air Corps convert from the older biplanes.

Douglas XO-36

The Douglas XO-36 was the designation originally given to the airframe that was completed as the prototype Douglas XB-7 light bomber.

Douglas O-35

The Douglas O-35 was a twin-engined monoplane observation aircraft that was ordered in small numbers as a test aircraft, and that took part in the Air Corps air mail operation of 1934.

The Light Dragoons, A Regimental History, Eric Hunt.

The Light Dragoons, A Regimental History, Eric Hunt.

A history of the 13th, 15th, 18th and 19th Regiments of Light Dragoons and the modern Light Dragoons, the product of two sets of mergers between the earlier regiments. This history follows all four regiments from the early eighteenth century to the present day, tracing their involvement in the major and minor conflicts of the last three hundred years.
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Pacific War Ghosts: Travels to the South Pacific Battlefields of World War II, Tony Maxwell.

Pacific War Ghosts: Travels to the South Pacific Battlefields of World War II, Tony Maxwell.

Combines a history of four key Pacific island battles and an account of visits to Papua Mew Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Bougainville, Ballale and Tarawa. Supported by a good mix of wartime and modern photos, the travelogues are interesting but a little too short, while the battle histories are clear and well written.
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47th Bombardment Group

The 47th Bombardment Group was a medium bomber unit that served in North Africa, Italy and the south of France, acting as a night intruder mission from June 1944.

46th Bombardment Group

The 46th Bombardment Group was a home-based bomber group that flew a few anti-submarine patrols in 1942 before becoming a training unit.

45th Bombardment Group

The 45th Bombardment Group was a home based bomber unit that operated off the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts during the first year after the American entry in the Second World War.

41st Bombardment Group

The 41st Bombardment Group was a B-25 bomber unit in the Seventh Air Force that took part in the fighting in the Marshall Islands, Tinian and Guam in 1943-44 and the air campaign over Japan in 1945.

40th Bombardment Group

The 40th Bombardment Group was a B-29 bomber group that took part in the early Superfortress campaign from India and China before moving to Tinian early in 1945 to join the main bomber offensive against Japan.

39th Bombardment Group

The 39th Bombardment Group began the Second World War as a training unit before becoming a B-29 Superfortress unit and taking part in the strategic bombing campaign against Japan

38th Bombardment Group

The 38th Bombardment Group was a B-25 group that took part in the long campaigns in New Guinea and the Marshall Islands and supported the invasion of the Philippines.

29th Bombardment Group

The 29th Bombardment Group entered the Second World War as a heavy bomber group based in the Caribbean, before reformed as a B-29 unit and taking part in the strategic bombing campaign against Japan.

25th Bombardment Group

The 25th Bombardment Group was part of the American garrison in the Caribbean from 1940 until 1944 when it returned to the US before being disbanded.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. E IV

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. E IV was the designation given to a version of the S.S.W. E III that would have had a circular fuselage cross section.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. DDr II

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. DDr II was the designation given to a proposed version of the unusual DDr I triplane that would have been powered by the Siemens-Halske Sh III engine.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D VI

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D VI was a parasol wing fighter that was due to replace the S.S.W. D IV biplane in production, but that appeared too late and didn’t undergo flight tests until 1919.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. E III

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. E III was a monoplane fighter based on the S.S.W. E I, but that was powered by an Oberursel engine in place of the Siemens rotary engine used on the E I.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. DDr I

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. DDr I was an unusual triplane fighter powered by a pair of engines mounted on the centre line, one pusher and one tractor engine.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D V

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D V was a two-bay biplane based on the earlier S.S.W. D III/ D IV series.

21st Bombardment Group

The 21st Bombardment Group was a home-based bomber group that mainly served as a training unit.

19th Bombardment Group

The 19th Bombardment Group was a heavy bomber group that was caught up in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and Java and formed part of the defensive forces in Australia during 1942. It then returned to the US where in the spring of 1944 it was reformed as a B-29 group, returning to combat against Japan in February 1945

17th Bombardment Group

The 17th Bombardment Group was a B-26 group that took part in Operation Torch, and the invasions of Sicily, Italy and Southern France.

16th Bombardment Group

The 16th Bombardment Group was a B-29 group that took part in the last few months of the strategic bombing campaign against Japan.

13th Bombardment Group

The 13th Bombardment Group was a short-lived formation that took part in the antisubmarine campaign off the US east coast during 1942.

Battleground General: Arnhem 1944, Jon Sutherland & Diane Canwell.

Battleground General: Arnhem 1944, Jon Sutherland & Diane Canwell.

 The equivalent of the old Fighting Fantasy game books, but looking at the Battle of Arnhem rather than a fictional story. Playing as the British or German commander the reader makes a series of choices that influence the outcome of the battle, in what is probably best seen as the printed version of a war game
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Dictionary of British Naval Battles, John D. Grainger.

Dictionary of British Naval Battles, John D. Grainger.

 A sizable reference work that covers at least 4,000 naval engagements involving British warships over the last 1,500 years, ranging from the countless battles between individual ships up to major clashes such at Jutland or Trafalgar. A very valuable reference work for anyone interested in individual naval battles, but that also gives a good feel of the overall nature of British naval power
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9th Bombardment Group

The 9th Bombardment Group was a bombardment group that spent much of the war in Panama, the Caribbean and the US, before moving to Tinian at the start of 1945 where it spent the last year of the war operating B-29s against Japan.

3rd Bombardment Group

The 3rd Bombardment Group was a light bomber group that took part in the long campaign in New Guinea and the reconquest of the Philippines, before flying a few missions over Japan before the end of the war.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D IV

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D IV was the final Siemens fighter to see active service during the First World War and was a development of the earlier D II and D III but with modified wings.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D III

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D III was a biplane fighter powered by the unusual Siemens-Halske Sh III engine, and that served as a home defence interceptor in Germany late in the First World War.

Arabian Days - The Memoirs of Two Trucial Oman Scouts, Antony Cawston and Michael Curtis.

Arabian Days - The Memoirs of Two Trucial Oman Scouts, Antony Cawston and Michael Curtis.

Two memoirs that look at life in the Trucial Oman Scouts (a precursor of the army of the UAE) in two periods during the 1960s. The authors came to the unit in very different ways, but both clearly enjoyed their time there, and they paint a very sympathetic picture of life in the Emirates at the very start of the oil boom.
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Coastal Operations in the American Civil War, Kevin Dougherty.

Coastal Operations in the American Civil War, Kevin Dougherty.

 Looks at the Federal efforts to close the Confederate coast by capturing or blocking every port on the Southern coast, a campaign that was designed at the start of the war by the Navy Board and that lasted until almost the end of the conflict. An interesting study of combined arms operations and the problems that could be caused when two services cooperated on operations without any firm rules in place.
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Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D.II

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D.II was ordered as a test bed for the new Siemens-Halske S.H. III rotary engine.

Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D I

The Siemens-Schuckert Werke S.S.W. D I was a single engined scout based very closely on the successful French Nieuport scouts, but that reached the front too late to have any significant impact.

Siege of Gaeta (3 November 1860-13 February 1861)

The siege of Gaeta (3 November 1860-13 February 1861) was the last stand of Francis II, Bourbon King of Naples. After a siege that lasted 100 days he was forced to surrender, but by then his kingdom had already voted to join with Piedmont.

Siege of Capua (October-2 November 1860)

The siege of Capua (October-2 November 1860) was the first major contribution that the Piedmontese regular army made to the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples, after Garibaldi and his army had conquered Sicily, occupied Naples and defeated the last major Bourbon counterattack on the Volturno (1 October 1860).

No.256 Squadron Picture Gallery

Today we open a picture gallery for No.256 Squadron, based around a collection of photographs sent to us by Gary Burt