Patrick Bishop

Synopsis
Adam Tomaszewski is a Polish airman, flying Hurricanes alongside British pilots as the Battle of Britain rages in the summer skies over Kent and Sussex. Facing death daily and far from his friends and family, Adam finds himself drawn to a maverick Irish soldier called Gerry Cunningham.

'You're out of luck, brother,' are the first words Gerry says when they meet in the crush of men competing for the few women at a dance in a seaside hotel, but when Gerry betrays his lover Moira, Adam's fortunes seem to have changed. For the next four years, Adam's life and Gerry's are intertwined like good luck and bad, love and loss, life and death, their paths crossing at various points on Adam's perilous journey from the ruins of Poland to the rolling English countryside, from Egypt to Occupied France.

A hauntingly evocative picture of wartime Britain, a twisting drama of fighting behind enemy lines, a compelling, suspenseful love story, A Good War proves Patrick Bishop - already acclaimed as a great historian of the war in the air - to be a superbly gifted novelist.

Synopsis
Afghanistan, Summer 2006. This is war. Afghanistan in the summer of 2006. In blazing heat in remote outposts the 3 Para battlegroup is pitted against a stubborn enemy who keep on coming. Until now, the full story of what happened there has not been told. This is it. In April 2006, the elite 3 Para battlegroup was despatched to Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. They were tasked with providing security to reconstruction efforts, a deployment it was hoped would pass off without a shot being fired. In fact, over the six months they were there, the 3 Para battle group saw near continuous combat -- one gruelling battle after another -- in what would become one of the most extraordinary campaigns ever fought by British troops. Around parched, dusty outposts reliant on a limited number of helicopters for food and ammunition resupply, troops were subjected to relentless Taliban attacks, as well as energy-sapping 50 degree heat and spartan conditions. At the end of the tour, the Taliban offensive aimed at driving the British and Afghan Government troops out of Helmand had been tactically defeated.But 3 Para paid a high price: fourteen soldiers and one interpreter were killed, and 46 wounded. 3 Para will tell the stories of the men and women who took part in this extraordinary and largely unreported saga. Best-selling author Patrick Bishop has been given exclusive access to the soldiers whose tales of courage and endurance provide an unforgettable portrait of one of the world's finest and most fascinating fighting regiments, and a remarkable band of warriors. Their bravery was reflected in the array of gallantry medals that were bestowed on their return, including the Victoria Cross awarded to Corporal Bryan Budd and the George Cross won by Corporal Mark Wright, both of whom were killed winning their awards. 3 Para's saga of comradeship, courage and fortitude is set to become a classic.

Synopsis
Following on from his bestselling Fighter Boys, in this very different book, Patrick Bishop looks back at the lives, human realities and the extraordinary risks that the painfully young pilots took during the strategic air-offensive against Germany from 1939--1945. In Fighter Boys Patrick Bishop brought to life the pilots who flew Spitfires and Hurricanes in the summer of 1940. In Bomber Boys, Bishop tells a different but equally fascinating story. The 125,000 men from all over the world who passed through Bomber Command during the Second World War were engaged in a form of warfare that had never been implemented before and would never be again. Between 1940 and 1945 they flew continuously, stopping only when weather made operations impossible. For much of that time they were the only fighters capable of attacking Germany in its own territory. There was nothing romantic about their struggle. Often barely out of boyhood, they lived on bleak bases, flying at night on long, nerve-racking missions that often ended in death. The odds of surviving were stacked heavily against them.In all, 55,000 were killed, counting for nearly one in ten of all the British and Commonwealth war dead. Despite these sacrifices, the Bomber Boys have remained on the edges of our collective memory and their actions have been the subject of a controversy that continues to the present. In this powerful and moving work of history, Patrick Bishop compellingly captures the character, feelings and motivations of the bomber crews and pays tribute to their heroism and determination. Bomber Boys brilliantly restores these men to their rightful place in our consciousness.

Synopsis
The Battle of Britain, fought in the skies over Britain during the sweltering summer of 1940, was one of the most crucial battles ever fought: without the Luftwaffe's control of the skies it was unlikely that Nazi Germany would mount an invasion across the Channel. For most of the 3000 young British airmen involved this was their first real experience of combat. The pressure on the pilots, groundcrew and their controllers was unimaginable; at certain points in the Battle a single blunder or failure of nerve could have been enough to tip the balance of the contest and give victory to the enemy. Patrick Bishop creates a surprising portrait of the Battle drawing on previously unseen source material and testimonies from survivors on both sides. Against the background of wider strategic considerations, he focuses on the lives and thoughts of the combatants, their attitudes towards "the enemy" and their aircraft, the fear, horror and exhilaration of flight and battle, attempts by each side to gain the upper hand through daring technological innovations, coping tactics, mess room life and friendships.