Many times great heroes are forgotten in favour of more popular ones; however, in this book, Wayne Ralph presents not only an excellent account of Barker's war career, but also his life before and after the war. The reader is aquainted also with the facts that for years after the war deeply hurt most air force pilots. This book is the best I have read about William Barker.

William Barker Cushing was one of the true heroes of the naval Civil War. He consistently defied the enemy and the odds, and came back alive. He almost singlehandedly blew up a Southern ironclad (the CSS Albemarle). Coupled with a section on Cushing's brother, Alonzo, who was at the heart of the third day of Gettysburg, this book will excite, entertain, and educate all fans of the Union and the Navy.

A book for a rather specific audience. If you are very interested in London (living there would count) and architectural/city planning oddities, this is the book for you. There are whole chapters about how best to rebuild the city after the Great Fire of 1666, alternative monuments to Nelson and other famous British heroes, and (my favorite) an ambitious man's attempt to outdo Paris with a tower better than Eiffel's. The book is full of architect's drawings and sketches (black and white only), all by the original planner or others from the period. This book is very hard to rate on a 1-10 scale because it's either something you are really interested in, or it's incredible boring. I gave it a seven, because the authors came up with a unique subject and cover it with as much interest and detail as is possible. However, you have to be VERY interested in the subject. As an non-architect American who is fascinated with the U.K. and has done my fair share of reading about Victorian (and before) design, but has only visited London once, I was lost at many points. The book has endless references to various concepts of how St. Paul's cathedral might have been or how it could have been improved, but it makes the assumption that the reader is intimately familiar with its current appearance. There are no comparisons with its present form, just the alternatives. And the architectural drawings and discussions about the placements of buildings were sometimes too much for me. I bought it hoping for a leisurely read about grand schemes for London filled with humorous stories about the failed plans for a "railway down the middle of the Thames" (as indicated on the back cover), and got more detail and specifics than I expected. However, if you are a Londoner (and I would welcome your second, much more authoritative, opinion), historical architect, or other interested someone who isn't put off by the above warnings, this is the best (if not only) book on the topic.

This true story of a hijacking and hostages. A disturbing fact filled book: extreme human experience. Hostages and captors,not imaginary but real in a part of the world ,that maybe in 1980 would not have half as much interest as it does now. That sad commentary for Americans today. Maybe if we had all had this book on our list to read ,we would not have been so foolish to think such a thing only happens: Not Here,but in another place..

This book was originally published in the U.K. but was released in the U.S. under the title "The Thousand Plane Raid". I found it to be a fast-read. The book focuses on the first large scale bombing in history, the R.A.F.'s firebombing of Cologne, Germany in 1942.
The author does a good job detailing the planning and preparation for this operation from the command staff down to the individual flight crews. The account of the actual raid is detailed through often harrowing stories from the planes involved. This will offer the reader a new respect for the dangers faced by allied air-crews during this conflict.
The only drawback to the book that I found was the fact that the story is told almost exclusively from the allied (R.A.F.) viewpoint and only slightly touches upon the German side, most notably the citizens of Cologne who indured the bombing.
The author lists this bombing raid as one of the pivoltal events of the war, along with the German losses at Stalingrad and in the desert war, which led to the downfall of the Third Reich.
I highly recommend this book for those wishing to better understand the way the air war was fought during World War II.