Air

Higher! Higher! Higher!

Issue Number: 5073

It did not always matter if your aircraft was the fastest or had the most firepower, so long as you had the highest ceiling… Thought to have been retired after the Spanish Civil War, and reaching a staggering 39,000 feet, the Junkers Ju 86P was one such plane. It dominated the skies over the North […]

Air Kommando

Issue Number: 5070

Silently, their engines cut, the German Fieseler Storch planes swooped over the Russian airfield’s perimeter fence. Moments later, the quiet was shattered as small arms rattled and explosive charges lit up the night, destroying parked Red Air Force fighters in droves. And before the Russians even realised what was happeneing, the Fieselers were disappearing into […]

The Defiant

Issue Number: 5068

Glittering and gleaming, the medal lay in its splendid plush box. Not many men had ever seen – never mind won – this medal. It was the Cross of Gold, an honour only awarded to the bravest German soldiers, sailors or airmen. And of all Germans, Kurt Ruttmeyer wanted this medal more than anything else […]

Wings of Woe

Issue Number: 5065

Piloting a Heinkel He 111, Leutnant Jurgen Loden was only as good as his crew: cheerful dorsal gunner and radio operator, Willi Klein; quiet ventral turret gunner, Franz Weiss; boisterous side fuselage gunner, Otto Schwabel, and outspoken navigator and bomb-aimer, Marin Lutz. Jurgen wanted nothing more than to live up to his brother’s reputation as […]

The Fighting Few

Issue Number: 5060

Squadron Leader Connor was a man who couldn’t be trusted. Every time he and his men flew into battle, he pulled some stupid stunt that cost a young pilot’s life. But what could his men do? The top brass would never believe the stories of Connor’s stupidity. So Flying Officer Gavin Roberts took the law […]

Jungle Heat

Issue Number: 5057

R.A.A.F pilots Dave Keating and Roger Smith hated each other to distraction, often putting their petty squabbles before their duty and their crew. But when their Catalina crashes into the jungle of Japanese occupied Papua New Guinea, the survivors radio for help. Two days, they are told. Two days until back-up will arrive. Two days […]

Safety First

Issue Number: 5054

R.A.F. officers, Johnny Lees and Nat Rankin, were both skilled fighter pilots. Put either of them in the cockpit of a Hurricane and they could handle whatever the Luftwaffe threw their way. But in an unarmed fishing boat, with a German fighter homing in with all guns blazing, their chances of survival were drastically reduced! […]

Lucky or Jinxed?

Issue Number: 5051

Sergeant Ned Jenkins is one of the R.A.F.’s best Lancaster tail gunners – but no-one wants to fly with him. It seems that wherever Ned goes there’s trouble, yet somehow he always manages to get out without a scratch on him. But in a time when superstition ruled the morale of the fighters, what the […]

Squadron Pride

Issue Number: 5042

Young Sergeant Pilots, Stewart Wright and Tommy Miller, did not think much of their new squadron – and even less of their squadron leader. But, flying their outdated Brewster Buffalo aircraft into battle against efficient Japanese Zero fighters, they discovered just how wrong they were when the chips were down. They had found pride in […]