In 1942, General de Gaulle agreed to send French pilots to fight alongside the Red Air Force against the Germans on the Eastern Front. On 1 September 1942, the Groupe de Chasse III or 3rd Fighter Group 'Normandie' was created, equipped with Yak-3 fighter aircraft. On 5 April 1943, pilots Preziosi and Durand shared the unit's first 'kill'. Over the next two years, the group became the most highly decorated fighter unit ever to fly for France, and the second highest scoring fighter air group of the Soviet Air Force. Such was their notoriety that in May 1943 an order was signed by the German General Keitel stating that all 'Normandie' pilots were to be shot if captured. The 'Normandie' Group took an active part in the air support of the epic Battle of Kursk and in 1944 Stalin added 'Niemen' to their title in recognition of the help they rendered to the Soviet Army in crossing this river. The first of the Western Allies to capture and occupy German territory, 'Normandie-Niemen' clashed with the crack German fighter group JG51 Molders in the air battle over Konigsberg in March 1945. By the war's end the Group had racked up an impressive 273 confirmed victories and another 36 probables.

This book examines and analyses the relationship between the RAF, the Free French Movement and the French fighter pilots in WWII. A highly significant subject, this has been ignored by academics on both sides of the Channel. This ground-breaking study will fill a significant gap in the historiography of the War. Bennett's painstaking research has unearthed primary source material in both Britain and France including Squadron records, diaries, oral histories and memoirs. In the post-war period the idea of French pilots serving with the RAF seemed anachronistic to both sides. For the French nation the desire to draw a veil over the war years helped to obscure many aspects of the past, and for the British the idea of French pilots did not accord with the myths of "the Few" to whom so much was owed. Those French pilots who served had to make daring escapes. Classed as deserters they risked court martial and execution if caught. They would play a vital role on D-Day and the battle for control of the skies which followed.

Another delightful installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: Bruno Courrèges is thrilled when he receives an invitation to the lavish birthday celebration of his childhood hero, World War II flying ace Marco “the Patriarch” Desaix. But when the party ends in the death of one of Marco’s longtime friends, Gilbert, it turns into another day on the job for St. Denis's chief of police. All signs point to a tragic accident, but Bruno isn’t so sure, for there is more to the Desaix family's lives and loyalties than meets the eye. There’s Victor, the Patriarch’s son and Gilbert's sometimes rival, and Victor’s seductive wife, Madeleine, whose roving eye intrigues Bruno even more than her fierce political ambitions. Not to mention the Patriarch himself—did his postwar Soviet ties intersect too closely with Gilbert’s career in Cold War intelligence? As Bruno’s entanglement with the Desaix family becomes more complicated, his inquiries into Gilbert’s life will become a deadly threat to his own.

In The Routledge Atlas of the Second World War, Martin Gilbert graphically charts the war’s political, military, economic and social history through 247 maps. Each map has been specially drawn for this atlas, many of them covering topics that have not previously been mapped. The atlas covers all the major events from the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 to the defeat of Japan in August 1945, including the Blitz, the Fall of France, Pearl Harbor, the naval Battles of the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, Dieppe, Stalingrad, Midway, the Normandy Landings, the bombing of Warsaw, London, Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Burma Railway, concentration camps and slave labour camps, and prisoner-of-war camps in Europe, the Americas and the Far East. Focusing on the human - and inhuman - aspects of the war, The Routledge Atlas of the Second World War includes examination of: Military, naval and air campaigns on all the war fronts The war on land, at sea and in the air The economic and social aspects of the war The global nature of the war, in armed combat and in suffering The impact of the war on civilians, both under occupation, and as deportees and refugees The aftermath of the war: the post-war political and national boundaries; war graves, and the human cost of the war on every continent.