Try free for 30 days
-
Cinderella Boys
- The Forgotten RAF Force That Won the Battle of the Atlantic
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
To Fly and Fight
- Memoirs of a Triple Ace
- By: Clarence E. Bud Anderson
- Narrated by: Joshua Katinger
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his father's farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program.
-
-
Entertaining
- By Anonymous User on 14-08-2023
-
The Scrap Iron Flotilla
- By: Mike Carlton
- Narrated by: Mike Carlton
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.
-
-
Great book to hear from the author.
- By Kindle Customer on 17-08-2022
-
The Fleet at Flood Tide
- America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war.
-
-
A Mighty Historical Overview
- By Hamish on 19-05-2017
-
Yeager
- An Autobiography
- By: Chuck Yeager
- Narrated by: Chris Browning, Pamela Dillman, David Stifel, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
General Chuck Yeager was the greatest test pilot of them all - the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound...the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang...the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff. Now he tells his whole incredible life story with the same “wide-open, full throttle” approach that has marked his astonishing career.
-
-
Fantastic Listen
- By Anonymous User on 11-01-2024
-
The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse
- From the Australian bush to the Battle of Beersheba - an Epic Story of Courage, Resilience and Derring-Do
- By: Peter FitzSimons
- Narrated by: Richard Bligh
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 31st October 1917, as the day's light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What happened in the next hour changed the course of history. This brave battle and the extraordinary adventures that led to it are brought vividly to life by Australia's greatest storyteller, Peter FitzSimons.
-
-
A great story of a great Australian event
- By Russell on 22-02-2024
-
Australia's Secret Army
- By: Michael Veitch
- Narrated by: Michael Veitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Established after World War I by the Royal Australian Navy, the Coast Watchers were a loose organisation of several hundred European settlers, missionaries, patrol officers and planters living in British and Australian Pacific Island territories whose job it was to observe and report on the enemy. They were mostly all unpaid volunteers whose job it was simply to observe and report on foreign shipping and aeroplane movements. It was never envisaged that the Coast Watchers would do any fighting, nor operate inside enemy-occupied territory.
-
-
Truly engaging
- By Bob Hartley on 26-02-2023
-
To Fly and Fight
- Memoirs of a Triple Ace
- By: Clarence E. Bud Anderson
- Narrated by: Joshua Katinger
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bud Anderson is a flyers flyer. The Californians enduring love of flying began in the 1920s with the planes that flew over his father's farm. In January 1942, he entered the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program.
-
-
Entertaining
- By Anonymous User on 14-08-2023
-
The Scrap Iron Flotilla
- By: Mike Carlton
- Narrated by: Mike Carlton
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. HMAS Vendetta, Vampire, Voyager, Stuart and Waterhen were old ships, small with worn-out engines. Their crews used to joke they were held together by string and chewing gum; when the Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels heard of them, he sneered that they were a load of scrap iron.
-
-
Great book to hear from the author.
- By Kindle Customer on 17-08-2022
-
The Fleet at Flood Tide
- America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war.
-
-
A Mighty Historical Overview
- By Hamish on 19-05-2017
-
Yeager
- An Autobiography
- By: Chuck Yeager
- Narrated by: Chris Browning, Pamela Dillman, David Stifel, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
General Chuck Yeager was the greatest test pilot of them all - the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound...the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang...the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff. Now he tells his whole incredible life story with the same “wide-open, full throttle” approach that has marked his astonishing career.
-
-
Fantastic Listen
- By Anonymous User on 11-01-2024
-
The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse
- From the Australian bush to the Battle of Beersheba - an Epic Story of Courage, Resilience and Derring-Do
- By: Peter FitzSimons
- Narrated by: Richard Bligh
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 31st October 1917, as the day's light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What happened in the next hour changed the course of history. This brave battle and the extraordinary adventures that led to it are brought vividly to life by Australia's greatest storyteller, Peter FitzSimons.
-
-
A great story of a great Australian event
- By Russell on 22-02-2024
-
Australia's Secret Army
- By: Michael Veitch
- Narrated by: Michael Veitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Established after World War I by the Royal Australian Navy, the Coast Watchers were a loose organisation of several hundred European settlers, missionaries, patrol officers and planters living in British and Australian Pacific Island territories whose job it was to observe and report on the enemy. They were mostly all unpaid volunteers whose job it was simply to observe and report on foreign shipping and aeroplane movements. It was never envisaged that the Coast Watchers would do any fighting, nor operate inside enemy-occupied territory.
-
-
Truly engaging
- By Bob Hartley on 26-02-2023
-
Australia's Dambusters
- Flying into Hell with 617 Squadron
- By: Colin Burgess
- Narrated by: Steve Shanahan
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was the evening of 16 May 1943. Nineteen modified Lancaster bombers from 617 Squadron RAF, under the command of youthful Wing Commander Guy Gibson, roared into the night sky from their Lincolnshire base. They were on a top-secret Bomber Command mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, now regarded as one of the most dangerous and audacious bombing raids of World War II - an attack on the formidable, well-defended dams of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Slung beneath the belly of each aircraft was one of the war’s greatest secrets - a bouncing bomb.
-
-
Australia's Dambusters by Colin Burgess .
- By Loretta. on 11-07-2022
-
RAAF Black Cats
- By: John Suter-Linton, Bill Cleworth
- Narrated by: David Tredinnick
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The secret and dangerous operations of Australia's Pacific War Catalina crews told for the first time. RAAF Black Cats chronicles a little-known, yet crucial and courageous chapter in Australia's war history. While this story involved Australia and the United States, very few people on either side of the Pacific know of the significance the RAAF Catalina Squadrons had on the outcome of the war against Japan and General Douglas MacArthur's triumphant 'return' to the Philippines.
-
-
Great Australian history.
- By Anonymous User on 19-05-2023
-
A Wing and a Prayer
- The “Bloody 100th” Bomb Group of the US Eighth Air Force in Action over Europe in World War II
- By: Harry H. Crosby
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They began operations out of England in the spring of '43. They flew their Flying Fortresses almost daily against strategic targets in Europe in the name of freedom. Their astonishing courage and appalling losses earned them the name that resounds in the annals of aerial warfare and made the "Bloody Hundredth" a legend. Harry H. Crosby—soon to be portrayed by Anthony Boyle in the miniseries Masters of the Air developed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg—arrived with the very first crews, and left with the very last.
-
-
A must read!
- By Anonymous User on 01-03-2024
-
Arctic Convoys
- Bletchley Park and the War for the Seas
- By: David Kenyon
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Between 1941 and 1945, more than eight hundred shiploads of supplies were delivered to the Soviet Union protected by allied naval forces. Each journey was a battle against the elements, with turbulent seas, extreme cold, and the constant dread of torpedoes. These Arctic convoys have been mythologized as defenseless vessels at the mercy of deadly U-boats—but was this really the case?
-
War Beneath the Sea
- Submarine Conflict During World War II
- By: Peter Padfield
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
- Length: 25 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This riveting chronicle of submarine warfare is the first to cover all the major submarine campaigns of the war, describing, in detail, the operations of the British, American, Japanese, Italian, and German submarine and anti-submarine forces. Beginning with a vivid re-creation of the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia by a German U-boat in September 1939, critically acclaimed military historian Peter Padfield's compelling narrative casts an unflinching eye on the devastating consequences of maritime warfare.
-
-
Informed and Entertaining
- By NJX on 01-07-2021
-
Flying Start
- A Fighter Pilot's War Years
- By: Hugh Dundas
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the autobiography of Group Captain Sir Hugh Dundas CBE, DSO, DFC, who was one of the most distinguished fighter pilots of World War II. He writes of his wartime experiences, and particularly of his period as Squadron Leader and Wing Commander and his involvement in the Battle of Britain.
-
-
AI reading
- By David Shaw on 14-12-2023
-
Going Downtown
- The US Air Force Over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 1961–75
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The involvement of the US Air Force in the Southeast Asian Wars began in 1962 with crews sent to train Vietnamese pilots, and with conflict in Laos, and finally ended in 1972 with the B-52 bombing of Hanoi, though there were Air Force pilots unofficially flying combat in Laos up to the end in 1975. The missions flown by USAF aircrews during those years in Southeast Asia differed widely, from attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail at night with modified T-28 trainers, to missions “Downtown,” the name aircrew gave Hanoi, the central target of the war.
-
-
Excellent
- By Toby on 04-03-2023
-
Dark Waters, Starry Skies
- The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March–October 1943
- By: Jeffrey Cox
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thousands of miles from friendly ports, the US Navy had finally managed to complete the capture of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in early 1943. Now the Allies sought to keep the offensive momentum won at such a high cost. This is the central plotline running through this page-turning history beginning with the Japanese Operation I-Go and the American ambush of Admiral Yamamoto and continuing on to the Allied invasion of New Georgia, northwest of Guadalcanal in the middle of the Solomon Islands and the location of a major Japanese base.
-
-
Very Detailed. But was the audio version Proofed?
- By Peter R Hunter on 28-12-2023
-
Life's Too Short to Cry
- The Compelling Story of a Battle of Britain Ace
- By: Tim Vigors
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is not often that a long-hidden gem of a manuscript is published, bringing a moment in WWII history to vivid life for today’s audiences. Geoffrey Wellum’s First Light was one example. The memoir of Timothy Vigors is another. Born in Hatfield but raised in Ireland and educated at Eton and Cranwell, Vigors found himself in France in 1940 flying Fairey Battle bombers. After the Fall he joined the fighters of 222 Squadron, with whom he saw frantic and distinguished service over Dunkirk and persevered through the dangerous days of the Battle of Britain, when he became an ace.
-
-
Ended too early
- By Samuel Peacocke on 29-11-2022
-
Ace Pilots of World War II Series, Fighter Aces of the R.A.F 1939-1945
- A Gripping Compilation of WWII Air War Heroes - the Famous and the Forgotten
- By: E. C. R. Baker
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Only a boy when World War II broke out, E. C. R. Baker was gripped by the stories he heard of heroism in the skies as the Allies defeated the mighty Luftwaffe. But in the years after the war, he was struck by how few of the RAF's legendary fighter aces could be named by the general public.
-
-
Heroes who we should know about
- By Anonymous User on 14-09-2023
-
Lancaster
- The Second World War’s Greatest Bomber
- By: Leo McKinstry
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 25 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A comprehensive history of Britain's greatest bomber plane. The Spitfire and the Lancaster were the two RAF weapons of victory in the Second World War, but the glamour of the fighter has tended to overshadow the performance of the heavy bomber. Yet without the Lancaster, Britain would never have been able to take the fight to the German homeland. Highlights the scale of the bomber's achievements, including the famous Dambusters attacks. With its vast bomb bay, ease of handling and surprising speed, the mighty Lancaster transformed the effectiveness of the Bomber Command.
-
-
Fantastic narration
- By Robert Watkinson on 27-08-2018
-
Saving Port Moresby
- Fighting at the End of the Kokoda Track
- By: David W. Cameron
- Narrated by: Steve Shanahan
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Powerfully written by Australia's leading military historian, Saving Port Moresby commemorates the 80th Anniversary of the Battles in New Guinea. Japanese Major General Horii Tomitarō, commanding the South Seas Force, was tasked, after taking Kokoda Plateau in late July, with entering the Owen Stanley Range to capture Port Morseby. After the battles for Deniki and Isurava, his troops were pushing south through the mountains. The Australians under Brigadier Arnold Potts, however, were not in route, but were involved in a determined fighting withdraw.
Publisher's Summary
The remarkable story of the unsung RAF wing who rescued Britain from Hitler's U-boats and made Allied victory possible.
In early 1943 Britain was engaged in an epic struggle for survival. As the deadly wolf packs of German U-boats roamed the Atlantic, supply lines and shipping losses fell victim to the carnage.
In desperation, Churchill turned to the RAF's maritime wing - an overlooked, underfunded force known as "The Cinderella Service". But the ascendancy of the U-boat forced a change in attitude. Provided with the long-range planes, depth charges, rocket projectiles and radar equipment with which to challenge the enemy. The Cinderella boys provided vital air defence the whole way across the Atlantic. The German hunters were now the hunted, and - in a stunning defeat - had fully retreated by the summer of 1943.
The transformation of Coastal Command from a ramshackle outfit into a vast, formidable organisation provided one of the turning points of the war, keeping Britain in the war and opening the way to D-Day in 1944. But they never received the credit they deserved.
Based on a wealth of new sources, including from diaries, log books, official records, archives and interviews, Leo McKinstry shines a new light the courageous pilots, ingenious scientists and political risktakers - many of them outsiders - who defended the freezing Atlantic from Nazi rule.
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Cinderella Boys
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 22-12-2023
The Title says it all
Very enjoyable as, whilst l had obviously heard of Coastal Command, l knew very little about their role in WW2. Extremely well written and narrated and a must listen for anyone interested in WW2. I could not recommend this book more highly. I will be listening again to fill in some of the gaps. Not the books fault, but the listener.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 03-10-2023
Interesting book
I learnt a lot about the science of that part of the war. Well presented and overall interesting ..
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David Finlayson
- 15-08-2023
A great yarn
A multi layered approach to a complex story. Very well read and presented. Worth the read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!