Kirjahaku

‘You capture so much in one frozen moment of time, and the fact that this tiny moment will now last forever makes it so much more profound…’ Immortalised through the BBC's 'Peaky Blinders', and now in the throes of HS2 development, Birmingham's up and coming creative quarter is in the spotlight as Nigel Parker documents the unique people and places of Digbeth.

Gott Strafe England Volume 2 continues the detailed analysis of the German Strategic Air Offensive against Great Britain through the years 1917 and 1918. The use of twin-engined aeroplanes became more prevalent in the attacks against London, while the Naval Zeppelin Force, with its new lighter and higher climbing airships was relegated to the occasional attack against the more lightly defended Midlands and East Coast targets, with disastrous results; the weather being the greater enemy. With the failure of the daylight aeroplane raids in the face of determined opposition, smaller, multiple formations of aircraft were employed using the cover of darkness to achieve their goal of reaching the capital, but the rapid expansion of the British anti-aircraft barrage was a deterrent to all but the bravest airman. Finally the Giant multi-engined aeroplanes were brought into play, carrying bombs up to 300 kg in weight, but even they, without an effective bombsight and navigation aids, failed to achieve their goals of bringing an end to the war. Right to the very end of the war the German airship force was used try to prove their original air strategy was correct, but with the death of their mentor and leader Peter Strasser, who, in one final raid, was to join so many of his men, in a fiery death scored across the skies, they were proved to be wrong. Gott Strafe England Volume 2 continues with the same high level of detail as to be found in Volume 1: giving the precise routes of every German raider, where every bomb fell, the damage caused and casualties on both sides, whether on the ground or in the air. Often reading like the tales from of a Boys Own Adventure Story, the full details of combats, eye witness accounts and the details of the anti-aircraft gun positions and numbers of shells fired are recorded. Never before has such a project ever been attempted that goes into so much detail to record precisely what happened in the skies over Britain during the Great War. An essential guide to any historian who is either researching their local area in the war, with long forgotten incidents of bombs falling and lives lost being recounted or those who are seeking the complete account of the war in the air over Britain.

The aerial attacks against Great Britain by airships and aircraft in the Great War were a new development in the history of British warfare. Previously, it had been the British armies that had crossed the seas to do the fighting in foreign lands, but now, for the first time, the enemy was spreading death and destruction on the homeland at will. Initially, there was no obvious and practical means of countering this threat, so what were the reasons for this development and how was the problem solved? Volume 3 of Gott Strafe England will look into operations on both sides to show that with every new development, there came a further development to counter it. The theory that the pace of human ingenuity is greatest during wartime is proven in this book, as a variety of newly-developed weapons - some truly impractical - will be evaluated. Primary evidence from combatants on each side are used to detail the tactical and strategic concepts developed, with previously unpublished accounts of the commanders and airmen who manned the airships. A unique insight is given into the operations and losses of the Gotha aeroplane unit Kagol 3 (the German Bomber Wing tasked with bringing Britain to its knees), as the Zeppelin menace had been proven unable to do so. Each chapter in this volume deals with an aspect of the air war - making use of the many primary source reports and summaries that are available; an insight is given as to how the military mind worked on both sides of the Channel. Aspects examined include details about the aerodromes and facilities required to mount operations against Britain; the construction techniques used to build the Zeppelins; the information that British Air Intelligence could glean from the wreckage of the airships and aircraft; and reports from its many spies operating on the Continent. Supporting the text are many unique photographs and drawings that give a complete insight into the German air assault against Great Britain - helping to explain why, eventually, the term 'Gott Strafe England' was always going to be an impossible dream in the first industrial arms race.