Search results for ""Author Stuart Hadaway""

The Second World War airfields peppered around Britain are among the most visible and widespread reminders of this devastating conflict. Some are now almost forgotten or built over; others have become museums, industrial estates or parkland; and some have been adapted and remain in operation today. In this beautifully illustrated history, aviation historian Stuart Hadaway explains the crucial part airfields played between 1939 and 1945, detailing their construction and expansion; their facilities and equipment; the many functions they housed from command and control to maintenance and bomb-loading; how the airfields were used both for defence and offence; and how they changed during the war. He also explores what life was like on the airfields, as well as listing some of the remaining sites and what can be seen today.

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The Palestine campaign of 1917 saw Britain’s armed forces rise from defeat to achieve stunning victory. After two failed attempts in the spring, at the end of the year they broke through the Ottoman line with an innovative mixture of old and new technology and tactics, and managed to advance over 50 miles, from Gaza to Jerusalem, in only two months. As well as discussions of military strategy, Stuart Hadaway’s gripping narrative of the campaign gives a broad account of the men on both sides who lived and fought in the harsh desert conditions of Palestine, facing not only brave and determined enemies, but also the environment itself: heat, disease and an ever-present thirst.Involving Ottoman, ANZAC, British and Arab forces, the campaign saw great empires manoeuvring for the coveted Holy Land. It was Britain’s victory in 1917, however, that redrew the maps of the Middle East and shaped the political climate for the century to come.

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The Palestine campaign of 1917 saw Britain’s armed forces rise from defeat to achieve stunning victory. After two failed attempts in the spring, at the end of the year they broke through the Ottoman line with an innovative mixture of old and new technology and tactics, and managed to advance over 50 miles, from Gaza to Jerusalem, in only two months. As well as discussions of military strategy, Stuart Hadaway’s gripping narrative of the campaign gives a broad account of the men on both sides who lived and fought in the harsh desert conditions of Palestine, facing not only brave and determined enemies, but also the environment itself: heat, disease and an ever-present thirst.Involving Ottoman, ANZAC, British and Arab forces, the campaign saw great empires manoeuvring for the coveted Holy Land. It was Britain’s victory in 1917, however, that redrew the maps of the Middle East and shaped the political climate for the century to come.

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Pyramids and Fleshpots tells the true story of the experiences and achievements of British military personnel serving in Egypt in the First World War fighting a determined enemy to protect the Suez Canal – the lifeline of the Empire. The popular impression that the campaigns were merely a sideshow, with troops enjoying a holiday among the pyramids and the ‘fleshpots’ of Cairo, is far removed from the truth. Troops faced appalling heat, abrasive sand, poor rations and water shortages. In the desolation of the Western Desert they fought the Senussi, an Islamic sect supported by the Ottomans, in a reversal of Lawrence’s later work with the Arabs, while in the Sinai Desert they countered German-backed moves to dominate this strategically important area. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy fought to keep the supply lines to Gallipoli open, and keep men and materiel flowing to France from India, Australia and New Zealand. These arduous and hard-fought land, sea and air campaigns in Egypt, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean are comprehensively covered by Stuart Hadaway in this groundbreaking analysis of an often overlooked theatre of war so vital to Britain’s empire.

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During the early years of World War Two it soon became apparent that the system for tracing the whereabouts of the remains of RAF aircrew deemed 'Missing Believed Killed' was totally inadequate. The Missing Research Section (MRS) of the Air Ministry was set up in late 1941 to deal with this increasing problem. It collected and collated intelligence reports from a wide variety of official, unofficial and covert sources in an attempt to establish the fate of missing aircrew. Increasingly this included forensic or semi-forensic work to identify personal effects passed on through clandestine channels or bodies washed up on Britain's shores.In December 1944 the MRS was expanded and a small team of fourteen men, named the Missing Research and Enquiry Service (MRES), was sent to France to seek the missing men on the ground. With 42,000 men missing, the amount that fourteen men could achieve was naturally limited, so in July and August 1945 a series of meetings at the Air Ministry decided on the rapid expansion of the MRES to over twenty-five times its current size, split between six units with set geographical areas of responsibility. This book explains why, in their own words, men volunteered for the job, and why they worked for so long at such a gruesome task. Each faced difficulties in terrain and climate, all the way from the Arctic Circle to the jungles of Burma. Local populations, essential to much of the MRES's work, ranged from the immensely friendly to the openly hostile; teams had to operate in Germany, only recently razed from end to end by the aircrews they were seeking and then also behind an ever solidifying Iron Curtain. The final chapters explain how to trace RAF members through both personnel and operational records, show where these records are kept and explain how to access them.

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