For those who study the history of the United States Air Force and its forebears, there is a noticeable gap in the historiography regarding biographies of Second World War air force commanders. There are several biographies for men such as General Carl Spaatz, General of the Air Force Henry H. Arnold, General James Doolittle, General Curtis LeMay, and even Major General Haywood Hansell. Yet, many other prominent commanders, staff officers, and theorists do not have their own biographies. However, this research note solely focuses on General Ira Eaker, who, in 1943, commanded what became the US Eighth Air Force, the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces in 1944 and was deputy Chief of the Air Staff for the United States Army Air Forces in 1945.
James Parton has largely written Eaker’s history in “Air Force Spoken Here”:General Ira Eaker and the Command of the Air. Parton’s biography is a strong defence of Eaker. In many cases, he has created much of the narrative that we accept regarding Eaker’s performance as a commander during the Second World War. However, there is one problem with Parton’s book; he was Eaker’s staff officer. Given this, Parton’s book jumps between biography and personal memoir in several places. For example, when writing about Eaker’s defence of daylight precision bombing at the Casablanca Conference in 1943, Parton slips into a personal memoir. In a paragraph, he describes the trip to Spaatz’s headquarters, the poker game he played with Eaker and Spaatz, and how he edited Eaker’s proposals for the Casablanca Conference.[1] It is unclear whether this can be classified as a biography since it is unclear if Parton is writing about himself or Eaker. Also, as a staff officer deeply devoted to Eaker, Parton may not be the general’s best or most objective biographer. Simply put, Eaker needs a new biography.
For those interested in writing a biography on Eaker, there are several places to start. First, Parton’s biography is a great place to get background information on Eaker, even if the analysis is sometimes questionable. Another series of sources that need to be examined are the books that Eaker published with Arnold before the Second World War. Arnold and Eaker wrote: Army Flyer, Winged Warfare, and This Flying Game.[2] These books lay out their vision for the future of air power and, in some cases, offer analysis of air campaigns during the Second World War before the entrance of the United States into the conflict. These books give some insight into Eaker as an air power theorist and precision bombing advocate before the war. Three major archives should be consulted for wartime records. First, the Library Congress has Ira Eaker’s papers. Speaking from personal experience, they are well-organised and easy to work through. Even better, several vital figures whom Eaker corresponded with also deposited their papers at the Library of Congress. Another archive to consult is the Air Force Historical Research Agency, where you can find records on the Eighth Air Force and Mediterranean Allied Air Forces. Finally, the National Archives and Records Administration has more records and correspondence.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris shakes hands with Lieutenant General Ira Eaker at a handover ceremony of a US Army Air Force airfield into RAF control, c. November 1943. (Source: IWM)
Research is not the problem with writing a biography on Eaker. He wrote a lot about air power before, during, and after the Second World War. There is much research readily available on Eaker. This is purely speculation, but the reason why there is not a biography on Eaker is most likely that it is a hard biography to write. Eaker is not a polarising figure. Biographers note that they either fall in love with or hate the person they are writing about. It is hard to do that with Eaker. He is a likeable person and, at times performs quite well as a commanding officer. Yet, he also makes several significant mistakes during the war as well. It is hard to write a book analysing an officer whom both deserves blame for the failures of the 1943 air offensives against Germany and, in the same breath, say he played a major role in the success of the air war in 1944 and 1945.
In conclusion, it is time to put the James Parton book on Eaker aside and write a new biography on Eaker to start a proper historical debate on his career. There is ample archival material available to sift through and analyse. The challenge will be how to assess his performance during the war. Here is a thought to possibly hang onto for those who might want to take up this project. Maybe the challenge of writing a biography about Eaker is that he is representative of the struggles that early American air commanders faced during the strategic bombing of Germany in 1942 and 1943. Eaker was testing new ideas in a new form of warfare and without ample resources as the commander of the Eighth Air Force. He made several errors in 1943 that was amplified by his lack of resources. Yet, with more resources and experience, his performance improved over time. In many ways, Eaker represents the struggles that many American officers faced during the air war against Germany.
Dr Luke Truxal is the Book Review Editor at From Balloons to Drones and an adjunct at Columbia State Community College in Tennessee. He completed his PhD in 2018 from the University of North Texas with his dissertation ‘Command Unity and the Air War Against Germany.’ His previous publications include ‘Bombing the Romanian Rail Network’ in the Spring 2018 issue of Air Power History. He also wrote ‘The Politics of Operational Planning: Ira Eaker and the Combined Bomber Offensive in 1943’ in the Journal of Military Aviation History. In addition, Truxal is researching the effectiveness of joint air operations between the Allied air forces in the Second World War.
Header image: Major General Ira C. Eaker presents an award to an enlisted man of the 479th Anti-Submarine Group during a ceremony at an air base in St Eval, United Kingdom, c. 1943. (Source: NARA)
[1] James Parton, “Air Force Spoken Here”: General Ira Eaker & the Command of the Air (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler Publishers Inc., 1986), p. 220.
[2] Henry H. Arnold and Ira C. Eaker, Army Flyer (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1942); Henry H. Arnold and Ira Eaker, Winged Warfare, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941); Henry H. Arnold and Ira Eaker, This Flying Game, (Ramsey, New Jersey: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1938).
Editorial note: In this series, From Balloons to Drones highlights research resources available to researchers. Contributions range from discussions of research at various archival repositories to highlighting new publications. As part of this series, we are bringing you a monthly precis of recent articles and books published in air power history. This precis will not be exhaustive but will highlight new works published in the preceding month. Publication dates may vary around the globe and are based on those provided on the publisher’s websites. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.
Books
Krzysztof Dabrowski, Defending Rodinu – Volume 2: Build-up and Operational History of the Soviet Air Defence Force, 1960-1989 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2023).
In the 1950s, the Soviets had managed to grow a major Air Defence Force (PVO) capable of covering the entire airspace of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The PVO was able to field interceptors and surface-to-air missiles to intercept even high-flying foreign reconnaissance aircraft. By the early 1960s, the Soviets managed to theoretically, seal their airspace to unwanted visitors. Nevertheless, multiple foreign intelligence agencies and air forces continued seeking to penetrate the airspace of the USSR by means ranging from non-steerable ‘spy blimps’, via strategic bombers, to high-speed tactical reconnaissance aircraft. This activity kept the PVO on constant alert so that time and again it reacted mercilessly, even to entirely innocent passenger airliners, causing several major international incidents.
Defending Rodinu Volume 2 provides the operational history of the Soviet PVO from the early 1960s until the late 1980s – a period of continuously escalating tensions of the Cold War. Using documentation and publications never before released in the English language and richly illustrated, it provides a comprehensive, single-source point of reference for historians and enthusiasts alike.
Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan, 1979–88: Soviet Air Power against the Mujahideen (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2023).
The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan was fought as much in the air as on the ground. From the high-level bombing raids that blasted rebel-held mountain valleys, to the Mi-24 helicopter gunships and Su-25 jets that accompanied every substantial army operation, Soviet control of the air was a crucial battlefield asset. Vital to every aspect of its operations, Mi-8 helicopters ferried supplies to remote mountain-top observation points and took the bodies of fallen soldiers on their last journey home in An12 ‘Black Tulips’.
But this was not a wholly one-sided conflict. Even before the Afghan rebels began to acquire man-portable surface-to-air missiles such as the controversial US ‘Stinger,’ they aggressively and imaginatively adapted. They learnt new techniques of camouflage and deception, set up ambushes against low-level attacks, and even launched daring raids on airbases to destroy aircraft on the ground.
Featuring information previously unknown in the West, such as the Soviets’ combat-testing of Yak-38 ‘Forger’ naval jump jets, Soviet-expert Mark Galeotti examines the rebel, Kabul government and the Soviet operation in Afghanistan, drawing deeply on Western and Russian sources, and including after-action analyses from the Soviet military. Using maps, battlescenes and detailed ‘Bird’s Eye Views’, he paints a comprehensive picture of the air war and describes how, arguably, it was Soviet air power that made the difference between defeat for Moscow and the subsequent stalemate that they decided to disengage from.
Daniel Haulman, Misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen: Refuting Myths about America’s First Black Military Pilots (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2023).
Once an obscure piece of World War II history, the Tuskegee Airmen are now among the most celebrated and documented aviators in military history. With this growth in popularity, however, have come a number of inaccurate stories and assumptions. Misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen refutes fifty-five of these myths, correcting the historical record while preserving the Airmen’s rightful reputation as excellent servicemen.
The myths examined include: the Tuskegee Airmen never losing a bomber to an enemy aircraft; that Lee Archer was an ace; that Roscoe Brown was the first American pilot to shoot down a German jet; that Charles McGee has the highest total combat missions flown; and that Daniel “Chappie” James was the leader of the “Freeman Field Mutiny.” Historian Daniel Haulman, an expert on the Airmen with many published books on the subject, conclusively disproves these misconceptions through primary documents like monthly histories, daily narrative mission reports, honor-awarding orders, and reports on missing crews, thereby proving that the Airmen were without equal, even without embellishments to their story.
Jeff Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve months flying the Caribou in Vietnam (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2023).
Jeff Pedrina’s book provides a very personal and thoughtful account of his twelve month’s service in Vietnam with No 35 Squadron – ‘Wallaby Airlines’. While the story is primarily about the people, and the personalities, he encountered during his tour of duty in Vietnam, it is also the story of a remarkable aircraft, the de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou – the first mass-produced short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft of its size. For seven and a half years it was the backbone of the airlift effort in the highlands of Vietnam, and was operated by the Royal Australian Air Force until November 2009, forty-five years after it first entered RAAF service.
First into the theatre in 1964 and last out in 1972, the Caribou aircraft and its air and ground crews were the RAAF’s quiet achievers in Vietnam. In the course of seven and a half years, Wallaby Airlines achieved an excellent operational record and reputation as a tactical transport squadron. This book in its original format was first published in 2006, having been awarded Special Mention in the 2005 RAAF Heritage Awards. This new edition is intended to bring the experiences of Jeff Pedrina, and the exploits of the Wallaby Airlines and its venerable Caribou aircraft to life for a new generation of reader.
Usman Shabbir and Yawar Mazhar, Eagles of Destiny – Volume 1: Growth and Wars of the Pakistan Air Force, 1956-1971 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2023).
Eagles of Destiny Volume 2 is a detailed account of the transformation of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) with the help of the first US assistance program, and how its leadership utilised this opportunity to create a modern air force. It provides detailed coverage of the PAF’s participation in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, based on official documentation and material from private collections that were previously not available to the public. The story of the Pakistan Air Force during this period is concluded by the coverage of the first build-up with the Chinese support, against the backdrop of US sanctions, highlighting and discussing the challenges and response.
Finally, the book provides detailed coverage of PAF operations during the 1971 War with India, including several first-hand accounts by key officers. Between 1956 and 1971, the PAF inducted a number of new weapon systems, including US-made F-86 Sabres, French-made Mirages, and Chinese-made F-6s. These developments and PAF’s strategy are all discussed in great detail.
Richly illustrated, and almost entirely based on accounts never published before, Eagles of Destiny Volume 2 provides a unique insight from professionals who were either directly involved, or witnessed the affairs in question.
Established in 2016, From Balloons to Drones is an online scholarly platform that analyses and debates air power history (including aviation history), theory, and contemporary operations in their broadest sense, including space and cyber power. To date, we have published over 250 articles on various air power-related subjects.
Since its emergence at the start of the 20th Century, air power has increasingly become the preferred form of military power for many governments. However, the application and development of air power are controversial and often misunderstood. To remedy this, From Balloons to Drones seeks to provide analysis and debate about air power through the publication of articles, research notes, commentaries, book reviews, and historic book reviews – see below for a description of the range of articles published.
The study of air power is to be understood broadly, encompassing not only the history of air warfare, including social and cultural aspects, but also incorporating contributions from related fields, such as archaeology, international relations, strategic studies, law and ethics. Possible subjects to be explored might include, but are not limited to:
Strategy, Theory and Doctrine | Organisation and Policy | Roles
Operations – Kinetic and Non-Kinetic | Tactics, Training and Procedures
Strategic and Operational Effect | Technological Developments
Ethical and Moral Issues | National, International and Transnational Experiences
Personal Experiences | Culture | Memory and Memorialisation
From Balloons to Drones welcomes and encourages potential submissions from postgraduates, academics, and practitioners involved in researching the subject of air power.
A US Air Force Fairchild C-119B Flying Boxcar air-dropping supplies near Chungju, Korea, in 1951. (Source: Wikimedia)
We publish:
Scholarly Articles
From Balloons to Drones publishes informative, peer-reviewed articles on air power that range from historical pieces to the analysis of contemporary challenges. These well-researched articles aim to bridge the gap between specialist and non-specialist readers. They should be around c. 3,000 words, though From Balloons to Drones will accept longer pieces. We reserve the right to publish them in parts.
Air War Books
From Balloons to Drones publishes a series of review articles that examine the top ten books that have influenced writers on air power. See more here.
Commentaries
From Balloons to Drones publishes opinion pieces on recent news on either contemporary or historical subjects. These should be no longer than c.1,000 words.
Research Notes
From Balloons to Drones publishes research notes on contributors’ current research projects. These take the form of more informal pieces and can be discussions of a source or notes on a recent research theme. These should be c.500 to 1,000 words.
Book Reviews
From Balloons to Drones publishes regular book reviews that aim to be an accessible collection of appraisals of recent publications about air power. If you are a publisher interested in having your publication reviewed, please contact us at the email address below. See more here.
Historic Book Reviews
From Balloons to Drones publishes occasional historic book reviews that aim to be an accessible collection of appraisals of critical historic publications about air power history, theory, and practice. See more here.
Submissions should be submitted in Word format and emailed to the address below with ‘SUBMISSION’ in the subject line. Also, please include a 50-100-word biography with your submission. References can be used, and please be careful to explain any jargon. However, if you are unsure if your idea fits our requirements, please email us with ‘POTENTIAL SUBMISSION’ in the subject line to discuss.
If you are interested in contributing, please email our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.
Header image: A Panavia Tornado GR4 of No. IX(B) Squadron on a training sortie in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan, c. 2012. (Source: Wikimedia)
Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
50 years ago, in January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed. This ended major U.S. combat operations in the Vietnam War. To look back on the air campaigns that were so crucial to that war, we talk with Dr Michael Weaver, assistant professor at the US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College and author of The Air War in Vietnam from Texas Tech University Press. Join us as we look at the use of air power in Southeast Asia and talk about some of the legacies it leaves behind.
Dr Michael E. Weaver is an Associate Professor of History at the USAF Air Command and Staff College. He has authored five air power articles and a book on the 28th Infantry Division. His second book, The Air War in Vietnam, was published in 2022. Weaver received his doctorate from Temple University in 2002, where he studied under Russell Weigley.
Header image: View of the flight deck of the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) during her last deployment to Vietnam as an attack carrier between 1 February and 18 September 1969. Various aircraft of Carrier Air Wing 16 are visible on deck: a Vought F-8H Crusader of VF-111 ‘Sundowners,’ four LTV A-7B Corsair II of VA-87 ‘Golden Warriors,’ and five A-7Bs of VA-25 ‘Fist of the Fleet.’ (Source: Wikimedia)
After the Wright Brothers made their first flight in December 1903, it took the US Army several years to start paying attention to heavier-than-air aviation.[1] While lighter-than-air platforms, in the form of observation balloons, had been in use with the US military since the US Civil War, the novelty of heavier-than-air aviation in the form of aeroplanes eventually engaged the minds of military thinkers around the United States and all three combat arms – infantry, cavalry, and the field artillery.[2] Officers from these combat arms offered similar but often diverging takes on the new invention. By examining articles published in professional journals of the period, this article considers how the US Army received and thought about the aeroplane’s application before the outbreak of the First World War.
The Infantry
For the infantry branch, the aeroplane introduced the possibility of lifting the fog of war from the battlefield in the form of easier, faster, and more reliable scouting opportunities. In 1909, Captain John R.M. Taylor, an infantry officer and prolific military theorist of the period, wrote in the Journal of the United States Infantry Association – later the Infantry Journal – that combat had changed little since the US Civil War two generations earlier. Primarily, artillery still functioned as artillery, cavalry as cavalry, and infantry as infantry. Ranges and lethality had increased, but the overall way wars were fought had, he argued, largely remained similar – American theorists at this time tended to look to the experience of the US Civil War as the first modern war, excluding European definitions, which often included the Crimean War and the Franco-Prussian War.[3] However, the aeroplane offered a third dimension to the battlefield in the way that ground-based scouts – be it a group of skirmishers or a cavalry troop – could not replicate.[4]
Taylor’s article, using a counterfactual based on Major-General George McClellan’s campaigns in 1862, suggested that the former might have won the war if he had had reconnaissance aeroplanes. Taylor believed that while the aeroplane was still in its infancy, the same had been said about the automobile a decade prior. Moreover, he envisioned the aeroplane and the airship taking their place in the order of battle as soon as the next great war alongside automobiles in the aid and support of the three combat arms as screening and attack forces.[5]
While Taylor theorised about mechanised warfare broadly, the Massachusetts National Guard experimented with its application during their manoeuvres in 1909. Importantly, as Captain John Sherburne reported in the Infantry Journal’s pages, the Massachusetts National Guard improvised the use of ‘two automobile trucks as mounts for two light guns of naval type.’[6] Moreover, these were used as part of an ‘auto truck platoon’ by one opposing force during the manoeuvres. These experiences led Sherburne to hypothesise about the possibility of guns on such vehicles as potential anti-air assets, thus showing how even in the early years of aviation, officers were already thinking through the challenge of countering the threat from the air.[7]
In 1910 and 1912, respectively, Captain G.L. Townsend, a career infantry officer, and Captain Paul W. Beck, one of the US Army’s first pilots, summed up the mood in the infantry in the pages of the Infantry Journal by arguing for a compromise between enthusiasts and critics of early aviation. They argued that while aeroplanes and airships had not yet matured as platforms, it was the job of the peacetime army to pay attention to new developments and create doctrine and institutions. This was so that aeroplanes might be used in war both through trial and error and through observations of potentially hostile nations’ use of aviation, with particular attention paid to the zeppelins of Imperial Germany even as they remained in their infancy.[8]
The Infantry Journal’s editorial board, presided over by US Civil War veteran and former US Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General John C. Bates and made up of reform-minded career officers who wished to modernise and professionalise the Army, broadly agreed with the ideas and proposals of these Townsend and Beck. Moreover, they believed that once fully developed, the aeroplane would become a great asset to infantry soldiers as a scouting force where cavalry could not reach. Nevertheless, they tempered the mood of aviation enthusiasts by recommending that any work on aviation be postponed to a time when war would be on the horizon. Aviation, as they argued, was too costly at the time. In the end, it all came down to funding. For the price of a squadron of aeroplanes or airships, machinery operating on the bleeding edge of technological progress, the US Army could fund and outfit several regiments or even divisions of infantry:
In the time required for us to create a field army after the declaration of war, and until such an army were in readiness both aeroplanes and aeroplanists would be useless, we should have time to build more aeroplanes and train more aeroplanists than probably any nation will ever use in war. The aeroplane can do us no greater military harm than driving out of mind again that our need now is the same as always — merely men, not machines, even though they be new machines with all the fancied terrors that superstition and ignorance give to things unknown. The invention of gunpowder was once expected to end war (as were the torpedo and the submarine).[9]
Given this attitude, the infantry, always searching for more funding, applied the same logic to aeroplanes as critics of standing armies had done to the infantry: aviation units did not require costly training. They could be raised at a moment’s notice. This obfuscated the real reason: the US Army had no money to investigate the potential of aviation.[10] Despite being stretched thin in manpower and funding; numerous infantry officers had become advocates for aviation. First among them was First Lieutenant Benjamin Foulois, the US Army’s first official aviator and a lifelong air power advocate and pioneer, who wrote in 1908 that in ‘all future warfare, we can expect to see engagements in the air between hostile aerial fleets.’[11]
Signal Corps No. 1 in front of its hanger at Fort Sam Houston in 1910. (Source: United States Air Force)
The Cavalry
The cavalry, by contrast, saw its role as the US Army’s eyes and ears threatened by the invention of the aeroplane. Having already acknowledged that its days of charging enemy positions and dispersing troops were long over, the American cavalry had reinvented itself first as a frontier constabulary, a scouting force, and, in its current iteration, a force of mounted infantry ready to fight as infantry, to protect the flanks of the advancing army, and to chase fleeing enemy infantry.[12] Already criticised by the infantry and artillery branches who doubted the viability of horse cavalry against modern weapon systems, the cavalry were determined to keep their role as scouting and routing forces. It was no wonder that in the Journal of the United States Cavalry Association in 1909, the well-respected horsemanship expert Edward L. Anderson dubbed the Wright Brothers’ aeroplane and automobiles as abominations.’[13]
In a 1911 article in the Journal of the United States Cavalry Association on the reorganisation of the cavalry branch, Brigadier General Walter Schuyler, a long-serving cavalry commander since the American Indian Wars, saw the aeroplane and any other form of modern technology like the radio or the automobile as auxiliary forces that would help the cavalry increase its reaction time on the battlefield.[14] However, on the other hand, others, such as retired officer E.L. Gilpin saw the cavalry as more than capable of taking on the aeroplane in single combat, believing that while the aeroplane might offer a bird’s eye view of the battlefield, the horse cavalry was the superior scout for detailed information even as they used their carbines to shoot down reconnaissance aeroplanes with superior marksmanship.[15] Even the supporters of the aeroplane among the cavalry belittled aviation enthusiasts as having a ‘child-like faith.’[16] They believed that the maturation of the technology would, eventually, lead to it becoming a great support system. Nevertheless, like its peer, the infantry, the cavalry could not – and would not – see the aeroplane as revolutionary in its current state.[17]
The Artillery
The artillery, meanwhile, precisely saw that. Colonel John P. Wisser, a coastal artillery officer and an accomplished West Point educator and military attaché, became a staunch supporter of the aeroplane, as did many other artillery officers at the time. Reviewing the events of the Russo-Japanese War, Wisser echoed many views held by the infantry’s Taylor. He also believed that the US Army’s overall make-up had not changed since the US Civil War except for longer ranges and increased firepower. By contrast, aviation was still advancing exponentially to the point that an army fighting in the 1910s would have identical infantry and cavalry assets to the previous decade. However, its aviation assets would set it apart from any army of the last 50 years.[18] By 1912, the artillery community concurred with Wisser’s original conjecture and believed they had found in aviation the best tool for mastering indirect artillery fire.
It was also an artillery officer, Isaac Lewis, whose light machine gun, the Lewis Gun, was first tested by the US Army as an aircraft-mounted weapons system. In 1912, Captain Charles Chandler and Lieutenant Roy Kirtland took a Wright Model B Flyer up in the sky. They tested the Lewis Gun as an air-to-ground weapon, scoring adequate hits against paper targets and collecting valuable data about air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.[19]
While the artillery arm welcomed the aeroplane and the airship most enthusiastically among the three combat arms, this was likely due to its position as a largely technical and engineering-driven arm that was not in direct competition with the changes military aviation later brought to the battlefield. Indeed, artillery was already seen as an auxiliary to cavalry and infantry operations and relied on accurate reconnaissance to provide just that. While the infantry could not justify the cost at the time and the cavalry felt threatened in its role as the reconnaissance arm of the US Army, the field artillery accepted the aeroplane as another tool that would help them accomplish their mission more quickly as well as more precisely.[20]
Conclusion
US Army aviation remained in its infancy after the outbreak of the First World War. While military aviation faced criticism as a novelty across the US Army, it largely enjoyed at least some measure of support across all combat arms who saw in it a valuable new tool for scouting, transportation, and even what would eventually be called close air support. The American military was quick to experiment with arming aeroplanes and creating ad-hoc anti-aircraft guns, showing they were quick to comprehend, use, and adapt to modern technology. However, fear of change and budgetary concerns remained, sabotaging efforts to experiment with aviation to its fullest extent. Additionally, the combat arms essentially saw aviation as a support arm, severely limiting the military theory that could be developed around the new invention.
Alexander Reineke is a PhD candidate in the North American History Department at Ruhr University Bochum. His thesis, provisionally entitled, ‘Prussia Envy? Alienation and War Preparedness in the Peacetime US Army, 1900-1941, focuses on the peacetime US Army before and after the First World War. He received his MA in History from Ruhr University Bochum in 2019. Since 2020, he has been a member of the editorial staff at AKM Portal für Militärgeschichte.
Header image: A Wight Model A arrives at Fort Myer, Virginia aboard a wagon for testing by the US Army, attracting the attention of children and adults, 1 September 1908. (Source: Wikimedia)
[1] On the development of US Army aviation in this period, see: Herbert A. Johnson, Wingless Eagle: US Army Aviation through World War I (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Laurence Burke II, At the Dawn of Airpower: The U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps’ Approach to the Airplane, 1907-1917 (Baltimore, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022).
[2] F. Stansbury Haydon, Military Ballooning during the Early Civil War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), passim. First published in 1941 as Aeronautics in the Union and Confederate Armies: With a Survey of Military Aeronautics Prior to 1861 by Johns Hopkins University Press.
[3] A.D. Harvey, ‘Was the American Civil War the First Modern War?’ History 97, no. 2 (2012), pp. 272-280.
[4] Captain John R.M. Taylor, ‘Cavalry and the Aeroplane,’ Journal of the United States Infantry Association VI, no. 1 (1909), p. 84; Lori Henning, Harnessing the Aeroplane: American and British Responses to a New Technology, 1903-1939 (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 2019), p. 35.
[5] Taylor, ‘Cavalry and the Aeroplane,’ pp. 85-7.
[6] Captain John H. Sherburne, ‘Automobile Guns in the Massachusetts Maneuvers,’ Journal of the United States Infantry Association VI, no. 3 (1909), p. 375.
[7] Sherburne, ‘Automobile Guns in the Massachusetts Maneuvers,’ pp. 380-81.
[8] Captain G.L. Townsend, ‘The Use and Effect of Flying Machines on Military Operations,’ Infantry Journal VII, no. 2 (1910), pp. 246-55; Captain Paul W. Beck, ‘Military Aviation in America. Its Needs,’ Infantry Journal VIII, no. 6 (1912), pp. 796-817.
[9] Anonymous, ‘Concerning Aeroplanes for the Army,’ Infantry Journal VII, no. 3 (1910), p.461.
[10] First Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois, ‘Military Aviation and Aeronautics,’ Infantry Journal IX, no. 3 (1912), pp. 314-6; Harvey M. Spaolsky et al., U.S. Defense Politics. The Origins of Security Policy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), p. 116.
[11] Benjamin D. Foulois with Carroll V. Glines, From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts. The Memoirs of Major General Benjamin D. Foulois (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company 1968), p. 44.
[12] Louis A. DiMarco, War Horse. A History of the Military Horse and Rider (Westholme, PA: Yardley 2008), pp. 289-298.
[13] See Anonymous, ‘Editorial,’ Infantry Journal I, no. 3 (1905), pp. 174-81 and similar analyses of the use of cavalry in the Russo-Japanese War published in the service journals between 1904 and 1906. Edward L. Anderson, ‘Horses and Riding,’ Journal of the United States Cavalry Association XIX, no. 72 (1909), p. 729.
[14] ‘Cavalry Reorganization,’ Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, Vol. XXII, No. 85, p. 23; Henning, Harnessing the Aeroplane, pp. 33-4.
[15] E.H. Gilpin, ‘Armament and Equipment of the Cavalryman,’ Journal of the United States Cavalry Association XXII, no. 85 (1911), p. 82.
[16] First Lieutenant Daniel L. Roscoe, ’The Effect of Aeroplanes Upon Cavalry Tactics,’ Journal of the United States Cavalry Association XXIV, no. 101 (1914), p. 856.
[17] Roscoe, ’The Effect of Aeroplanes Upon Cavalry Tactics,’ p. 857.
[18] Colonel John P. Wisser, ‘German Ideas on Tactics,’ Infantry Journal VII, no. 3 (1910), pp. 377-80.
[19] C.H. Powell, ‘The Lewis Automatic Gun,’ Infantry Journal IX, no. 1 (1912), p. 44.
[20] Colonel John P. Wisser, ‘The Tactical and Strategical Use of Dirigible Balloons and Aeroplanes,’ Cavalry Journal XXI, no. 81 (1910), p. 414.
Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
Our latest podcast discusses our favourite books of the year with Dr Ross Mahoney, Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones. Each of us discusses our top three reads of 2022, and we take a look forward at some topics we would really like to hear more about in the future.
Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, particularly concerning the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is currently the Senior Historian within the City Architecture and Heritage Team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has over 15 years of experience in the heritage and education sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum in the UK. In Australia, he has worked as a Historian for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and taught at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University based at the Australian War College. His research interests are focused on the history of war, specifically the history of air warfare, transport history, and urban history. To date, he has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. He has a book review website here and can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header image: One of six FMA IA 58 Pucará’s destroyed on 15 May 1982 after a raid by the Special Air Service on Pebble Island during the Falklands War. (Source: Wikimedia)
Adrian Phillips, Rearming the RAF for the Second World War: Poor Strategy and Miscalculation. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2022. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Hbk. xxvi + 350 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Matthew Powell
The history of the rearmament of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and the British aircraft industry in the inter-war period, more generally, has undergone a degree of revision over recent decades, mainly through the works of Sebastian Ritchie and David Edgerton. In this work, Adrian Phillips looks to challenge this new orthodoxy. Phillips seeks to show that the RAF adopted an incorrect way of conceptualising air warfare in the mid-to late-1930s. Phillips claims that the Air Ministry and the wider RAF incorrectly prioritised bombers over fighters when rearmament began in the 1930s. Phillips further contends that this prioritisation can be traced back to the theorising of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Trenchard, the RAF’s Chief of the Air Staff in the 1920s. Despite dispelling several myths about RAF expansion in the inter-war period, Phillips does not provide an overly convincing case for several reasons.
The critical issue with Phillips’ book is that it suffers from a general lack of understanding of the wider historical context of the RAF’s development in this period. Despite a relatively extensive bibliography, it appears that many more recent works in this area have not been consulted. This illustrates a broader bias inherent in Phillips’ work, namely that the RAF was wrong in its thinking.
Several examples sufficiently highlight the problem of understanding present in this work. For instance, in seeking to rehabilitate the argument that the RAF took no interest in supporting the British army or developing its capabilities in this area, this has long been questioned by more recent studies showing the case to be far more complex and nuanced than Phillips is willing to give them credit for. Indeed, Phillips’ would have benefitted from a reading of the work of David Ian Hall or this author’s own research. The lack of engagement with such works suggests a wider lack of contextual knowledge of the inter-war period and the pressures the RAF faced regarding their survival as an independent Service.
Concerning issues related to aircraft development, an examination of the various works of Edgerton, would have aided in providing the wider context of the development of the British aircraft industry. This would allow for a greater understanding of the relationship between the Air Ministry and the aircraft industry to be explored within the book. This lack of understanding is a concern in a work of this length. For instance, the Air Ministry is criticised for its decision to continue authorising the production of obsolescent aircraft such as the Fairey Battle (p. 42). Phillips’ argument, however, does not consider the industrial problems of the British aircraft industry in enough depth to demonstrate the difficulties faced by the Air Ministry. For example, officials at the Air Ministry faced the difficult decision of whether to order aircraft from firms to retain labour and gain large-scale production experience or reduce the potential for losing skilled labour. If the latter option were chosen, the teething problems of ramping up production that had been experienced at the start of the rearmament drive would be experienced again.
Moreover, there also appears to be a further lack of specific understanding of the wider aircraft industry and the challenges the Air Ministry faced in getting aircraft through the design and development programme. This is used, again, as a stick with which to hit the Air Ministry, without taking the time to develop a more nuanced argument by considering the lead times from specifications being issued to the first production batch being delivered (p. 107). Aircraft that emerged from aircraft firms and went on to be household names during the Second World War were going through the design and development process at the time decisions were being made to expand the RAF and fall into the quantity versus quality argument that was had by those in the Air Ministry responsible for this area. Phillips is, however, correct in highlighting that this left Bomber Command with a significant capability gap from the start of the war in 1939 until the introduction of the four-engined Lancaster heavy bomber in 1941.
Combined with the issue of contextual understanding, Phillips’ work suffers from a degree of hindsight bias. Again, this bias is used to illustrate that the RAF were wrong. For example, the RAF and the wider Air Ministry are criticised for not realising the importance of the experiments being conducted by Robert Watson-Watt in developing a basic air defence system (pp. 30, 130-1). This feels like an overly harsh criticism given that the technology was being developed as decisions on arming the RAF were being made. Furthermore, a potential failure in this technology meant facing a similar problem to that of the First World War regarding advanced warning of incoming enemy aircraft.
Despite these criticisms, the chapters analysing the relationship between the wider government and the Air Ministry are the most engaging. They provide a real depth of understanding of the dynamics at play between the two. However, even here, there is a degree of reading history backwards and criticising the RAF on decisions where those looking after the event know what happened, but the protagonists do not.
A Vickers Vildebeest I on display at King George V’s Jubilee Review at Mildenhall, July 1935. (Source: IWM)
As well as the areas identified above, several stylistic issues exist with the book’s structure and form. This makes gaining any momentum in the argument and analysis challenging to sustain. The book comprises 38 chapters, which, given the size of the work, means most are relatively short and jump around the topic area, thus making the overall argument and analysis challenging to follow. There is also a lack of analytical consistency tying each chapter together and a tendency to move around chronologically without setting the ideas being discussed in context, especially if they had been mentioned in previous chapters. This truncated style leaves an impression that a tighter structure would have helped with the flow of the argument and would have aided in making the links between developments clearer. In addition, a clearer statement of intent at the beginning of each chapter would have aided readers in understanding what the author wanted them to take away in terms of argument and viewpoint.
Critically, one of the significant issues with this work’s presentation is the lack of references within each chapter. Many statements lack supporting evidence (either primary or secondary), and quotes are also left unsupported. For example, chapter 2, which looks at the period when Sir Hugh Trenchard becomes Chief of the Air Staff for the second time, has only one reference, despite plentiful sources. Additionally, the primary evidence cited has been chosen to suit a particular pre-formed argument rather than the argument formed by the available evidence (of which the files in The National Archives alone are plentiful).
Overall, this attempt at post-revisionism largely fails in presenting a depth of analysis through the poor use of references and available evidence. It feels as if the author had their argument in mind before the research. The traditional bashing of the RAF of the inter-war period has yet to disappear from the annals of history.
Dr Matthew Powell is a Teaching Fellow at Portsmouth Business School at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell. He holds a PhD in Modern History from the University of Birmingham. His first book The Development of British Tactical Air Power, 1940 1943: A History of Army Co-operation Command, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. He has published in War in History, The Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, Air and Space Power Review and the British Journal of Military History. His current research investigates the relationship between the Air Ministry and the British aircraft industry in the inter-war period.
Header image: The prototype Supermarine Spitfire, K5054, c. 1936. (Source: Wikimedia)
Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
In our latest podcast, we interview Dr Laurence Burke II, the Aviation Curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We ask how did the US get from the first flight of an aeroplane in 1903 to full-fledged military-capable aeroplanes in only short few years? Burke takes us through the people that made that journey happen. He explores the different approaches to the airplane made by the US Army, Navy, and Marines Corps, and why each of them went about exploring military aviation in a unique way.
Dr Laurence Burke is the Aviation Curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. He earned an undergraduate degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s in Museum Studies from George Washington University, and, in 2014, a PhD in History and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Since then, he has taught history at the United States Naval Academy as a post-doc and then was Curator of U.S. Naval Aviation at the National Air and Space Museum for several years before starting the job at Quantico.
Header image: A Wight Model A arrives at Fort Myer, Virginia aboard a wagon for testing by the US Army, attracting the attention of children and adults, 1 September 1908. (Source: Wikimedia)
James M. Scott, Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb. W.W. Norton: New York, NY, 2022. Hbk. 420 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie
There will always be an inevitable struggle between popular historians writing for the general public and academic authors whose writing is often aimed at those working in the so-called ‘ivory tower’ of academia. However, the work of academic historians inform that of popular historians whose work reaches a wider audience of readers, some of whom are thus, in turn, inspired to become academics. This was certainly how I became interested in the profession of being a historian. Nevertheless, every so often, an author comes along who is that rarest of creatures: the unicorn, or that rare writer who blends academic credentials and methodology and the ability to spin a readable tale. James Scott is that unicorn with his new book, Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb. Scott, a journalist and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, is the author of several best-selling history books, including Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila and Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history.
The history of America’s strategic bombing during the Second World War has recently been sensationalized with the publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia (2021). However, Black Snow is, in reality, the Bomber Mafia book you have wanted to read. Indeed, if Gladwell’s book was an appetizer, then this is the main course and dessert. Scott more fully explores the background and motivations of Generals Haywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay and, given the length of Scott’s work, produces a much more coherent explanation of how and why each man acted in accordance with their desires to end the war. Black Snow, focusing on the experience of Japan’s civilian population on the ground, is also reminiscent of Stephen Bourque’s Beyond the Beach (2018) and Richard Overy’s The Bombers and the Bombed (2014). Each of these volumes provides well-needed reminders of the horrific suffering faced by those on the receiving end of bombings. Moreover, Scott is at his best when describing the situation on the ground from the perspective of the Japanese who lived through the bombing. To achieve that end, Scott interviewed 11 survivors and spent research time at archives in the United States and the Center for the Tokyo Air Raids and War Damage, the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, and other institutions in Japan.
A cockpit view of two 39th Bomb Group B-29s out of North Field (Andersen) on a mission to Hiratsuka, Japan, 16 July 1945. (Source: Wikimedia)
While other books have focused on the strategic bombing campaigns against Japan, such as Herman S. Wolk’s Cataclysm (2010), Barrett Tillman’s Whirlwind (2010), Daniel Schwabe’s Burning Japan (2015), and Kenneth Werrell’s Blankets of Fire (1996), few have done as well as Scott has in presenting a comprehensive treatment. Once again, Scott’s focus on those on the ground is where this book truly adds to the conversation and the historical record. While the morality of the bombing of Japan is not the subject of this review, and there is, again, a wide literature on the subject, Scott’s ability to detail and compare the actions of some of Japan’s citizens against those wing commander – and future commander of the United States Air Force’s Strategic Air Command – Thomas Power is thought-provoking rather one is an expert in the field or coming to this area fresh. Power called the bombing of Japan ‘the greatest show on earth’ (p. 248).
Black Snow is geared towards a wide audience and not for the expert in the field. Given this, one area where the book may be seen to fall down to those with more detailed knowledge of the subject is in the book’s biographies of Generals Henry “Hap” Arnold (pp. 13-9) and LeMay (pp. 97-109). These are slightly overextended to someone who is not approaching the subject for the first time. However, this is really a minor critique.
Overall, Black Snow is a terrific addition to the historiography of the use of air power in the Pacific War of the Second World Ward. As mentioned, the work will appeal to both buffs and scholars alike, and both will find much to engage within these pages. Black Snow is a needed addition to the conversation of what air power can and cannot do, but more importantly, what air power can do when restraints are removed and why the United States must guard against unrestricted aerial warfare in future conflicts.
Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and is the Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy. Formerly he was the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (2021), Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.
Header image: A Boeing B-29A Superfortress of the 6th Bombardment Group on a mission to Osaka, Japan, 1 June 1945. (Source: Wikimedia)
Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
With the threat of nuclear war rising once again as tension among global powers increases, in our latest podcast, we talk to Professor Sean M. Maloney of the Royal Military College of Canada to look at what the nuclear war plans of the U.S. were during the early Cold War. We also discuss what a nuclear war might have looked like, and how it would have potentially been waged.
Dr Sean M. Maloney is a Professor of History at the Royal Military College and served as the Historical Advisor to the Chief of the Land Staff during the war in Afghanistan. He previously served as the historian for 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade, the Canadian Army’s primary Cold War NATO commitment after the reunification of Germany and at the start of Canada’s long involvement in the Balkans. He is the author of numerous works, and his latest book is Emergency War Plan: The American Doomsday Machine, 1945–1960 (2021).
Header image: A Boeing B-47B undertaking a rocket-assisted take-off. The black smoke from engines indicates that water-methanol injection is in use. (Source: Wikimedia)
Dr Michael E. Weaver is an Associate Professor of History at the USAF Air Command and Staff College. He has authored five air power articles and a book on the 28th Infantry Division. His second book, The Air War in Vietnam, was published in 2022. Weaver received his doctorate from Temple University in 2002, where he studied under Russell Weigley.
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