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Informationen zum Autor David Fairbank White studied history at Harvard and worked as a reporter for The New York Times . He has written for national magazines including Fortune , New York , Parade , and Reader’s Digest . Margaret Stanback White received her BA from Harvard. Following a career as a research scientist, she began to freelance as a researcher and editor on nonfiction book projects about scientific breakthroughs and how they have changed the course of history. Klappentext The incredible, untold story behind the rise of the P-51 Mustang, the World War II fighter plane that destroyed the Luftwaffe and made D-Day possible When the P-51 Mustang began tearing across European skies in early 1944, the Allies had been losing the air war for years. Staggering numbers of bomber crews, both British and American, had been shot down and killed thanks to the Luftwaffe's superior fighter force. Not only did the air war appear grim, but any landing of troops in France was impossible while German fighters hunted overhead. But behind the scenes, a team of visionaries had begun to design a bold new type of airplane, one that could outrun and outmaneuver Germany's best. Wings of War is the incredible true story of the P-51 Mustang fighter and the unlikely crew of designers, engineers, test pilots and army officers who brought it from the drafting table to the skies over World War II. This is hardly a straightforward tale of building an airplane-for years, the team was stymied by corruption within the defense industry and stonewalled by the Army Air Forces, who failed to understand the Mustang's potential. But when squadrons of Mustangs were finally unleashed over Hitler's empire, the Luftwaffe was decimated within months, clearing the skies for D-Day. A compelling, character-focused narrative replete with innovation, determination and bravery, Wings of War is the never-before-told story of the airplane that truly changed the course of World War II. Story Locale: America and Britain, World War II Leseprobe Chapter 1 Hypnotized It was high up in the sky, far above him, droning and gliding on, and at first the boy could not tell what it was and kept fixing the spot with a spellbound gaze. But then it continued, and yes, it was an airplane, a Wright Flyer on a course out of Germany, heading toward Russia. This was just a few years after the Wright brothers had first launched their primitive biplane off the beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. But it was a long way from the sands of the Carolinas' Outer Banks. As the plane cruised above the ancient medieval town of Landsberg, it caught the eye, then the whole attention, then the rapt wonder of twelve-year-old Edgar Schmued. With dark hair and deep-set brown eyes, his neck cocked back and his gaze steady, Edgar was hypnotized by the sight. It was on this day in 1912, as he gazed over the rooftops of Landsberg, nestled on the banks of the Lech River in Bavaria, that Edgar's life was kidnapped by aviation. He had no interest in schoolwork. Instead, he lived in a private world of daydream and fantasy about machines and how they worked. He imagined how paper was made, how gears engaged and meshed, how spinning machines spun thread. He whiled away his days studying pictures of the latest inventions, making sketches of transmissions, gears, engines. His father, an Austrian dentist, shared Edgar's passion for machines and bought his son every technical book he could find, spending hours explaining how dynamos and electrical circuits worked. But Heinrich Schmued was not always a good provider. With five children besides Edgar-Erwin, Erich, Eugenie, Elfriede and Else-the family sometimes went hungry, and poverty would soon shipwreck Edgar's hopes. Dr. Schmued had no money to send his son to university. When the time came, the most the father could d...
