Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the United Kingdom was described as one vast aircraft carrier anchored off the coast of Europe. During a seven year period 500 airfields were constructed to serve the needs first of the RAF and later the USAAF as they carried the war to German-occupied Europe. The airfields that were constructed took many different forms from training airfields and Advanced Landing Grounds to grass fighter airstrips and vast complexes used to accommodate heavy bombers. This book charts the history of each Second World War airfield in and around the UK providing a unique insight in to the construction, operational life and post-war history of each airfield. Alongside detailing the history of each airfield, this work comprehensively records the details of each unit that operated from airfields around the UK. The information provided in this meticulously researched book is supported by a wealth of 690 photographs providing an illustration into the life of each wartime station.

A full account of the part played by Leicestershire & Rutland airfields during the Second World War including Woolfox Lodge, Husbands Bosworth, Melton Mowbray, Castle Donington and Saltby. The history of each airfield is described with the squadrons and aircraft based at them and the main operations flown. The effects of the war on the daily lives of civilians, and the constant dangers from raids and night bombing are also detailed. Fully illustrated.

An account of the part played by the airfields in the Lothians during the Second World War; the planes and pilots who flew them; and the local civilians who worked alongside them.

In Foxhunting in Paradise, a major work of research and practical exploration in and around the hunting field, Michael Clayton brings entirely up to date histories of the Quorn, Belvoir, Cottesmore and Fernie Hunts. He describes the glamour, the risks and the controversy surrounding hunting in the paradise of Leicestershire's ridge and furrow grasslands, divided by fly fences and dotted with fox coverts. Royalty, captains of industry, young bloods from the services, and not a few fortune hunters and courtesans have been among those gracing the houses and hunting fields of Leicestershire. Yet the sport depends ultimately on the continued goodwill of the vast majority of Leicestershire's farmers and landowners, a prize which has always been retained. Clayton does not shrink from the essential conservation issues which he believes justify hunting, and he deals with the most recent accusations against the sport's conduct in Leicestershire. Foxhunting in Paradise throws new light on a peculiarly British phenomenon in an area of understated beauty in the heart of England, described by the great hunting correspondent Nimrod thus: 'In the absence of all perfection, it is as a hunting country as nearly approaching to it as nature and art can make it, and its fame may be said to have reached the remotest corners of the civilised world'.