In Harrier Boys, Volume One: Cold War Through the Falklands, 1969-1990, Robert Marston, who flew Harriers for many years, draws together accounts from others who worked with this unique jet through its history. The excitement, camaraderie and pride of Harrier operators shine through in the personal stories of those whose lives were changed by their experience of this iconic aircraft, both on land and at sea. In this first volume, events of the Cold War years are brought to life by contributors including Graham Williams, who flew the Transatlantic Air Race, Peter Dodworth, a member of the original Harrier Conversion Team, Peter Harris, a participant in the early defence of Belize, Sir Peter Squire, OC 1 (F) Squadron during the Falklands conflict, and Australian Dave Baddams, who commanded the Royal Navy Sea Harriers of 800 Squadron.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 156 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 14-07-2015

The newest addition to the Grub Street Classics range is this fascinating, insightful and, at times, nail-biting account by the World War One veteran, Leonard H. Rochford. This book has been out of print for more than thirty years and we are delighted to be putting it back on the shelves, with black and white photographs throughout. In these exciting memoirs, 'Tich' Rochford writes about his two action-filled years as a World War I fighter pilot with the famous No. 3 (Naval) Squadron when he flew planes such as the Sopwith Pup and the Sopwith Camel. While flying many hundreds of hours in operations he was credited with many single-handed victories or driven out of control, and he vividly recalls these engagements in the air and the exploits of the pilots with whom he flew, names that include other fighter aces like Raymond Collishaw, who has written a foreword to this book, T. F. Havell, R. H. Mulock and L. S. Breadner. A member of his flight, Lt. Col. Kirkpatrick said of him, 'I always had the impression that what he did came naturally to him. If he saw an enemy aircraft and decided to attack, that was that. He went screaming down on it and we all had our work cut out to keep up with him. One could be pretty sure of the victim going down in flames.'

Bind: hardback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 135 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 22-06-2015

By any measure, Andy Wiseman (born Weizman) is a lucky man. The only son of a Polish father and an American mother, Andy was born and grew up in Berlin, just as Adolf Hitler was coming to power. As a Jew educated at the famous Werner Siemens Real Gymnasium in Schoneberg, he left only months before his school was closed down and fled with his family to Poland, one step ahead of the Nazi persecution that was to follow and later take the life of his father. From Poland he again fled to England, this time without his parents, arriving as a 16-year old with little or no grasp of English. After a crash course in the language, he avoided being called up into the Polish army in exile thanks to the timely intervention of no less a man than General Sikorski himself, to enlist in the RAF to train initially as a pilot and then as an air bomber in South Africa. On his return to the UK he was posted to an all-Australian Squadron (466 Squadron) equipped with the Handley Page Halifax. After his first operation in which he was nearly shot down, Andy survived a handful of eventful trips before falling victim to one of the Luftwaffe's top night fighter pilots and landing in France.Briefly on the run he was betrayed and captured, spending the next 12 months as a prisoner of war, using his knowledge of Russian, Polish and German to act as one of the principal camp interpreters, and working as a 'scrounger' for the 'X' committee of escapers. Moved from camp to camp, he was one of those forced into the 'Long March' by the Germans attempting to escape the Russian advance, and afterwards played a key role in avoiding the potential bloodshed that threatened when the Russians refused to allow the British and Norwegian prisoners to return home - a role for which he was later recognised by the King of Norway. Upon his release, Andy used his language skills to work with the BBC monitoring service and later, BBC Television as a producer, sharing many adventures with the great broadcasters of their time, including David Dimbleby and Raymond Baxter.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 156 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 22-06-2015

From Richard Pike, best-selling author of Hunter Boys and The Lightning Boys series comes the newest addition to Grub Street's popular Boys series; Phantom Boys. Originally developed for the US Navy, this twin-engined supersonic long-range fighter-bomber first flew in the spring of 1958. It then entered service for the US Navy in 1961, and in 1969 with the Fleet Air Arm and RAF in the UK. Regarded as one of the most versatile fighters ever built, the Phantom F-4 was the US Navy's fastest and highest-flying aircraft. It was flown by both US military demonstration teams (Navy Blue Angels and the Air Force Thundercats) from 1969 to 1973. It ended its service in 1991 with the RAF. But it continued to serve a variety of air forces across the world, with some still in service fifty years after its first flight. Throughout the twenty chapters of this book, thirteen contributors will take readers across the world with adventures in the Falkland Islands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Far East and Germany. There are anecdotes of reconnaissance missions, encounters with the Russian Tupolevs, record-breaking flights and life on HMS Ark Royal.The scope, flair and pace of the writing in this book will appeal to the general reader as well as to the enthusiast.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 156 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 15-06-2015

Old soldiers never tell their war stories? This one did: "General Johnstone tried to compliment us on our 'work' but was cut up too much when he heard of our losses. He was visibly affected. We marched to Mametz Wood and there Col. Plugge also tried to address us but he could not control his feelings either. We went into the trenches with 804 men. Came out with 201. Our casualties for the two stints were 603. Plugge was far too cut up to say a word about it. We camped in the woods for the night..." Onesimus William Howe served in the Auckland Infantry Regiment. His unit was the first to hit the beach at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli. In fact, Howe's experiences at Gallipoli are quoted by historian Chris Pugsley in his book Gallipoli - The New Zealand Story. But it is what happened next that defined WWI for the ANZACS, when they came face to face with heavily armed Germans at the Somme. In this important new work, taken directly from his battlefield diary, see the events of 1916 as if you are there: "That left me in charge of the gun. Percy and I are the only ones left on this gun now..." Compelling, honest, surprising, uncensored.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 180

Publication Date: 30-04-2015

Fifty Years of Flying Fun covers, in a roughly chronological order, over fifty continuous years of flying. This ranges from joining the RAF in 1962, through his intriguing first operational tour on Hunters in Aden, the early days of the Jaguar in Germany and, finally in the RAF, an almost outrageous two years flying the Jaguar and Hunter with the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force. His subsequent civil flying has been exclusively in the General Aviation and flying display fields as a flying instructor and well known display pilot, including being involved in many varied and interesting display-related episodes. With in excess of 7,000 flying hours on 59 different types – and only one aircraft (Spencer Flack’s Mustang) with a working autopilot – Rod gives a clear, and largely humorous, insight into the operation of a cross section of piston and jet engine vintage aircraft and his undoubted fifty years of fun since the first solo on 19 March 1963. Fifty Years of Flying Fun is not just a book for the aviation enthusiast, but for anyone wanting to learn about any aspect of flying history through the memoir of a man who lived through it all.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 20-05-2015

Ton-up Lancs is a welcome reassessment of a study which first appeared under the 'Claims to Fame' series. Since that publication years ago, information and photographs continued to be sent to and researched and collected by the author, so much so that a complete revision was necessary, with a new 100-sortie aircraft added to the list, and with many more photographs of the aircraft and men who flew in these very special Avro Lancs. Each aircraft's history is recorded, supported by stories from aircrew that flew them, along with what happened to them once - or if - they survived. The most famous is 'Queenie' (W5868), the only one still in existence and which can be seen in the Bomber Command Hall at the RAF Museum, Hendon. She, as with some others, has some controversial accounting regarding the actual number of operations flown, which the book covers in full. Such controversies can also be explained by the detailed listing of each raid flown by each pilot and crew during 1942-1945, on sorties all over Hitler's Third Reich, Northern Italy, during support missions before and after D-Day, as well as in attacking V1 rocket launcher sites in Northern France. There are also first-hand accounts of the experience of flying on ops, supported by over 200 photographs reproduced throughout the book, many from personal albums which have not been published before.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 194 x 252 mm

Publication Date: 20-04-2015

BESTSELLER The novel A Gallipoli Soldier’s Secret is the story of a New Zealand woman’s pilgrimage to Turkey to discover the truth about her great-grandfather’s fate - a Gallipoli soldier who never returned home. During her search she stumbles over dark secrets which have been hidden in a Turkish village for decades. They are so sensitive that disclosure threatens embarrassment for villagers and two old foes -New Zealand and Turkey.
Lyrically written, A Gallipoli Soldier’s Secret paints an informative picture of life in a Turkish village, Turkish culture and history, and the suffering and annihilation Turks endured in WWI. It follows the war through the stories of two soldiers – New Zealander Alistair John Taylor and Turk Ali Osman. Their lives converge with unexpected consequences.
A Gallipoli Soldier’s Secret is unique in that it provides a glimpse of the war from a Turkish perspective. It also vividly reveals village life and a journey of inner conflict and self-discovery.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 300

Dimensions: 135 x 216 x 40 mm

Publication Date: 10-02-2015

Following on from the success of Victor Boys and Vulcan Boys, Tony Blackman, in collaboration with Anthony Wright, brings you Valiant Boys to complete the V Force set. This is a fascinating collection of personal accounts of operating Britain's first V bomber by aircrew and ground crew. The book tells the story from the aircraft's birth taking off from Vickers' tiny airfield at Wisley near Brooklands to its premature death from fatigue. There are tales of testing atom bombs in the Australian desert, dropping hydrogen bombs in the middle of the Pacific and, as a complete contrast, attacking airfields with conventional bombs in Egypt during the very brief and abortive Suez campaign. We are reminded of how the Valiant provided the UK's first nuclear deterrent by always having some armed aircraft on stand-by twenty-four hours a day, supported by their air and ground crews, ready to be flown at a moment's notice on a one-way trip to launch an atomic war. Some Valiants were given a photographic role providing accurate images from high altitude and were used not only to gather military intelligence but also to survey the UK and countries overseas. Others were developed into flight refuelling tankers breaking point to point records before enabling Britain's fighter aircraft to be refuelled and fly anywhere in the world. This book completes Tony Blackman's trilogy of the three V bombers. As Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Michael Beetham makes it clear in his foreword: 'It is good to have a book written by aircrew and ground crew telling their stories and how they operated the aircraft so that all these things are recorded and not forgotten.' Not as well known as the Vulcan and Victor, the Valiant is often overlooked; this book will go a long way to redress the balance.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 10-11-2014

The victory of the communists in the Chinese civil war resulted in the formation of a new socialist state in Asia - the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Soviet leadership was the first to recognize the PRC, and subsequently provided China with considerable economic, scientific, and military assistance. After Stalin's death, however, relations between Moscow and Peking began to rapidly deteriorate, the main reasons being the disagreements regarding Stalin's legacy and the principles of co-existence with capitalist states. With the beginning of the so-called 'cultural revolution' in the PRC, these disagreements intensified: the two sides in the ideological conflict accused each other of revisionism, dogmatism and nationalism. Economic failures and social chaos forced the PRC leadership (first and foremost, Mao Zedong personally) to seek a method for divesting itself of the responsibility for what had taken place. As a solution, they organized a military conflict on the border with the Soviet Union - one that was adequate enough to mobilize and rally the people around the PRC leadership, while at the same time insignificant enough in scale to prevent it from escalating into a full-fledged war.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 76

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 19-05-2021