In a return to sweeping social history of wartime, Patrick Bishop explores the lives and wartime experience of thousands of men and women who served in all units of the airforce. To mark the centenary of the RAF in 2018.

The French Resistance began almost as soon as France surrendered to Adolf Hitler's troops. At first it was made up of small, disorganised groups of men and women working in isolation. But by the time of the liberation of France in 1944 around 400,000 French citizens (nearly 2% of the population) were involved. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Winston Churchill in 1941 saw its role in France as recruiting and organising guerilla fighters;...

When Sam Grey joins the ATS, and is posted to Liverpool she wants to show that she?s as brave as any man, and when she doesn?t get the chance her lively nature leads her into confrontation with her authoritarian boss. Sparks also fly when she encounters Johnny, whose heroic work in bomb disposal makes him very attractive to many women - but Sam?s determined not to fall for his charm. Sally wants nothing more than to protect her small children while...

In June 1943, James Eric Swift, a pilot with 83 Squadron of the RAF, boarded his Lancaster bomber for a night raid on Munster and disappeared. This is a narrative of the author's search for his lost grandfather through military and civilian archives and interviews. The book also examines the connections between air war and poetry.

Merton Naydler joined the RAF at the age of 19 and served for the next six years until May 1946. He flew Spitfires and Hurricanes during a tour of duty that took him to North Africa, Burma and Malaya. This is the story of a sergeant pilot who learned his trade the hard way.

It is the tutor who tells the young Gustav that he must try to be more like a coconut - that he needs a hard shell to protect the softness inside. This is what his native Switzerland has perfected - a shell to protect its neutrality, to keep its people safe. But his beloved friend, Anton, doesn't want to be safe - a gifted pianist, he longs to make his mark on the world outside. On holiday one summer in Davos, the boys stumble across a remote building....

n the hard-fought winter of 1944 the Allies advanced northwards through Italy, but stalled on the fearsome mountainous defences of the Gothic Line. Two men were parachuted in, in an effort to break the deadlock. Their mission: to penetrate deep into enemy territory and lay waste to the Germans' impregnable headquarters. At the eleventh hour mission commanders radioed for David 'The Mad Piper' Kilpatrick to be flown in, resplendent in his tartan kilt....

The Second World War is the most cataclysmic event in recent European history. In this new history James Holland looks at the conflict from a broader perspective than ever before, and in doing so, challenges some of the fundamentals of its by-now familiar story. The first part of this extraordinary new two-volume account spans oceans and continents from the perspectives of all the nations it will engulf.

Clemmie throws herself into volunteering with the very organisation who helped her and her sisters when they were homeless: the WVS. Demonstrating a natural flair, painfully-shy Clemmie is soon drafted to set up one of the British Welcome Clubs aimed at easing American troops' integration into English life. There, she meets Squadron Leader Dunning who, shot down in the Blitz, has been left partially paralysed. As friendship turns to something more,...

The seminal narrative history of the Second World War from one of our finest historians. A book which depicts what the war was like to live through - whether you were a starving child in Leningrad, a soldier in North Africa, or a civilian in Dresden.