The RAF in Camera 1946-1995 is the third volume in a series which will bring a representative selection of these two collections to the attention of a wider audience. Many of the photographs are published here for the first time and give the reader a fascinating kaleidoscope of images depicting the vast range of operations in which the RAF was involved from the end of the Second World War right up to the Gulf War. Included are the Berlin Airlift, the 'bush' wars in Kenya, Malaya and Indonesia, atom-bomb tests in Australia and the Pacific, the Korean, Falklands and Gulf Wars, and the Suez and Cyprus crises. Each of the 240 photographs, some taken in action, has been thoroughly researched and is accompanied by a detailed caption. This remarkable volume of illustrations will appeal not only to those with an interest in Royal Air Force, but also to anyone with an interest in the history of military aviation.

On 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess - Deputy Fuhrer of the Third Reich - embarked on his astonishing flight from Augsburg to Scotland. At dusk the same day, he parachuted on to a Scottish moor and was taken into custody. His arrival provoked widespread curiosity and speculation, which has continued to this day. Why did Hess fly to Scotland? Had Hitler authorized him to attempt to negotiate peace? Was British Intelligence involved? What was his state of mind at the time? Drawing on a variety of reliable archive and eyewitness sources in Britain, Germany and the USA, authors Roy Conyers Nesbit and Georges van Acker have written what must be the most objective assessment of the Hess' story yet to be published. Their compelling narrative not only dispels many of the extraordinary conspiracy theories, but also uncovers some intriguing new facts.

First published in 1995 and now available in paperback, the first part of a three-volume pictorial history of the RAF, which contains many rare and previously unpublished photographs from collections at the Public Record Office and the Ministry of Defence.

The uncertain fates of Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson and Glenn Miller have fascinated readers and aviation historians ever since they disappeared. Even today, more than half a century after their final flights, what happened to them is still the subject of speculation, conspiracy theory and controversy. This has prompted Roy Conyers Nesbit to reinvestigate their stories and to write this perceptive, level-headed and gripping study. Using testimony from new witnesses and hitherto undisclosed public records, he seeks to explain why they were reported Ômissing: believed killedÕ. He describes why American aviatrix Amelia Earhart vanished in the Pacific on her round-the-world flight in 1937, what caused the death of BritainÕs aviation heroine Amy Johnson over the Thames estuary in 1941, and what really killed band-leader Glenn Miller on his doomed flight to Paris in 1944. And he applies the same expert forensic eye to other tragic aerial mysteries of the period including the flying-boat crash that claimed the life of the Duke of Kent in Scotland in 1942. This classic study, issued here for the first time in paperback, will be fascinating reading for students of aviation history and for anyone who is intrigued by tales of flights into the unknown.

Keeping the Atlantic sea-lanes open was a vital factor in the fight against Nazi Germany. In the battle to protect merchant shipping from the menace of surface raiders and U-boats, Allied resolve and resources were tested to the utmost. The story of the extraordinary measures that were taken to combat the threat, at sea and in the air, has often been told. But there is one crucial element in this prolonged campaign that has still not been fully appreciated the role of code-breaking, in particular the decryption of secret signals transmitted by German Enigma machines. And this is the focus of Roy Nesbits fascinating new account of the Battle of the Atlantic. Using previously unpublished decrypts of U-boat signals, selected from the National Archives, along with historic wartime photographs, he tells the stories of the individual U-boats and describes their fate. Their terse signals reveal, perhaps move vividly than conventional communications could do, the desperate plight of the U-boatmen as they struggled against increasingly effective Allied countermeasures that eventually overwhelmed them.

Roy Nesbit brings to bear all the insight gained from his flying experience and his skill as a aviation historian as he investigates the wartime disappearances he describes in this haunting book. In vivid detail he retells the stories of two of the best-known disappearances the pioneering aviator and renowned author Antoine Saint-Exupry and the photo-reconnaissance ace Adrian Warburton. But he also explores several less well-known but equally dramatic cases the crew of a Beaufort torpedo bomber that vanished off the coast of Greece, the loss of a Czech Hurricane pilot in Belgium, and the disappearance of a Lancaster crew during a raid on Germany. In his search to discover the fate of these lost airmen, he reconstructs the circumstances of their final flights and reconstructs their last moments in the air, and he puts together all the scattered pieces of evidence that have come to light since the war to explain their loss. His historical detective work emphasizes the uncertainties and terrible risks that were a routine element in operational flying 60 years ago. The stories make compelling reading.

The struggle of British, Commonwealth and American-Chinese troops against the Japanese in Burma was one of the decisive campaigns of the Second World War. British India was threatened by the Japanese advance, the fate of the British Empire in the East hung in the balance. The tropical climate dense malarial jungle infested with vermin and swept by monsoon rains made the fighting, for both sides, a remarkable feat of arms. Yet the war in Burma rarely receives the attention it deserves. Roy C. Nesbit, in this highly illustrated account, traces the entire course of the campaign. In vivid detail he describes the British retreat and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese invaders in 1942. The Japanese were fanatical and trained in jungle warfare, well-equipped and backed with an overwhelming air power. The Allied response was to build up their forces on a massive scale eventually over 1,300,000 personnel were involved and to train them to fight in the jungle conditions. Their counter-offensive, launched in 1944, culminated in the battles at Imphal and Kohima which turned the course of the conflict, and the reconquest of Burma was achieved just before the atom bomb was dropped.