Author : Yefim Gordon
Publisher : Midland Publishing
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 17,45 MB
Release : 2008
Category : History
ISBN : 9781857802924
Aviation.
Author : Ian Ona Johnson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 49,67 MB
Release : 2021-05-28
Category : History
ISBN : 0190675179
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, launching World War Two, its army seemed an unstoppable force. The Luftwaffe bombed towns and cities across the country, and fifty divisions of the Wehrmacht crossed the border. Yet only two decades earlier, at the end of World War One, Germany had been an utterly and abjectly defeated military power. Foreign troops occupied its industrial heartland and the Treaty of Versailles reduced the vaunted German army of World War One to a fraction of its size, banning it from developing new military technologies. When Hitler came to power in 1933, these strictures were still in effect. By 1939, however, he had at his disposal a fighting force of 4.2 million men, armed with the most advanced weapons in the world. How could this nearly miraculous turnaround have happened? The answer lies in Russia. Beginning in the years immediately after World War One and continuing for more than a decade, the German military and the Soviet Union--despite having been mortal enemies--entered into a partnership designed to overturn the order in Europe. Centering on economic and military cooperation, the arrangement led to the establishment of a network of military bases and industrial facilities on Soviet soil. Through their alliance, which continued for over a decade, Germany gained the space to rebuild its army. In return, the Soviet Union received vital military, technological and economic assistance. Both became, once again, military powers capable of a mass destruction that was eventually directed against one another. Drawing from archives in five countries, including new collections of declassified Russian documents, The Faustian Bargain offers the definitive exploration of a shadowy but fateful alliance.
Author : Serhii Plokhy
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 26,11 MB
Release : 2019
Category : History
ISBN : 0190061014
The full story of the first and only time American and Soviets fought side-by-side in World War II At the conference held in in Moscow in October 1943, American officials proposed to their Soviet allies a new operation in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany. The Normandy Invasion was already in the works; what American officials were suggesting until then was a second air front: the US Air Force would establish bases in Soviet-controlled territory, in order to "shuttle-bomb" the Germans from the Eastern front. For all that he had been pushing for the United States and Great Britain to do more to help the war effort--the Soviets were bearing by far the heaviest burden in terms of casualties--Stalin, recalling the presence of foreign troops during the Russian Revolution, balked at the suggestion of foreign soldiers on Soviet soil. His concern was that they would spy on his regime, and it would be difficult to get rid of them afterword. Eventually in early 1944, Stalin was persuaded to give in, and Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated. B-17 Flying Fortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltava region in Ukraine. As Plokhy's book shows, what happened on these airbases mirrors the nature of the Grand Alliance itself. While both sides were fighting for the same goal, Germany's unconditional surrender, differences arose that no common purpose could overcome. Soviet secret policeman watched over the operations, shadowing every move, and eventually trying to prevent fraternization between American servicemen and local women. A catastrophic air raid by the Germans revealed the limitations of Soviet air defenses. Relations soured and the operations went south. Indeed, the story of the American bases foreshadowed the eventual collapse of the Grand Alliance and the start of the Cold War. Using previously inaccessible archives, Forgotten Bastards offers a bottom-up history of the Grand Alliance, showing how it first began to fray on the airfields of World War II.
Author : Roger G. Miller
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 13,67 MB
Release : 2008-04-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9781603440905
Following World War II, the Soviet Union drew an Iron Curtain across Europe, crowning its efforts with a blockade of West Berlin in a desperate effort to prevent the creation of an independent, democratic West Germany. The United States and Great Britain, aided by France, responded with a daring air logistical operation that in fifteen months delivered almost three million tons of coal, food, and other necessities to the people of Berlin. Now, drawing on rare U.S. Air Force files, recently declassified documents from the National Archives, records released since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the memories of airlift veterans themselves, Roger G. Miller provides an original study of the Berlin Airlift. The Berlin Airlift was an enterprise of epic proportions that demonstrated the power of air logistics as a political instrument. What began as a hastily organized operation by a small number of warweary cargo airplanes evolved into an intricate bridge of aircraft that flowed in and out of Berlin through narrow air corridors. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, a stream of airplanes delivered everything from food and medicine to coal and candy in defiance of breakdowns, inclement weather, and Soviet hostility. And beyond the airlift itself, a complex system of transportation, maintenance, and supply stretching around the world sustained operations. Historians, veterans, and general readers will welcome this history of the first Western victory of the Cold War. Maps, diagrams, and more than forty photographs illustrate the mechanical inner workings and the human faces that made that triumph possible.
Author : John Scott
Publisher :
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 25,57 MB
Release : 1989
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780253351258
John Scott's classic account of his five years as a worker in the new industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the 1930s, first published in 1942, is enhanced in this edition by Stephen Kotkin's introduction, which places the book in context for today's readers; by the texts of three debriefings of Scott conducted at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1938 and published here for the first time; and by a selection of photographs showing life in Magnitogorsk in the 1930s. No other book provides such a graphic description of the life of workers under the First Five-Year Plan.
Author : Lennart Andersson
Publisher : US Naval Institute Press
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 23,45 MB
Release : 1994
Category : History
ISBN :
This popular and highly-acclaimed series includes an abundance of photos, accurate line drawings, fascinating evaluations of aircraft design, and complete histories of aircraft manufacturers.
Author : David M. Glantz
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 11,35 MB
Release : 1984
Category : Government publications
ISBN : 1428915826
Contents: The Prewar Experience; Evolution of Airborne Forces During World War II; Operational Employment: Vyaz'ma, January-February 1942; Operational Employment: Vyaz'ma, February-June 1942; Operational Employment: On the Dnepr, September 1943; Tactical Employment; The Postwar Years.
Author : Adolf Hitler
Publisher :
Page : 1008 pages
File Size : 26,21 MB
Release : 1969
Category : Germany
ISBN :
Author : Aleksandr Moiseevich Nekrich
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 31,16 MB
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231106764
According to Nekrich, the enmity between Germany and the Soviet Union has been greatly exaggerated. Drawing upon a wealth of archival sources (including much from recently declassified Russian archives), Nekrich explores the clandestine military collaboration for training, arms testing, and the manufacture of poison gases that continued to the beginning of the Hitler era.
Author : Vladimir Kotelnikov
Publisher : Helion
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 46,18 MB
Release : 2021-12-15
Category :
ISBN : 9781914059599
Seventy years have passed since the Second World War yet the books and articles still keep coming in a never-ending stream discussing the question of what role the deliveries of arms and materials by Soviet allies played in the victory of the Red Army. In Russia, the American Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter along with the Studebaker US6 truck and canned stewed meat became the symbols of Allied help to the USSR during the Second World War. Other aircraft which arrived to the country under the Lend-Lease program are less known but also made a valuable contribution to the victory. The author of this book for the first time has assembled a huge volume of information related to the delivery of aviation equipment from the UK and USA. Based on documents from Russian and foreign archives, museums, and veterans' recollections, the author has made a qualitative and quantitative appraisal of the influence of these deliveries upon the Soviet war effort and airpower during the conflict. The book details the routes of the aircraft deliveries to Russia, the modifications which were done in order to suit the demands of the Russian climate and specifics of their front-line use, as well as the process of the new aircraft being mastered by the units of the Red Army Air Force. The first foreign aircraft arrived in the Soviet Union with No. 151 Wing RAF in 1941, and their use expanded rapidly - they took part in the counteroffensive near Moscow, the battles for Stalingrad and the Kursk salient, and operations of the war up to the battle for Berlin and the capitulation of Japanese forces in the North China. The author includes the results of the combat assessments of the aircraft, which were done at the Scientific Testing Institute of the Air Force, as well as reports from front-line regiments, and multiple combat episodes, detailing the views of the Soviet designers and pilots on the British and American aircraft. A separate chapter provides information about the aircraft which were not officially delivered but appeared in the Soviet Union accidentally. For the first time an attempt has been made to assess the influence of the deliveries of material and equipment upon the Soviet aviation industry and war effort. The author's impressive text is supported by nearly 700 color and b/w photographs, 100 color aircraft profiles, plus maps, charts etc.
