Born on the 4th November 1910, Anna Zofia Marta Leska grew up with a love of flying. She learned to fly gliders and hot air balloons at the Warsaw Aeroclub. In the late 1930s, she…
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Harry Hardy DFC Hawker Typhoon Pilot
Harry Hardy DFC photographed for Radio Canada in December 1944 In November 2010, F/L Harry Hardy DFC CD L.d’H. gave a talk about his experiences flying Hawker Typhoon ‘Bombphoons’ with 440 “City of Ottawa” Squadron…
Masters of the Air Full Trailer – An AVGeek Reacts!
In this video, Boney deep-dives into the trailer for Apple TV+’s ‘Masters of the Air’, slated for release in January. Analyzing various scenes, dialogues, and stylistic choices, we look at various elements of the show,…
The Complete Hedge Hopping
For just about two years, I had the privilege of working with Alex Churchill, Zack White and the History Hack team making podcasts. During that time, I hosted 22 episodes of the Second World War aviation show Hedge Hopping. You can find them all here.
The Pathfinders by Will Iredale
To see in the dark and to hit their target was the challenge Bomber Command faced in the Second World War. To see in the dark and stay hidden only complicated matters more. In Will Iredale latest book, The Pathfinders, he paints a vivid of the force set up to guide Bomber Command’s squadrons to their targets in Occupied Europe. The Pathfinders is a superior narrative history that pays the respect that is due and to the price that was paid.
The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell
The Strategic Bombing campaign of the Second World War is still one of the most controversial subjects of that conflict 80 years on. The destruction wrought upon hundreds of cities from Coventry to Tokyo brought the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, The Bomber Mafia, looks at the titular group of USAAF thinkers who believed that they had the tools at their disposal to bring high-altitude precision bombing to a realisation.
Putting the Pilot Back in the Cockpit
we live in a listicle dominated world that becomes more binary by the day. Nuance now feels like a dirty word and when we look at things, we seem to rank them by default. When this comes to the equipment of the Second World War, the fetishisation of the machinery has begun to override the basic truth that these incredible machines were designed to kill and that they were operated by men little more than boys.