Pen Sword Aviation imprint: 311 books

A “meticulously documented” account that covers the RAF’s controversial attempt to end World War II by the aerial bombing of Berlin (Kirkus Reviews). The Battle of Berlin was the longest and most sustained bombing offensive against one target in the Second World War. Bomber Command Commander-in-Chief,...

This is a unique account of the development and operational use of air-to-air flight refuelling since its early beginnings in the USA and the UK to the equipment that is in use today. The author draws upon his life-long career as senior design engineer with the successful British company In-Flight...

Brought out in the late 1970s as a successor to the obsolete Tu-126 airborne early warning aircraft, the A-50 co-developed by the Il'yushin and Beriyev bureaux is one of the most interesting military variants in the field of IL-76 military transport. Differing outwardly from the latter mainly in having...

Developed in the early 1950s to meet a Soviet Army requirement and first flown in June 1957, the Mi-6 was the largest-yet helicopter created in the Soviet Union. Its notable features included a power-plant consisting of two turbo-shaft engines (for the first time on a Soviet helicopter) and stub wings...

Roy Nesbit's highly illustrated history of Coastal Command's 217 Squadron – the squadron in which he served – gives a first-hand insight into the hazardous low-level missions the squadron flew against enemy shipping and ports during the Second World War. 
He chronicles the squadron's operations...

'The Lancasters looked like enormous deadly black birds going off into the night; somehow they looked different when they came back. The planes carried from this field 117,000 pounds of high explosives and the crews flew all night to drop the load as ordered. Now the trains would not run between France...

When the Second World War began in 1939 it was thought that it would be fought along the same lines as the First World War, with the Allied air forces operating from both Britain and France. With the fall of Britain’s Northern European Allies in May 1940, all that changed. From then onwards, RAF...

By the close of 1916, the air war over France was progressing amazingly. The Royal Flying Corps, the French Air Force and the opposing German Air Service, were all engaged in fierce aerial conflict and the Allied air forces were following a particularly successful if aggressive policy. They were taking...

Mick Powis describes the novel threat posed to the British war effort by the raids of German airships, or Zeppelins, and the struggle to develop effective defenses against them. Despite their size and relatively slow speed, the Zeppelins were hard to locate and destroy at first. They could fly higher...

When Sidney Camm's masterpiece, the Hawker Hurricane, entered RAF service in late 1937 it quickly became one of the most important aircraft in Britain's military arsenal, especially in the first three years of the Second World War. This title covers the history of this iconic design, from the prototype...

Designed in response to a 1951 requirement, the C-130 Hercules is the most successful military airlifter ever built. Since it first flew in prototype form on 23 August 1954, more than 2,100 have been produced in over eighty different versions. Across its variants, the Hercules serves more than sixty...

The world's first jet engines were already available shortly before the end of the Second World War, but they had not been developed to a high enough standard to take part. This changed after 1945 when, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, one technological development surpassed the others and records...

A poignant biography of a pilot who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II.   In a quiet churchyard is the grave of an airman who lost his life fighting in the skies over southern England in October 1940. The author happened to come across this grave, and after some initial inquiries discovered...

The first recipient was Flight Sergeant Leslie Wallace, a wireless operator with 83 Squadron, who extinguished a major fire in his Lancaster and despite his severe wounds returned to his radio until the crippled aircraft returned to England. The final CGM was awarded to Flight Sergeant John...