|
The Dam Busters (book)
''The Dam Busters'' is a 1951 non-fiction book by Paul Brickhill about Royal Air Force 617 Squadron originally commanded by Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. during World War II. The squadron became known as the "Dam Busters" because of Operation Chastise, a mission using highly specialised bombs to destroy Ruhr dams in Germany. The book also covers the subsequent history of 617 Squadron, as an elite squadron specializing in attacking difficult targets with outsize weapons and precision techniques. Among Gibson's successors as commander was Group Captain Leonard Cheshire V.C., and the book describes Cheshire's unorthodox leadership style and innovative target marking techniques. Development After the end of World War II John Nerney, head of the Air Historical Branch of the British Air Ministry identified the need for a history of 617 Squadron. He initially approached its former commanding officer Leonard Cheshire, who declined citing health issues and his work commitments running ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Brownlow Martin
Air Marshal Sir Harold Brownlow Morgan "Micky" Martin, (27 February 1918 – 3 November 1988) was an Australian bomber pilot and senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He took part in Operation Chastise, the RAF's "Dambusters" raid in 1943, and was described by journalist Sir Max Hastings as "one of the three great bomber pilots of the war". He rose to become a senior officer in the RAF, commanding RAF Germany and later serving as Air Member for Personnel, a member of the Air Council, the RAF's controlling body. Early life Born on 27 February 1918 in Edgecliff, New South Wales, Martin left Australia for the United Kingdom in 1939. He intended to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but instead volunteered to join the Royal Air Force (RAF) on 28 August 1940. Military career Second World War Martin commenced his operational career with No. 455 Squadron RAAF in October 1941, flying the Handley Page Hampden. In February 1942, he captained the first all-Australian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Books About World War II
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1951 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United Kingdom announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme for the cultivation of peanuts in the Tanganyika Territory, with the writing off of £36.5M debt. * January 15 – In a court in West Germany, Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment. * January 20 – Winter of Terror: Avalanches in the Alps kill 240 and bury 45,000 for a time, in Switzerland, Austria and Italy. * January 21 – Mount Lamington in Papua New Guinea erupts catastrophically, killing nearly 3,000 people and causing great devastation in Oro Province. * January 25 – Dutch author Anne de Vries releases the first volume of his children's novel ''Journey Through the Ni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Electra'' (1947), as well as two BAFTA nominations for Best British Actor for his performances in ''The Night My Number Came Up'' (1955) and ''Time Without Pity'' (1957). At the 4th Cannes Film Festival, he won Best Actor for his performance in '' The Browning Version'' (1951). Youth and education Redgrave was born in Bristol, England, the son of actress Margaret Scudamore and the silent film actor Roy Redgrave. Roy left when Redgrave was six months old to pursue a career in Australia. He died when Redgrave was 14. His mother subsequently married Captain James Anderson, a tea planter. Redgrave greatly disliked his stepfather. He studied at Clifton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Clifton College Theatre was opened in 1966 by Redg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enemy Coast Ahead
''Enemy Coast Ahead'' is an autobiographical book recounting the World War II flying career of Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, DSO, DFC. It covers his time in RAF Bomber Command from the very earliest days of war in 1939 through to 1943. Gibson wrote the book aged 25 in 1944 whilst off operations. He had by this time completed two full tours, each of 30 operations, with Bomber Command (with 83 and 106 Squadrons), another one as a night-fighter pilot with 29 Squadron and, as leader of the famous Dam Busters raid against the dams of the Ruhr Valley (Operation Chastise) with 617 Squadron in May 1943. It was first published in book form in 1946, to much critical acclaim and a fully uncensored account released in 2003. The book was serialised in the Sunday Express during the winter of 1944-45, following his death in September 1944, when his Mosquito crashed near Steenbergen in the Netherlands. Synopsis Gibson joined the RAF prior to the war, and he recounts the early stages o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dam Busters (film)
''The Dam Busters'' is a 1955 British epic war film starring Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave. It was directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in Nazi Germany with Barnes Wallis's ''bouncing bomb''. The film was based on the books '' The Dam Busters'' (1951) by Paul Brickhill and '' Enemy Coast Ahead'' (1946) by Guy Gibson. The film's reflective last minutes convey the poignant mix of emotions felt by the characters – triumph over striking a successful blow against the enemy's industrial base is tempered by the sobering knowledge that many died in the process of delivering it. The film was widely praised and became the most popular motion picture at British cinemas in 1955. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted ''The Dam Busters'' the 68th greatest British film of the 20th century. Its depiction of the raid, along with a similar sequence in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it. Recording and transmission of film The moving images of a film are created by photography, photographing actual scenes with a movie camera, motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of computer-generated imagery, CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects. Before the introduction of digital production, series of still imag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1954 In Film
The year 1954 in film involved some significant events and memorable ones. Top-grossing films United States The top ten 1954 released films by box office gross in the United States are as follows: International Events * A reproduction of "America's First Movie Studio", Thomas Edison's Black Maria, is constructed. * May 12 — The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda. The two were married in 1927. * September 29 — '' A Star is Born'' premieres and marks Judy Garland's comeback after her termination from her contract at MGM. An astounding success with critics and audiences, ''A Star is Born'' not only marked the first time that legendary director George Cukor had made a film musical and film that is in Technicolor and in the anamorphic widescreen format, but also it has been regarded as one of the Garland's best performances in her film career. * November 3 — The film ''Godzilla'' premieres in Japan. It became a huge success and became the first in series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Todd
Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd (11 June 19193 December 2009) was an Irish-British actor known for his leading man roles of the 1950s. He received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination for his performance as Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan in the 1949 film ''The Hasty Heart''. His other notable roles include Jonathan Cooper in ''Stage Fright'' (1950), Wing Commander Guy Gibson in '' The Dam Busters'' (1955), Sir Walter Raleigh in '' The Virgin Queen'' (1955), and Major John Howard in ''The Longest Day'' (1962). He was previously a Captain in the British Army during World War II, fighting in the D-Day landings as a member of the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion. Early life and career Richard Todd was born in Dublin. His father, Andrew William Palethorpe-Todd, was an Irish physician and an international Irish rugby player who gained three caps for his cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Evening News
The ''London Evening News'' was a newspaper whose first issue was published on 14 August 1855. Usually, when people mention the ''London Evening News'', they are actually referring to '' The Evening News'', published in London from 1881 to 1980, when it was incorporated into the ''Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...''. The last issue was published on Friday 31 October 1980. Sources Defunct newspapers published in the United Kingdom London newspapers Publications established in 1855 1855 establishments in England {{UK-newspaper-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pan Books
Pan Books is a publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. Pan Books began as an independent publisher, established in 1944 by Alan Bott, previously known for his memoirs of his experiences as a flying ace in the First World War. The Pan Books logo, showing the ancient Greek god Pan playing pan-pipes, was designed by Mervyn Peake. A few years after it was founded, Pan Books was bought out by a consortium of several publishing houses, including Macmillan, Collins, Heinemann, and, briefly, Hodder & Stoughton. It became wholly owned by Macmillan in 1987. Pan specialised in publishing paperback fiction and, along with Penguin Books, was one of the first popular publishers of this format in the UK. Many popular authors saw their works given paperback publication through Pan, including Ian Fleming, whose James Bond series first appeared in pape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> History Books About World War II")
