...Aircraft & Events as recorded in official documents.

It's unbelievable to see how much fascinating detail has been packed into this tome. It draws on 5 key documents.

1) Diary of Important Operations, Flanders, 1916
2) Disposition of Aircraft, 24 February, 1917
3) Royal Naval Air Service Communiques Nos 1 to 14;
4) Truing up of Aeroplanes: Issued by the Air Department Sept 1st, 1916.
5) The Grain drawings

This unique treasure trove of visual reference will appeal to historians, students and enthusiasts.

Hardback.

'In the few short years after 1914 the Royal Navy practically invented Naval Warfare, not only producing the first effective aircraft carriers, but also pioneering most of the techniques and tactics that made Naval air power a reality.' This is a details book about the operational and technical achievements of the RNAS, the operations, the technology that underpinned them and the people who carried them out - all during a revolutionary period of development that changed naval warfare globally forever.

Hardback.

A century of global change has been matched and mirrored by changes in the world of naval flying.  This book not only looks at the range of aircraft used (from balloons and airships to stealth and battle space command) but further details major campaigns such as Taranto, Pearl Harbour, the Doolittle Raid, the Battle of Midway, the Korean campaign, the Falklands campaign and more.  Sure to appeal to any aviation enthusiasts, this is a testament to the people who the aircraft into a new century.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen & Sword Maritime (30 Jun. 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.88 x 1.91 x 23.5 cm

A series of wonderful reminiscences taken from aircrew and maintainers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. These are the personal details that fill in the gaps of the historical timeline. We know what happened, but this tells us what it was like to be part of it.

Hardback.

Taken from the Archives of the Fleet Air Arm Museum, these reminiscences add the personal element to the historical data and illustrate the tremendously changing circumstances of the Fleet Air Arm from formation to Cold War.  'What emerges from these pages is a particular spirit, peculiar to the Fleet Air Arm and reflecting its somewhat hybrid nature; a spirit derived from a high level of professional competence combined with a certain irreverence towards authority'.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen & Sword Aviation; Illustrated edition (18 April 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9781781590928
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.03 x 2.87 x 24.16 cm

Aerial attack by Zeppelin was a daunting spectre in Britain as the prospect of war came closer. After hostilities commenced the Royal Naval Air Service had the responsibility of attacking the Zeppelins in their hangars where they were most vulnerable. This was Britain's first strategic bombing campaign.

Paperback.

Rabaul wasn't a battle or single action, but a sustained campaign to eliminate a powerful Japanese fortress with a garrison of 100,000 men. Lessons were learned during this campaign which informed the course of future campaigns in the Pacific.  This book contains a wealth of information, diagrams and archive images.

Paperback.

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, the Royal Naval Air Service played a considerable part in actions on the Western front and were ahead of their RFC counterparts in the use of the Sopwith Pup, Triplane and Camel. This book contains a wealth of information and illustrations about the men and the planes that made a mark in the conflict.

Part 2 A fascinating insight into the Naval pilot aces and their aircraft from both sides of the conflict. Unusually, this was a period when flying boats and seaplanes were often in the thick of the action, so this book delves down paths that are not well trodden.

Paperback.

WWI was a time for pioneering in the science of using aircraft in warfare. Perhaps surprisingly, the Royal Naval Air Service played a major role on the Western Front and in many other theatres of war at the same time as it was also mastering the challenges of flying aircraft from ships at sea. A marvellously detailed look at technology and tactics in flux.

Paperback.

A study of the uniforms and equipment of a military force that had only existed for a handful of years and was already developing at an exponential rate.

This was learning absolutely from square 1!

Paperback.

Like Achilles, the story of the Bismarck is of a light that shone like the brightest star, but was quickly extinguished. Story of the hunt for Bismarck is fascinating as Britain mustered all available resources to counter the threat to her vital shipping lanes. Well researched and illustrated this book is a great read about a great adventure.

Paperback.

...South Atlantic 1982.

The Sea Harrier and the Mirage/Dagger were entirely different types of aircraft so an analysis of the combat between the types is inevitably engrossing. The details and myriad images in the book enable you to immerse yourself in the experience of this historic aerial battle.

Paperback.

The plane had barely come of age by 1914. People were trying to grasp how best to use the new technology in general, but particularly in conjunction with all the difficulties and challenges implicit in deploying aircraft in a maritime role. Few, if any, people realised that the aircraft carrier would become the dominant weapon of the worlds oceans within just a few decades. This book details the rapid progress of technology and innovation through detailed commentary and dozens of photographs and illustrations.

Paperback.

Generations of pilots cut their flying teeth in this very capable, much loved, but unsung aircraft.

Originally published by Squadron Leader Bill Purchase in 2000, this book describes Exercise Northern Venture as it really happened, constructed from Bill’s own personal diary and that of Ced Hughes, another of the participating Chipmunk pilots.

This newly revised edition, which coincides with the initiation of planning for the celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the de Havilland Chipmunk, comes just ahead of the type’s 75^th anniversary on 22nd May 2021.

When Argentinian forces invaded the Falklands in April 1982, the British government responded by despatching a task force to the Atlantic to wrest back control of the islands. The resulting war saw modern weapon systems tested in combat for the first time, to tragic effect. In the aftermath, official documents were released, but many were heavily censored, and others withheld altogether, so that a full understanding of those events could not be gained. Drawing from recently declassified and previously unpublished reports from the official inquiry, Dr Paul Brown details the true story behind the dramatic events that led to the loss of six British ships – HMS Antelope, Ardent, Coventry and Sheffield, RFA Sir Galahad and SS Atlantic Conveyor – as well as the controversial sinking of the Argentinian cruiser ARA General Belgrano by HMS Conqueror.

""The art of command is...to be the complete master, and yet the complete friend of every man on board; the temporal lord and yet the spiritual brother of every rating; to be detached and yet not dissociated.'
This Officer's Handbook gathers together useful advice and instruction for those naval officers fighting the Second World War on all aspects of their job, expressed in the benevolent language of the day, when authority was respected.
The Handbook has been compiled and edited by Brian Lavery, who provides commentary and an introduction. Sections include: the Officer's Aid Memoire containing notes of the training course at one of the officer training schools; Notes for medical officers and treatment of battle casualties afloat; Notes for captains on taking command of their first ship; Notes for commanding officers; Notes on the handling and safety of ships and notes on dealing with disobedience and mutiny.
While suffused with nostalgia and charm, the various contents of this book are an authentic presentation of matters of training, authority and deportment in the wartime navy. The book is sure to appeal not only to those who served in the war or had a relative who was in the officer class, but also to anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of the day-to-day administration of the wartime navy.

Battle of the Atlantic 1939-41: RAF Coastal Command's Hardest Fight Against the U-Boats - At the start of World War II, few thought the U-boat would be as devastating as it proved to be. But convoys and sonar-equipped escorts proved inadequate to defend the Allies' merchantmen, and the RAF's only offensive weapon was the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. For RAF Coastal Command, the first two years of the war were the hardest. Although starved of resources, operating with outdated aircraft and often useless weaponry, they were still the only force that could take the fight to the U-boats.

This is the David-and-Goliath story of how RAF Coastal Command battled with outdated aircraft against the deadly U-boat fleet during the crucial first years of World War II.

Battle of the Atlantic 1942-45: The Climax of WW II'S Greatest Naval Campaign - As 1942 opened, both Nazi Germany and the Allies were ready for the climactic battles of the Atlantic to begin. Germany had 91 operational U-boats, and over 150 in training or trials. Production for 1942-44 was planned to exceed 200 boats annually. Karl Dönitz, running the Kriegsmarine's U-boat arm, would finally have the numbers needed to run the tonnage war he wanted against the Allies. 

This second of these two volumes, explores the climactic events of the Battle of the Atlantic, and reveals how air power, both maritime patrol aircraft and carrier aircraft ultimately proved to be the Allies' most important weapon in one of the most bitterly fought naval campaigns of World War II.

Buccaneer Boys 2: More True Tales by Those Who Flew the 'Last All-British Bomber' - Hardback

Following the critically acclaimed publication eight years ago of Buccaneer Boys, long-serving Buccaneer navigator Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork has now followed up the great success of the book with more true tales from those who flew the last all-British bomber. Thirty 'Buccaneer Boys', drawn from the Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force, outline their experiences in the maritime role, operations overland, including the first Gulf War, and operations by the South Africans in the Border Wars. In addition to the aircrew, air engineer officers and ground crew have also contributed. The reader is left in no doubt that the 'Buccaneer Boys' knew how to work hard and play hard. The skill, professionalism and excitement of operating and servicing this iconic British aircraft shines throughout every page. This book is lavishly illustrated with 100 black and white photographs and two-colour plate sections of 40 photographs, many never previously published.

Publisher: Grub Street Publishing 
ISBN: 9781911667186
Number of pages: 224
Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
Published: 30 July 2021

Author's biography:

Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork spent 36 years in the RAF, as a navigator. He was director of Air Warfare and, before retiring in 1995, was a director of Military Intelligence at the MoD. Now living in Gloucestershire, Graham is the author of several aviation books, including Buccaneer Boys and Beaufighter Boys (Grub Street). In 2012 Graham received both the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators Award for Aviation Journalism and the Air Power Association Award of the CP Robertson Memorial Trophy for his services to aviation writing. He has written over 600 Air Force obituaries for the Daily Telegraph in the last 16 years.

Essentially a development of the Avro Lancaster via the later Lincoln, the Avro Shackleton was the RAF’s first line of defence in the maritime role from 1951 for twenty years, thereafter continuing to serve as an airborne early warning aircraft for another twenty, until 1991. The ‘Old Grey Lady’, the ‘Growler’, ‘20,000 rivets in loose formation’, but mostly known simply as the ‘Shack’, it is viewed with great affection by those who flew and maintained it. In addition to its traditional sub-hunting role, it was also used extensively for search and rescue operations, and even as a conventional bomber in the Aden theatre. Operating around the world with squadrons based in the UK, the Mediterranean, Middle East and Far East, ‘Shacks’ were also used to support the blockade of oil supplies to Rhodesia during the UDI crisis in the ’60s and ’70s, and searching for gun-running boats during the Indonesian Confrontation.

All of the Boys’ stories are from air and ground crew veterans.

Volume One:

Covers UK-based units flying from Ballykelly (including Aldergrove), Farnborough, Honington, Kinloss, Lossiemouth, St Eval and St Mawgan, plus many overseas detachments including Christmas Island and Majunga. To complement the detailed personal accounts and anecdotes are hundreds of original photographs and extensive appendices. A feast for any ‘Shack’ or military aviation aficionado.

Format: Hardback

Extent: 256 pages
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
ISBN: 9781911621126. 
Publication Date: 28 September 2018

Volume 2: 

Steve Bond has garnered another exceptional group of Shack operators who delight in giving the reader their tales of derring-do. Another one for the Boys’ kitbag!

Volume Two covers those units based overseas at Changi, Gan, Gibraltar, Khormaksar, Luqa (and Hal Far), and Sharjah, plus the South African Air Force operations from Ysterplaat/Malan.

...True Tales from the Operator's of Britain's First Jet Fighter - From 1944 to Date

By interviewing over forty veterans, author Steve Bond has written an incredibly detailed insight into this iconic aircraft, which is supported by anecdotes and accounts from those who knew it best.

From the television footage shown in all its stark reality and the daily coverage and subsequent memoirs, the impression delivered from the air battles in the Falklands Conflict was that of heroic Argentine pilots who relentlessly pressed home their attacks against the British. While, by contrast, there is a counter-narrative that portrayed the Sea Harrier force as being utterly dominant over its Argentine enemies. But what was the reality of the air war over the Falkland Islands?

While books on the air operations have published since that time, they have, in the main, been personal accounts, re-told by those who were there, fighting at a tactical level, or back in their nation’s capital running the strategic implications of the outcome. But a detailed analysis of the operational level of the air war has not been undertaken – until now. At the same time, some analysts have inferred that this Cold War sideshow offers little insight into lessons for the operating environment of future conflicts. As the author demonstrates in this book, there are lessons from 1982 that do have important and continued relevance today.

Using recently released primary source material, the author, a serving RAF officer who spent two-and-a-half years in the Falklands as an air defence navigator, has taken an impartial look at the air campaign at the operational level. This has enabled him to develop a considered view of what should have occurred, comparing it with what actually happened. In so doing, John Shields has produced a comprehensive account of the air campaign that has demolished many of the enduring myths.

This is the story of not why, but how the air war was fought over the skies of the South Atlantic.

Imprint: Air World
Pages: 384
Illustrations: 16 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781399007528
Published: 30th October 2021

HMS Hermes, the flagship of the Falkland War 1982. This is my personal account of my own experience throughout this campaign from leaving Portsmouth Royal Naval Dockyard in April 1982  to the triumphant return and magnificent welcome home in July 1982.

For the first time, this book tells the story of how naval air operations evolved into a vital element of the Royal Navy’s ability to fight a three-dimensional war against both the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. An integral part of RN, the Fleet Air Arm was not a large organisation, with only 406 pilots and 232 front-line aircraft available for operations in September 1939. Nevertheless, its impact far outweighed its numbers – it was an RN fighter that shot down the first enemy aircraft of the war, and an RN pilot was the first British fighter 'ace' with 5 or more kills. The Fleet Air Arm’s rollcall of achievements in northern waters went on to include the Norwegian Campaign, the crippling of Bismarck, the gallant sortie against Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as they passed through the Channel, air attacks on enemy E-boats in the narrow seas, air cover for the Russian convoys, air attacks that disabled Tirpitz, and strikes and minelaying operations against German shipping in the Norwegian littoral that continued until May 1945. By the end of the war in Europe the FAA had grown to 3243 pilots and 1336 aircraft. This book sets all these varied actions within their proper naval context and both technical and tactical aspects are explained with 'thumb-nail' descriptions of aircraft, their weapons and avionics. Cross reference with the Fleet Air Arm Roll of Honour has been made for the first time to put names to those aircrew killed in action wherever possible as a mark of respect for their determination against enemy forces on, above and below the sea surface which more often than not outnumbered them. The Fleet Air Arm and the War in Europe completes David Hobbs’ much-praised six-volume series chronicling the operational history of British naval aviation from the earliest days to the present.

• Publisher : ‎ Seaforth Publishing 30 Jan. 2022
• Language ‏: ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏: ‎ 440 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏: ‎ 9781526799791

Paul Tremelling was just seven years old when he watched the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers leave their home base in Somerset to do battle against the Argentine Air Force in the Falklands War. Two decades later he would join this exclusive club, one of an elite band of Fleet Air Arm fighter pilots, charged with standing in the way of Her Majesty's enemies.

This is the story of what it takes to make it in the dog-eat-dog arena of fighter combat. In the cockpit or crew room, the pressure is relentless, the humour merciless. It's no place for the faint-hearted.

Whether landing on a pitching aircraft carrier deck in the middle of the night or screaming in to save the lives of heroes under fire in Afghanistan, there was no room for self-doubt; only honesty, confidence and do-or-die hard truth. Big Boys Rules.

In return Tremelling and his fellow airborne warriors enjoyed levels of exhilaration and job-satisfaction that would almost unimaginable in any other walk of life.

Either Winston Churchill or George Orwell (or maybe neither of them ...) is reputed to have said 'we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm'.

For nearly twenty years, Tremelling was one of those men. And never happier than when he was in the cockpit of the legendary British jump jet.

Combining visceral action with sharp intelligence, laced with acerbic humour, Harrier pulls no punches in bringing to life the hi-octane, unforgiving world of the fighter pilot, in the air and on the ground.

Strap-in ...

About the author:-

Paul Tremelling joined the Royal Navy in 1996 & flew the Sea Harrier on 800,801 & 899 Naval Air Squadrons. Qualifying as an Air Warfare Instructor he transitioned to the GR9 & served on the Naval Strike Wing where he became Senior Pilot. Selected for exchange duties with the USN Tremelling flew F/A-18E Super Hornet with VFA-25, The Fist of The Fleet. He fitted in three desk tours, two Battle Staff jobs and operational duties in Afghanistan and off Libya. He was Mentioned in Despatches following an action fought in Afghanistan.

• Published: 27/04/2023
• ISBN: 9781405951937
• Length: 368 pages
• Dimensions: 198mm x 23mm x 129mm

This is the remarkable story of one man’s service in the Royal Navy, RAF and the Royal Naval Reserve Air Branch of the Fleet Air Arm. It is a flying career which lasted for an impressive 51 years and in which Warrant Officer Class 1 John Sheldon amassed over 8,000 hours in the air.

Having joined the Royal Navy in 1968, as a fifteen-year-old boy entrant not long out of school, John was recruited into the Fleet Air Arm as a junior electrician. He went on to become a Commando Aircrewman and flew in all types of service helicopters and in all of their roles, from Arctic training in Norway to the balmy Mediterranean and the wilds of Canada.

Having initially been involved in the evacuation of Cyprus and the Turkish invasion in 1974, in which his helicopter had to recover bodies from the water with a sprawl net, John went on to serve in Northern Ireland, was deployed to the South Atlantic in the Falklands War, where he operated from HMS Fearless and helped lift survivors from the RFA Sir Galahad tragedy, undertook a tour in Lebanon, and then saw action during the First Gulf War, in Bosnia, Sierra Leone and then in Afghanistan.

In his extraordinary career, John was tasked with going around the UK undertaking aerial displays to support recruitment campaigns for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, as well as completing several tours as a Search and Rescue Aircrewman, Anti-Submarine Operator and also as an RN/RAF Test Aircrewman at the Rotary Wing Test Squadron at Boscombe Down.

This unique memoir covers the military action that John encountered, the many incidents and close shaves he was involved in and the friends he lost during his long and illustrious career.

About John Sheldon

JOHN SHELDON was a Fleet Air Arm, RAF and Test Helicopter Aircrewman during his five decades of service. He has experienced helicopter operations and conflicts conducted in the Arctic, through most of Europe, the Middle East, America and down to the Falklands, clocking up over 8,000 flying hours. John was a Qualified Aircrew Instructor, Helicopter Tactics, NVG and MCT Instructor; he has also worked alongside many nations’ Special Forces groups. His last 11 years of service were in the Royal Naval Reserve Air Branch, where he continued to Instruct regular service Aircrewmen on the Commando Helicopter Operational training course.