Hurricanes over Murmansk
Golley, John
At 11 o'clock on Saturday 21 June 1941, Adolf Hitler gave the momentous order for 'Operation Barbarossa' to be put into action. Within 24 hours the invasion of Russia was under way, utilizing the well co-ordinated tactics which had already devastated Poland and the low countries.
As the Red Army fell back in full-scale retreat, Stalin's pleas for British help fell on sympathetic ears in Downing Street, but organizing aid and the vital supply convoys that Britain badly needed herself took time. On 27 July, Churchill agreed to a plan to send two squadrons of RAF Hurricanes to protect the vital ice-free port of Murmansk - essential to the safe unloading of future convoys. this is the incredible, hitherto untold story of those two squadrons, Nos 81 and 134, suddenly plucked from Britain to the defence of Russia, and their spirited resistance to the Nazi onslaught.
Written by a past master of the genre, this fast-moving true story describes the tension of air combat as the German General Dietl's 'Mountain Jägers' fought to seize Murmansk. Up against pilots who had fought the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe took an unexpected mauling and in gratitude the Russians awarded four unique Orders of Lenin to members of the two British units. Not only are these the highest Soviet awards (equivalent to the British Victoria Cross) but these four 'Orders' were the only such given to Allied forces during the Second World War. In researching this book, John Golley received remarkable co-operation from numerous high-level Soviet officials - a fact which bears continuing testimony to the work of the squadrons and lends even greater accuracy and authenticity to a unique episode of RAF history and Anglo-Russian collaboration.
The Author:
John Golley is himself no stranger to the drama of aerial warfare, having joined the RAF at an age of eighteen and flown as a Sergeant Pilot on Hurricanes and then rocket Typhoons. The latter experience inspired his previous book The Day of the Typhoon, which describes the ferocious air-to-ground battles over Normandy in 1944. John Golley is also the author of The Big Drop. His fascination with some of the less well known, but most unusual and heroic aeriaL actions of the Second World War is matched only by his rare ability to communicate those events.
Softcover
215 Seiten / pages
photos
good condition
Shrewsbury, England - 2001 - Airlife Publishing
Art.Nr. 23450
