Paul F. Crickmore, Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions – The Missing Chapters. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2023. Appendices. Bibliography. Hbk, 528 pp.
Author Paul Crickmore is the unofficial Dean of the school of SR-71 studies. Much of what is public knowledge is due to his diligent efforts and publication record. Crickmore has spent decades uncovering every piece of paper concerning the program, from its reception to its retirement. He has left no stone unturned and no recently declassified document unexamined. No discussion of the A-12, SR-71, or any other variants is complete without mentioning his name. Every academic or researcher interested in air power studies, particularly those interested in low observability or the history of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, has one of his books near. His previous titles include Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions (Revised Edition 2016), Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed (Osprey Modern Military) 1993, Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed 1997, and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird 1986. Crickmore has recently published what might be rightly said to be the final word on the history of this iconic airframe in Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond the Secret Missions, The Missing Chapters.
This is not just the history of the SR-71 but begins with a rather detailed examination of aerial ISR platforms in the post-World War II and Cold War era, including the U-2. Crickmore should be commended early on for his thorough analysis and excellent work on stealth vs performance characteristics (p. 44). An early highlight is the section detailing Convair’s ‘First Invisible Super Hustler (FISH),’ a modified B-58 with a parasitic jet-powered aircraft attached to the hull that would drop and rocket off on its mission. I chuckled at the idea of a B-58 crewmember being forced to trade in their coveted ‘I fly to the Hustler’ for an ‘I fly the FISH.’ While Convair worked on their flying FISH, members of Lockheed went through significant changes in designs for their ‘Archangel’ concept. ‘Archangel’ was the name Lockheed engineer Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson used for his internal design efforts for a future Surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. The final concept drawing was the twelfth of a series of the ‘Archangel,’ thus the A-12 (44-45).
An air-to-air overhead view of an SR-71A strategic reconnaissance aircraft, c. 1988. (Source: US National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 6438039))
Crickmore’s book really ‘takes off’ in his chapter on SR-71 operations over North Vietnam as part of Operation BLACK SHIELD and its photo reconnaissance missions detecting North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites and other targets of interest, including photographs of the Hoa Loa (Hanoi Hilton) prison complex. This chapter also gives an excellent description of North Vietnam’s missile operators’ attempts to track and engage the A-12. From there, Crickmore covers every possible A-12 and SR-71 operation and deployment. Historians of the Cold War will especially enjoy Crickmore’s details about the USSR’s attempts to intercept the SR-71.
There are some drawbacks to what is otherwise a very fine work. The book is weighty, both for its in-depth research and size. At more than 500 pages of high-gloss paper, the book is literally heavy. Its measurements are 9.9 x 12.55 inches, and its weight is nearly seven pounds. This has become a trend for some presses, which one might call the ‘high-end coffee table book.’ This is not a book to be carried around in your spare time and read; it remained firmly ensconced on my desk for the duration of its review. In reality, this is something of a hybrid between an in-depth history, a photographic coffee table book, and a reference book. One of my students who noticed the copy sitting on my desk stated, “It looks good on a bookshelf, but no one actually reads those cover to cover.” No one except book reviewers, of course. Another problem is that there are also no footnotes, another trend in some recent publications, perhaps to attract a larger audience and not be perceived as a stuffy academic tome. However, there is a real and dangerous drawback to not noting where particular quotes or data were extracted. The appendices – one of Crickmore’s greatest contributions is his appendices – are slightly different from the previous version published in 2016, although the missing information is available online.
Crickmore’s book, this new and expanded edition of Lockheed Blackbird, is indeed the final word and ultimate reference guide for the history of the entire SR-71 program. As Crickmore notes, few aircraft transcend to being ‘iconic,’ and undoubtedly, the SR-71 surpassed that label many years ago. Crickmore’s book is a must-have for every aviation enthusiast and a must-read for every aviation and Cold War scholar who seeks to understand this legendary aircraft’s history, operations, and legacy.
Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and 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 right front view of an SR-71B Blackbird strategic reconnaissance training aircraft, silhouetted on the runway at sundown at Beale AFB, 1 June 1988. Image by Technical Sergeant Michael Haggerty. (Source: US National Archives and Records Administration (NAID 6438040))
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.
From Balloons to Drones is excited to be joined by veteran astronaut Tom Jones to talk about the history of the US Space Shuttle Program. Having flown in space on four shuttle missions, Jones shares not only his own perspective but also reflects on the entirety of the shuttle program based on the interviews and research that informed his new book, Space Shuttle Stories: Firsthand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions (2023), from Smithsonian Books.
Tom Jones is a veteran astronaut, planetary scientist, pilot, author, and speaker who completed four space shuttle missions and three spacewalks in helping build the International Space Station. Jones has authored six books, including Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir, and has written for aerospace magazines such as Air & Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Popular Mechanics, and The Planetary Report. A senior research scientist for IHMC, he appears regularly on television news as an expert commentator for space exploration and science stories.
Header image: Space Shuttle Atlantis takes flight on its STS-27 mission on 2 December 1988, utilising 375,000 pounds of thrust produced by its three main engines. The engines start in 3.9 seconds of ignition and go to static pump speeds of approximately 35,000 revolutions per minute during that time. (Source NASA)
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.
2023 marks the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the first female American combat fighter pilots. How did the US go from women not being allowed in military aeroplanes to having women combat pilots? Eileen Bjorkman (Colonel, USAF, ret’d) joins us to discuss these momentous changes. She is a former flight test engineer who has flown in aircraft like the F-4 Phantom and the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and she is the author of Fly Girls Revolt: The Story of the Women who Kicked Open the Door to Fly in Combat (2023), from Knox Press.
Eileen Bjorkman is a retired US Air Force Colonel. She was a flight test engineer during her USAF career, flying more than 700 hours in twenty-five different types of military aircraft, including fighters such as the F-4 and F-16. She is also a civilian pilot and author of The Propeller Under the Bed (2017) and Unforgotten in the Gulf of Tonkin (2020).
Header image: Female fighter pilots assigned to the 36th and 25th Fighter Squadrons join together before flying a historic all-female flight at Osan Air Base, South Korea, on 25 October 2021. The flight is the first time 10 female Airmen have planned, led and flown in a formation together while assigned to Osan AB. Eight pilots are A-10 Thunderbolt II pilots, and two are F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots. (Source: US Air Force)
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.
The American spaceflight program is a popular, inspirational story that many of us are familiar with, but what about the Soviet Union’s space program? To explore it, we’re joined by Dr Cathleen Lewis, Curator of International Space Programs and Spacesuits at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and author of Cosmonaut: A Cultural History (2023) from the University of Florida Press. She tells us not only about how the Soviet space program worked but its cultural effect on the people of the Soviet Union and how it has been remembered since then.
We apologize for an audio problem with one of our microphones that we were unaware of until editing, when it was too late to fix.
Dr Cathleen S. Lewis is the Curator of International Space Programs and Spacesuits at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, specializing in Soviet and Russian history. She co-edited Spaceflight: A Smithsonian Guide and Air and Space History: An Annotated Bibliography.
Header image: Visitors at the 38th Paris International Air and Space Shown at Le Bourget Airfield line up to tour a Soviet An-225 Mriya aircraft with the Space Shuttle Buran on its back. (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 interview, we talk to former United States Air Force F-4 Phantom pilot Lee Ellis who was a prisoner of war in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ in Vietnam for over five years. However, in the time since, he noticed that he and many other POWs had gone on to experience dramatic love lives. Ellis joins us to discuss his new book, Captured By Love: Inspiring True Romance Stories from Vietnam POWs.
Lee Ellisis the Founder and President of Leadership Freedom® LLC and FreedomStar Media®. He is an award-winning author, leadership coach, and expert presenter in the areas of leadership, teambuilding, and human performance. Early in his career, Lee was a United States Air Force fighter pilot flying fifty-three combat missions over North Vietnam. In 1967, he was shot down and held as a POW for over five years in Hanoi and surrounding camps. For his wartime service, he was awarded two Silver Stars, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star with Valor device, the Purple Heart, and POW Medal. Lee resumed his Air Force career, serving in leadership roles of increasing responsibility, including command of a flying squadron and leadership development organizations, before retiring as a colonel. Lee has a BA in History and a MS in Counseling and Human Development. He is a graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College and the Air War College. He has authored or co-authored five books on leadership and career development.
Header image: A US Air Force McDonnell F-4C Phantom II from the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, rolls out on takeoff from Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, circa 1967. It is configured for the MiGCAP escort role with AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles under the fuselage, and AIM-9B Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and extra fuel tanks under the wings. (Source: Wikimedia)
I am fascinated by aircraft designs that ‘could have been.’ Maybe it’s just my nostalgia for childhood drawings of imaginary aeroplanes, but I love looking at the concept for the out-of-the-box ideas that never made it off the drawing board. Recently, I was researching at the beautiful Huntington Library archives, combing through the papers of Ben Rich, who ran Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects division, ‘Skunk Works,’ between 1975 and 1990. ‘Skunk Works’ handled Lockheed’s top-secret programs, such as the U-2. I came across his files on the CL-400, also known as Project Suntan.[1] This had nothing to do with the project I was working on, but I found the files fascinating and wanted to share some of what I found here on From Balloons to Drones.
In 1955, most people dancing to Bill Haley’s new hit song ‘Rock Around the Clock’ had little idea that the Central Intelligence Agency and US Air Force had partnered with Lockheed to design a secret spy plane to fly 70,000 feet above the Soviet Union, the U-2. However, even as the U-2 began flying, Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, then chief engineer at Lockheed’s Burbank, California plant, suspected that the U-2 would not last long – it was an effective aeroplane but vulnerable. Johnson wanted a follow-on to the U-2 that could fly even higher, further, and faster.
Lockheed turned to the advantages of high-energy fuels, specifically liquid hydrogen (LH). With a much greater energy density, hydrogen was more powerful (and hazardous). On paper, it seemed like an LH-powered aircraft could have everything Johnson needed: very long range, very high altitude, and supersonic speed. Rich led the project, working under Johnson at the ‘Skunk Works.’
Rich recalled, ‘between 1955-1958, [Lockheed] developed and built all the components and systems necessary for a liquid hydrogen-fueled airplane.’ Designing aircraft to use this unique fuel source presented major challenges. As Rich noted: ‘The hydrogen fueled airplane has very little flexibility in design configuration […] since fuel requirements dictate a long fuselage with attendant balancing and C.G. [center of gravity] travel limitations.’
Nevertheless, the concept went through a series of iterations. The original CL-400 was a two-seat reconnaissance plane, 160 feet long with a 10-foot diameter. The wings resembled Lockheed’s F-104 Starfighter, and the plane’s vertical fin was retractable. It was designed to cruise at 99,500 feet, going Mach 2.5, for a maximum range of 2,200 nautical miles.
An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
That was just the beginning. Variant designs on the CL-400, Rich says, ‘were studied from the standpoint of achieving maximum range rather than maximum altitude.’ As evident from the accompanying series of plan drawings, the original CL-400 was near the size of the massive Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber, but increasing its range meant increasing the fuel capacity. So, the designs got bigger. Much, much bigger.
Drawing of the CL-400-12. (Source: An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
The CL-400-12 was more than double the size of a B-52 and designed for a 4,720 nautical mile range with four engines blasting it to Mach 2.5. Rich’s notes simply stated that ‘the aircraft size is quite large.’
Drawing of the CL-400-13. (Source: Drawing of the CL-400-12. (Source: An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
The CL-400-13 took the idea even further with a cone-delta design and forward canards. The aeroplane was almost the length of one football field, with a gross take-off weight of 376,000 pounds. Nevertheless, it could cruise at Mach 4 for a total range of 9,000 nautical miles. The CL-400-14 was similar in size to the -13 but used four smaller engines instead of two big ones.
Drawing of the CL-400-14 (Source: Drawing of the CL-400-13. (Source: Drawing of the CL-400-12. (Source: An illustration showing the relative size comparison of the C-400-14 with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and a Lockheed Constellation (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
Hydrogen, as readers familiar with the Hindenburg disaster will attest, is also very dangerous. Lockheed had an approach to address the danger: try to cause a series of hydrogen explosions. Rich’s notes explained that ‘Numerous hydrogen ignition tests were made so as to get a feel for the damage potential in such an explosion, and it was found that the danger was not nearly as great as expected. Explosions were generally mild, and hydrogen fireball radiation was much less than that from a comparable kerosene fire.’ They tried to create an explosion 61 times, and only twice (when purposefully mixed with oxygen and ignited) did it cause ‘a bona fide explosion.’ Lockheed engineers were convinced LH could be handled safely – even more critically since the top-secret nature of the program meant that if there were an uncontrollable fire, they would not be able to call the fire department.[2]
Lockheed built a massive facility to test methods to produce, store, and transport the large quantities of liquid hydrogen necessary to operate a fleet of huge, LH-guzzling aeroplanes a few hundred yards away from the Burbank Municipal Airport. Dr Russell Scott, a leading expert on liquid hydrogen from the U.S. Bureau of Standards, visited the facility and said, ‘My God in heaven, you’re gonna to blow up Burbank.’[3] Ultimately, the logistical challenges of operating a fleet of LH aircraft proved insurmountable at the time. After examining the international basing requirements for the necessary fuel, Johnson gave up on the project. He called the Secretary of the Air Force, James Douglas, and said, ‘I’m afraid I’m building you a dog. My recommendation is that we cancel Suntan.’[4] Today, U-2s are still flying, and the Burbank site, which was once the home for testing and production of classic Lockheed aircraft, has been turned into a giant shopping complex featuring a Best Buy and Wal-Mart. In a way, maybe Burbank did blow up.
It is tempting to write off this story as a historical footnote, but the story of Suntan has three important takeaways: First, failure is important. Just because the project never went to production does not mean it was insignificant. With the aerospace industry currently looking into the potential use of hydrogen fuel, projects like this are still relevant. Second, failed designs still have a strong influence on those that succeed. Going through the process of designing these aircraft and thinking through potential solutions taught these engineers a lot. Many of the design elements first experimented with on the CL-400 went on to have a strong influence on the design of later aircraft – especially the A-12, the forerunner of the SR-71 Blackbird.
Finally, the CL-400 shows the importance and power of imagination. These planes might seem wild, but the effort shows that engineers could push themselves to think outside the box. This reveals the mindset underneath American Cold War aviation design – that it often gravitated to the massive or even outlandish, but it is also inspiring. I am not an aircraft designer, but I hope that in my own life and work, I am pushing myself to think beyond the boundaries of what I think might be possible, explore new ideas and see where they lead.
Dr Michael Hankins is the Curator for US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the author of Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (2021). In addition, he is a former Professor of Strategy at the USAF Air Command and Staff College eSchool, and a former Instructor of Military History at the US Air Force Academy. He earned his PhD in history from Kansas State University in 2018, and his master’s in history from the University of North Texas in 2013.
Header image: An artist’s impression of the CL-400 in flight. (Source: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400)
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all information, quotations, and images in this article are taken from: The Huntington Library, California, Ben Rich Papers, Box 3, Folder 1, Projects – Engineering – CL-400.
[2] John L. Sloop, Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, 1945-1959 (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1978), p. 149.
[3] Ben Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1994), p. 173.
In 1970, the United States Air Force’s (USAF) Contemporary Historical Examination of Current Operations (CHECO) project, which produced around 250 volumes on various subjects, published a volume on the air operations of the RAAF over Vietnam.[1] The volume on the RAAF was one of several that examined non-US subjects – other air forces analysed included air operations by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, the Royal Thai Air Force, and the Republic of Korea Air Force. Notably, the report on the RAAF, authored by James T. Bear, described the Australian effort over Southeast Asia as producing a ‘fruitful association’ with the USAF.[2] However, while the Americans, through the extensive distribution of this report to various commands, were aware of the views espoused by Project CHECO, the RAAF was not, as they were not included on the distribution list. As a result, this issue is often ignored by those using this source when writing on Australian air operations over Vietnam. For example, in a recent 2019 article in Sabretache, the journal of the Military Historical Society of Australia, Justin Chadwick made much of Bear’s report by describing its contents. However, Chadwick failed to discuss the distribution issue and whether the RAAF knew the report’s contents.[3] Nonetheless, Bear’s report, and others covering subjects pertinent to Australian air operations over Vietnam, were used by Chris Coulthard-Clark when researching and writing his volume on the RAAF in Vietnam as part of ‘The Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975.’ Moreover, the report is a valuable starting point for any discussion about Australia’s place in the air wars over Vietnam and the impact of the conflict on the RAAF.
More recently, however, air power historians have begun to discuss the air war over Vietnam more nuancedly. For example, in his 2021 history of the air war over Vietnam, Air Power’s Lost Cause, Brian Laslie, building on the work of the likes of Mark Clodfelter, argued that the US fought six separate air wars during the conflict.[4] These campaigns were the strategic air campaign against North Vietnam, the battle for air superiority over North Vietnam, the USAF’s air war over South Vietnam, the US Navy’s air war – both over North and South Vietnam, air operations over Laos and Cambodia, and the US Army’s air mobility operations. However, while this classification helps describe US air operations over Vietnam, in excluding the experience of other nations involved in these ‘air wars,’ historians fail to tell a cohesive story about the use of air power over Vietnam.
Rations and supplies are unloaded from a UH-1B Iroquois helicopter of No. 9 Squadron RAAF, by troops of 7th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, near the village of Long Dien during Operation Ulmarra, August 1967. (Source: Wikimedia)
Two reasons explain why historians fail to tell the cohesive story of air operations over Vietnam effectively. First, from an American perspective, Vietnam is viewed as an inherently US war, especially regarding military operations. As Andrew Weist has remarked, ‘[r]emainders of the Vietnam War litter the cultural landscape of the United States.’[5] These reminders and the associated issues of ownership over the experience of the Vietnam War are often reinforced by popular accounts of the war, such as Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s 2017 documentary The Vietnam War and debates related to America supposedly repeating the mistakes of Vietnam in its recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.[6] This has led historians to focus solely on the American experience and not to fully incorporate the story of those other nations that fought in the Vietnam War. Where they are included, their experience is often viewed as a sideshow to the main American effort. Indeed, as Bear’s CHECO report on the Australians noted, in the view of the USAF, ‘only Australia played a significant role in the air war.’[7]
The second reason relates to how the history of the RAAF over Vietnam has been written. This relates to the state of Australian military historiography and how, from the perspective of the RAAF, the latter’s narrative has been shaped by the Air Force.[8] Apart from Coulthard-Clark’s 1995 official history, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War 1962-1975, the literature on the RAAF’s service in Vietnam has primarily been the preserve of either the Air Force’s official histories or popular accounts, including veterans’ memoirs.[9] This situation mirrors concerns highlighted by John Ferris in 1998 when he reflected that most writers on air power history more broadly tend to be:
[t]he children of airmen, have been military personnel themselves, and have been employed at a historical office or service school in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States.[10]
This is undoubtedly the case with the history of the RAAF over Vietnam. Indeed, the RAAF has shaped the narrative surrounding the Air Force’s operations over Vietnam in two ways. First, the RAAF has published two official histories that straddle the period of the Vietnam War. The first, Going Solo, covered the period from 1945 to 1972 and was written by Alan Stephens, the former RAAF Historian. The second volume, Taking the Lead, written by Mark Lax, a RAAF Air Commodore, covers the period from 1972 to 1996. Neither book focuses singularly on Australian air operations over Vietnam. However, given the importance of the conflict to the RAAF, the war forms an integral part of their analysis, especially Stephens’ volume. While both Stephens and Lax served in the RAAF, as academically trained historians, they were well placed to write these histories, strengthening the value of these books. Nonetheless, as official histories, these works can often be viewed as providing a definitive account of their subject. However, official histories are often the first rather than the last word on their topic.
The second way the RAAF has influenced the narrative of its operation over Vietnam is that the first book on Australian air operations during the conflict, Mission Vietnam, was commissioned by the Air Force. Research for Mission Vietnam, written by George Odgers, the Director of Public Relations in the Department of Air, began in 1971 before Australian air operations in Vietnam ended in 1972.[11] The book appeared in 1974, the year before the RAAF deployed Detachment ‘S’. As such, it does not comprehensively capture all RAAF operations associated with the war in Vietnam. On publication, the RAAF News was convinced that Odgers’ volume would have ‘widespread appeal’ while one 1974 review in The Canberra Times described it as ‘essential reading.’[12] Illustrative of its importance in shaping the narrative, Mission Vietnam will be republished by the RAAF’s History and Heritage Branch.
Beyond these volumes, discussions of RAAF operations over Vietnam have typically been left to popular accounts or memoirs, including those published under the auspicious of the Air Force’s Air and Space Power Centre and the History and Heritage Branch.[13] For example, Jeff Pedrina’s account Wallaby Airlines was initially published in 2006 by the Air Power Development Centre (as ASPC was then known). It was recently reissued in 2023 as part of the Australian Air Campaign Series (AACS) produced by the History and Heritage Branch.[14] Similarly, as part of the AACS, in 2022, the History and Heritage Branch published an abridged version of Air Vice-Marshal Reed’s autobiography, Invited to a War.[15] Reed had served in Vietnam, flying Phantoms on exchange with the USAF. Many of these works represent what has invariably been described as Australia’s ‘democratic’ approach to military history that focuses on the experience of veterans.[16] In this sense, every participant’s views and recollections are equal and should be heard. There are, however, exceptions to this democratic approach. For example, Steven Paget’s recent examination of the operations of No. 2 Squadron over Vietnam usefully places the challenges confronted by the RAAF regarding its interoperability with the USAF into context.[17]
Aerial view of the aircraft revetments at Phan Rang airbase in July 1967. No. 2 Squadron RAAF Canberra bombers are parked in the bays located in the immediate foreground. (Source: Australian War Memorial)
Given much of the above, how would a more integrated and cohesive account of Vietnam’s air wars look? First, from an Australian perspective, we need to move away from focusing solely on the Australian experience of Vietnam. As Thomas Richardson argued, such perspectives distort our view of Australian ‘success or failure’ in Vietnam.[18] This applies as much to the RAAF as it does to the Australian Army. Second, with regard to the broader picture of air operations over Vietnam, consideration of the experience of non-US units would help inform wider discussions on the character and challenges of coalition air operations in this period by considering issues such as cooperation and friction. While official and authorised accounts touch on some of these challenges, their desire to bring the Australian experience to the fore using a functional approach to history based on roles undertaken by the RAAF limit how far they could analyse these issues.[19]
Some indication of how to produce such a history can be gleaned from Paget’s work on No. 2 Squadron operations. Paget rightly noted that the experience of No. 2 Squadron highlighted issues such as command and control, standardisation, tactics, training and procedures, and sustaining operations. However, these themes can be analysed further using other examples of Australia’s experience in Vietnam. For example, the experience of RAAF officers on secondment as airborne Forward Air Controllers offers a valuable opportunity to understand how lessons are learnt and shared between air forces. Similarly, before the deployment of No. 2 Squadron, No. 35 Squadron was already fully integrated into the USAF command and control apparatus. Moreover, unlike No. 2 Squadron, No. 35 Squadron operated a type of aircraft that the US would not deploy to South Vietnam until later in the war. However, it appears the USAF did not take the opportunity to study the RAAF’s use of the Caribou, which opens questions as to why that might have been.[20] As such, understanding the experience of No. 35 Squadron would further enrich our understanding of the air wars over Vietnam by exploring cultural issues that either help or retard the lessons learnt process. Finally, we must consider what the deployment of RAAF air assets to Vietnam delivered to the overall war effort given that, for example, during February 1968, at the height of the Tet Offensive, the Air Force only accounted for around one per cent of all attack sorties flown.[21] This was undoubtedly a significant effort for the RAAF. Still, it also highlights the problem of only deploying singular unit types rather than a more cohesive operational package of several squadrons of the same type. As such, within the context of wider coalition operations, we must further question why the RAAF deployed the force it did and how it sought to influence and shape ongoing operations.
Dr Ross Mahoney is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones. He is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war with particular reference to 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 nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage 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 on the history of air power and air warfare, military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here, and he can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header image: DHC-4 Caribous of the RAAF Transport Flight arrived in South Vietnam in 1964 to work with the South Vietnamese and U.S. Air Forces to transport soldiers and supplies to combat areas in South Vietnam. (Source: Wikimedia)
[1] James T. Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA’ (CHECO Division, 1970); Warren A. Trest, ‘Projects CHECO and Corona Harvest: Keys to the Air Force’s Southeast Asia Memory Bank,’ Aerospace Historian 33, no. 2 (1986), pp. 114-20; Major Daniel Hoadley, ‘What Just Happened? A Historical Evaluation of Project CHECO’ (MA Thesis, USAF School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2013).
[2] Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA,’ p. 1. During the Vietnam War, the RAAF contributed significantly to the Australian effort in the conflict. While some flights had taken place in South Vietnam by a Dakota of No. 2 Squadron’s transport flight in 1963, the first significant deployment of RAAF assets took place in 1964 when six DHC-4 Caribous of the recently formed RAAF Transport Flight Vietnam – later renumbered as No. 35 Squadron in 1966 – were deployed as part of Australia’s early efforts in supporting the war. After the deployment of No. 35 Squadron, the RAAF’s primary involvement took the form of No. 9 Squadron equipped with Bell UH-1B Iroquois helicopters and No. 2 Squadron with English Electric Canberra bombers. Notably, 36 fighter pilots served as airborne Forward Air Controllers with the USAF’s 19th and 20th Tactical Air Support Squadrons flying Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs, Cessna O-2 Skymasters, and Rockwell OV-10 Broncos. Additionally, six RAAF pilots flew USAF McDonnell F-4 Phantoms during the war as part of the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing. There were also those units – Nos. 36 and 37 Squadron – who maintained a strategic air bridge between Australia and Vietnam, including aeromedical evacuation. Lockheed Neptune maritime patrol aircraft regularly patrolled the sea lines of communication between Australia and Vietnam, such as during Operation Trimdon in 1965. As well as those squadrons deployed, various elements of the RAAF provided valuable ground support, including airfield construction, air defence guards and medical personnel. Officially, RAAF operations over Vietnam ended in February 1972 when the last Caribous of No. 35 Squadron left the country. However, in 1975, as South Vietnam finally fell, the RAAF deployed Detachment ‘S’ to Vietnam to withdraw Australian national and embassy staff and distributed Red Cross aid.
[3] Justin Chadwick, “Nothing to diminish their glamour’: Project CHECO and the RAAF,’ Sabretache 60, no. 4 (2019), pp. 23-34.
[4] Brian Laslie, Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2021), p. 2; Mark Clodfelter, ‘The Limits of Airpower or the Limits of Strategy: The Air Wars in Vietnam and Their Legacies,’ Joint Forces Quarterly 78 (2015), pp. 111-24.
[5] Andrew Weist, ‘Introduction’ in Andrew Weist (ed.), Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 200), p. 16.
[6] Andrew Gawthorpe, ‘Ken Burns, the Vietnam War, and the Purpose of History,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 43, no. 1 (2020), pp. 154-69.
[8] Jeffrey Grey, ‘Cuckoo in the Nest? Australian Military Historiography: The State of the Field,’ History Compass 6, no. 2 (2008), pp. 455-68.
[9] Chris Coulthard-Clark, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1962-1975 (Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1995). For the RAAF’s official histories, see: Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal Australian Air Force, 1946-1971 (Canberra, ACT: AGPS Press, 1995); Lax, Taking the Lead. For memoirs and autobiographies, for example, see: Gary Cooper and Robert Hillier, Sock it to ‘em Baby: Forward Air Controller in Vietnam (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2006); David Evans, Down to Earth: The Autobiography of Air Marshal David Evans, AC, DSO, AFC (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2011).
[10] John R. Ferris, ‘Review Article – The Air Force Brats’ View of History: Recent Writing and the Royal Air Force, 1918–1960,’ The International History Review 20, no. 1 (1998), p. 119.
[11] George Odgers, Mission Vietnam: Royal Australian Air Force Operations, 1964-1972 (Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1974); ‘History of War,’ The Canberra Times, 18 June 1971, p. 1.
[12] ‘“Mission Vietnam” sure to have widespread appeal,’ RAAF News, 1 August 1974, p. 3; “Written the Way it Was in Vietnam Air War,’ The Canberra Times, 16 August 1974, p. 9.
[13] Examples of books published under the auspicious of the RAAF’s Air and Space Power Centre that discuss Vietnam include: John Bennett, Highest Traditions: The History of No. 2 Squadron RAAF (Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995); Graham O’Brien, Always There: A History of Air Force Combat Support (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2009); Chris Clark, The RAAF at Long Tan (Canberra, ACT: 2010); Evans, Down to Earth; Bob Howe, Dreadful Lady over the Mekong Delta: An Analysis of RAAF Canberra Operations in the Vietnam War (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2016). For an example of a book produced in conjunction with the History and Heritage Branch, see: Bob Grandin, Answering the Call: Life of a Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2019).
[14] Jeff Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve Months Caribou Flying in Vietnam (Tuggeranong, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2006). Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve Months flying the Caribou in Vietnam (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2022).
[15] Air Vice Marshal Alan Reed, Invited to a War (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2002).
[16] Thomas Richardson, Destroy and Build: Pacification in Phuc Tuy, 1966-72 (Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 5.
[17] Steven Paget, ‘Magpies and Eagles: Number 2 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, and the Experience of Coalition Warfare in Vietnam’ in Steven Paget (ed.), Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations (Lexington, KT: The University Press of Kentucky, 2021), pp. 142-67.
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 1972, the USS Kitty Hawk was conducting bombing raids against North Vietnam when violence broke out on the ship itself. Long-building racial tensions exploded into a series of assaults quickly labelled a race riot. Marv Truhe was one of the JAG lawyers assigned to defend the African American sailors charged in the incident. He tells the story of a series of racial injustices in his shocking new book, Against All Tides: The Untold Story of the USS Kitty Hawk Race Riot (2022). He joins us on the podcast to discuss the incident and its legacy for changes in race relations in the US Navy and the military.
Marv Truhe served as a Navy JAG lawyer and military judge during the Vietnam War. Following his military service, he was an Assistant Attorney General for South Dakota before entering private practice. He defended six of the Black sailors charged with rioting and assaults in the USS Kitty Hawk incident.
Header image: A US Navy McDdonnell F-4B Phantom II of VF-114 traps on board the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk underway in the Western Pacific off the coast of North Vietnam in March 1969. Also visible on the flight deck is another F-4B of VF-114 as well as one from VF-213, a North American RA-5C Vigilante of RVAH-11, and an LTV A-7A Corsair II of VA-105. (Source: Wikimedia)
With an abiding interest in how air power has been presented and written about, I, like many others, am an inveterate buyer of second-hand books. I recently added to my library a volume entitled Air Power: An Overview of Roles by R.A. ‘Tony’ Mason, published in 1987. Mason is arguably the key British air power thinker of the late-20th Century. He was appointed the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) first Director of Defence Studies (DDefS) in 1977. Since then, he has widely commented on, lectured, and written about air power. When he wrote this book, Mason, an Air Vice-Marshal, served as Air Secretary.
The book formed part of a series published by Brassey’s Defence Publishers, consisting of 11 titles – see the list below. I have read several of these during my career, including Mason’s title. However, I had not realised several interesting aspects of this series until now. Namely, these volumes were written for a specific audience and authored by serving RAF officers.
Dealing with the first issue, the series outline in the book’s frontmatter noted that ‘[t]his new series […] is aimed at the international officer cadet or junior officer level.’ Thus, the series had a specific pedagogical aim in mind. The series was designed to provide the knowledge that new officers joining an air force needed regarding the use and development of air power. In the case of the RAF, it was clearly aimed at those attending the RAF College at Cranwell and junior officers undertaking staff education. It would be interesting to find out whether the books ended up on the reading lists for these institutions and whether they were used as part of the curriculum. More research…
This leads to the second interesting aspect of this series, namely that they were all written by serving RAF officers. Indeed, many, such as Mason, Armitage, Knight, and Walker, were officers holding Air Rank. As noted, Mason was an Air Vice-Marshal when writing this book – he retired at this rank. Sir Michael Armitage was an Air Chief Marshal, and at the time his book was published, he had been appointed Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies. Knight was an Air Chief Marshal at the time of publication, while John Walker was an Air Vice-Marshal – he retired as an Air Marshal. Moreover, many of these officers were regular writers on air power at the time. Aside from Mason’s own outputs, which included editing Air Power in the Next Generation (1979) and War in the Third Dimension (1986), Armitage had, by this time, co-written Air Power in the Nuclear Age (1983) with Mason. Similarly, Walker had edited a collection for the Royal United Services Institute entitled The Future of Air Power (1986), to which Armitage also contributed.
What is interesting about the choice of officers is that the views presented in these books constitute an RAF view of air power and its employment in the late-1980s and early-1990s despite the series being ostensibly aimed at an international market. More interesting is that, taken as a whole, these books can be considered a source of informal or implicit doctrine. In essence, this is a form of doctrine not codified in formal manuals and helps explore the changing debates surrounding the use of military force, in this case, air power. This is especially important given that when the first volumes of this series were published, the RAF did not have its own formal, explicit environmental capstone doctrine – it was using NATO doctrine to guide operations. Furthermore, the final edition of AP1300 was declared obsolete in the 1970s, and the first edition of AP3000 would not be published until 1990. As such, this series should not be separated from the broader context of the RAF’s re-engagement with formal doctrine.
Finally, the publication of this series, through its choice of authors, shows that despite operating in a doctrinal lacuna, the RAF of the 1980s was still a thinking organisation that thought about the role of air power in war. Critical in that process was the establishment of the DDefS position in 1977. Mason, both as DDefS and in subsequent roles, published works on air power that can be seen as informal doctrine. This started with Air Power and the Next Generation and continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, this form of publishing informal doctrine would be formalised in the 1990s when the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon, established the CAS Air Power Workshop, led by DDefS. Over time, the Air Power Workshop has published several significant edited volumes on air power that can be viewed as informal doctrine. The first publication from the Air Power Workshop was The Dynamics of Air Power (1996), edited by DDefS, Group Captain Andrew Lambert and Arthur Williamson. These publications were an essential adjunct to the RAF’s formal doctrine, AP3000. Indeed, the volumes published in the late-1990s under the auspicious of the Air Power Workshop were significant because of the time taken to publish the various editions of AP3000. Put simply, informal doctrine could discuss and debate issues that took time to filter into formal codified doctrine.
Given this, the various DDefS’ have invariably played an essential role in developing British air power thinking, both formal and informal, since the establishment of the post. Moreover, the personalities who have held this role have been influential in that process. While Mason is a prominent name to cite to highlight the role’s importance, it is possible to note several other officers who held the post of DDefS and have played a role in developing British air power thinking inside the RAF and externally within academia and the broader public. These have included Air Marshal (ret’d) Timothy Garden, Air Vice-Marshal (ret’d) Andrew Vallance, Air Commodore (ret’d) Andrew Lambert, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Air Commodore (ret’d) Professor Peter Gray and Air Commodore (ret’d) Dr Neville Parton.
Brassey’s Air Power: Aircraft, Weapons Systems and Technology Series
Mason, R.A., Air Power: An Overview of Roles (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1987).
Dutton, L. et al., Military Space (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1990).
Laite, B.C., Maritime Air Operations (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1991).
Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war with particular reference to 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 on the history of air warfare, transport history, and urban history. He has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here, and he can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.
Header image: A Royal Air Force SEPECAT Jaguar GR1 of No. 2 Squadron RAF parked on the flight line during Tactical Air Meet ’78 at RAF Wildenrath, 15 May 1978. (Source: Wikimedia)
Brian D. Laslie, Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Hbk. xiii + 272 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Maria E. Burczynska
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or as referred to in Vietnam – the American War is a topic widely covered in academic and popular literature. Among the various publications, Brian D. Laslie provides a unique perspective on the American air campaign in Vietnam. Published as a part of the War and Society series by Rowman and Littlefield, Laslie’s work is an attempt to produce a comprehensive and critical overview of the air war over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. To achieve that, Laslie posits three questions: was the disjointed and ineffective use of air power in Vietnam preventable? What should control of the air looked like? Finally, would a different command and control structure have made any difference to the potential outcome of the conflict? (p. 3)
The title, Air Power’s Lost Cause, already gives away the book’s leading theme. The concept of a ‘lost cause’ is most widely associated with the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, regarding the Confederacy fighting a heroic and noble battle against all the odds, effectively losing the war. The creation and evolution of that myth as well as its influence on the American memory of the Civil War, has been widely discussed in the literature, for example, by Gary Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan in The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History, or William C. Davis in The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy. However, in a wider context, ‘lost cause’ is used to describe a pseudohistorical narrative justifying one’s loss on a battlefield and often leading to a belief that a conflict was doomed to failure, despite all the best, full of self-sacrifice efforts of those who fought for the cause.
Laslie invites the reader to explore the ‘lost cause’ concept in the context of the Vietnam War. What one could expect from such an invitation is, therefore, a typical ‘lost cause’ narrative: the United States fought a heroic, full of sacrifice-fight against communism but eventually lost due to several strategic and/or political mistakes which, if rectified, would have brought an opposite outcome to the conflict. When speaking of the American air power in Vietnam, the ‘lost cause’ narrative focuses predominantly on the persistent belief that more intense bombing earlier in the conflict, instead of the gradual escalation that characterised Operation Rolling Thunder, could have a decisive effect and change the outcome of the war and that the Operation Linebacker II (with the heavy bombing attacks it brought) was successful in bringing the North Vietnamese Government to the negotiating table and ended the conflict. Laslie debunks those myths. Conducting a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the various actions undertaken by US air power as well as discussing its limitations such as, for example, the difficulty in effectively countering guerrilla tactics, he provides a compelling argument that even with the technological superiority the air campaign in Vietnam was unable to impact the outcome of the war significantly.
A US Air Force Boeing B-52G Stratofortress from the 72nd Strategic Wing (Provisional) waits beside the runway at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, as another B-52 takes off for a bombing mission over North Vietnam during Operation Linebacker II on 15 December 1972. (Source: Wikimedia)
While the ‘lost cause’ concept is the leading theme for the discussion, the book is structured to reflect Laslie’s other argument – the disjointed character of what is known, especially in Western literature, as the Vietnam War. The War is often perceived as one large conflict, whereas there was no overarching campaign (not to mention an overarching strategy) during the American involvement. Laslie steps back from this holistic approach and offers a different perspective suggesting that several air wars took place at the time over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Therefore, in his book, he identifies and discusses the following ‘wars’: the air-to-ground war in North Vietnam, the air-to-air war in North Vietnam, the air-to-ground war in South Vietnam, the US Navy air-to-air and air-to-ground war in North and South Vietnam, and the secret air war over Laos and Cambodia and against the Ho ChiMinh Trail. By looking at several air wars rather than one, the reader is confronted with an incredibly detailed picture of the situation at the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war.
But looking at the individual air wars is not the only way Laslie is trying to offer a comprehensive view of American involvement in Southeast Asia’s air campaigns. He also successfully combines US Air Force and US Navy perspectives, often treated separately in the literature. Discussing the participation of different services implies that a recurring point in Laslie’s analysis is the interservice rivalry and the complete lack of cohesive command and control between the Army, Navy and Air Force or even within them. These are not novel ideas as these issues are well-known and well-researched in the broader literature on the war in Vietnam. However, Laslie analyses American involvement as a series of separate air wars with their distinctive circumstances and obstacles. This allows him to discuss how these hurdles dictated each campaign’s outcomes.. Changing the perspective and critically analysing the context, objectives and limitations of each of those separate air wars illustrates the level of complexity of the conflict in Vietnam. It also supports Laslie’s main argument on the US air power’s ‘lost cause’, meticulously explaining why the popular myth of heavier bombings being potentially more effective is simply not true.
With his background as the Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy and drawing on an impressive range of primary and secondary sources, Laslie provides a well-researched piece on a subject that one would have thought nothing new could be added. It is undoubtedly a result of extensive archival research and the inclusion of the Contemporary Historical Examination of Current Operations Reports of Southeast Asia (1961–1975) (an impressive list of which has been included as Appendix B). As an American scholar, Laslie is well aware of the potential bias his project may be susceptible to. To avoid that, he is trying to provide a balanced approach by including the perspective of the North Vietnamese Air Force in the discussion. However, that has been possible to achieve only partially due to the limited number of Vietnamese sources available to non-Vietnamese scholars. Nevertheless, Laslie highlights an existing gap in the Western understanding of air campaigns during the Vietnam War and opens an important discussion on the need to investigate the North Vietnamese experience. Whereas it demonstrates the potential for further research, one should ask how feasible it is for an American scholar to access North Vietnamese archives and look at the official sources held there.
Laslie posits that ‘the point of this book is to add something new to the discussion of air power and the war in Southeast Asia’ (p. 4). He succeeded in achieving that goal. Air Power’s Lost Cause will certainly be of interest to military professionals and academics as well as members of a wider audience seeking to improve their understanding, firstly, of the history of the US involvement in Vietnam and, secondly, the complexity of air campaigns in that conflict.
Dr Maria E. Burczynska is a Lecturer in Air Power Studies at the Department of History, Politics and War Studies, University of Wolverhampton. She is involved in designing and delivering an online MA course on Air Power, Space Power and Cyber Warfare. She obtained her PhD from the University of Nottingham, where she worked on a project focused on European air power and its involvement in different forms of multinational cooperation. Her thesis, titled ‘The potential and limits of air power in contemporary multinational operations: the case of the UK, Polish and Swedish air forces,’ is making an essential contribution to the field of air power studies, which remains primarily dominated by the US case. The Royal Air Force Museum recognised her research’s significance, awarding her the Museum’s RAF Centenary PhD Bursary in Air Power Studies in April 2019. Maria’s research interests are in military and security studies in national and international dimensions. She is particularly interested in contemporary European air forces and their participation in multinational operations and initiatives and the influence of national culture on the military culture of individual air forces. She can be found on Twitter at @BurczynskaMaria.
Header image: A US Air Force North American F-100D Super Sabre fires a salvo of 2.75-inch rockets against an enemy position in South Vietnam in 1967. (Source: Wikimedia)
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