By the From Balloons to Drones team
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the team at From Balloons to Drones. It has been an excellent year for the advancement and study of air power, and it has been a remarkable year for the website as well. We added three co-editors to the site and surpassed our 50,000-hit mark!
As we enter the holiday season, we know that our readers either have some time off coming up or are looking for some recommendations to add to their holiday shopping lists. So, we thought it would be a good idea to have our editors put together a short list of their favourite books from our year of reading and reviewing. However, before we get onto the list here are the top five articles published by From Balloons to Drones during 2018:
- Michael Hankins, ‘Inventing the Enemy: Colonel Toon and the Memory of Fighter Combat in Vietnam’;
- Wing Commander André Adamson and Colonel Matthew Snyder, ‘The Challenges of Fifth-Generation Transformation’;
- Michael Hankins, ‘A Discourse on John Boyd: A Brief Summary of the US Air Force’s Most Controversial Pilot and Thinker’;
- Lieutenant Colonel Tyson Wetzel, ‘#HistoricBookReview – Sierra Hotel: Flying Fighters in the Decade After Vietnam’;
- Thomas Withington, ‘Bringing It All Back Home: How one sortie by the No. 1474 Flight RAF in December 1942 helped save the lives of countless aircrew.’
Now onto our Christmas air power reading list…
Dr Ross Mahoney
James Pugh, The Royal Flying Corps, the Western Front and the Control of the Air, 1914-1918 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017). I must admit it has been a slow year for me reading wise and the titles here will be reviewed in the new year. However, onto my list and first up we have James Pugh’s excellent study of the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and its understanding of the concept of control of the air. Control of the air remains a central tenant of modern air power thinking; however, the ideas surrounding this concept go back much further. In this study, Pugh provides an excellent analysis of the development of British thinking about control of the air with specific reference to the RFC and the war over the Western Front. It is a much-needed addition to the literature and worth a read.
Stephen Renner, Broken Wings: The Hungarian Air Force, 1918-45 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016). Ok, this one dates to 2016, but I have only just finished it after reading it on an off since it came out. However, this is an essential study for two reasons. First, small air forces tend to be overlooked in the literature concerning the early development of air power and secondly, there is little in English on-air forces from central and eastern Europe. As such, even for just these reasons, Renner’s book is a welcome addition to the literature. Furthermore, however, Renner provides an excellent study into the challenges faced by the Hungarians in this period, which makes for fascinating reading.
Adam Claasen, Fearless: The Extraordinary Untold Story of New Zealand’s Great War Airmen (Auckland: Massey University Press, 2017). The First World War centenary has seen many books published of which some are good and some not so good. Many of the works on air power have remained firmly camped in the ‘Knights of the Air’ trope that has become so common. Thankfully, however, we have also seen works such as Claasen’s work on New Zealand airmen appear. In this book, Claasen’s firmly places the experience of the around 850 New Zealanders who served in Britain’s air services within their imperial context. In this respect, Claasen’s follows on from the work of S.F. Wise on the Canadians and Michael Molkentin’s more recent work on Australia and is a welcome addition to our understanding of the imperial composition of Britain’s air services in the early twentieth century.
Runner-up:
John Andreas Olsen (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Air Power (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018). I reviewed this one here, so I shall not say too much more apart from to reiterate that if you are looking for a good introductory overview about air power, then this is an excellent addition to the library. Olsen has, as usual, brought together an outstanding line-up of scholars to consider critical issues related to air power.
Alexander Fitzgerald-Black
Graham Broad, One in A Thousand: The Life and Death of Captain Eddie McKay, Royal Flying Corps (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017). The First World War centenary is behind us, but it has left great historiographical additions for us to pour over. Graham Broad’s excellent microhistory of one of Canada’s first aces is three books in one. It is also a how-to book of best practices for historical research and analysis as well as an insightful commentary on the philosophy of history. You will enjoy the author’s engaging narrative as he traces Captain McKay’s life from the rugby pitch to the Wright Brothers School of Aviation, to his fleeting fame and eventual death in the contested and deadly skies above the Western Front. History teachers, especially at the senior undergraduate and graduate level, will also find the book an exceptional resource for training the minds of budding historians.
Stephen Bourque, Beyond the Beach: The Allied War Against France (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018). I picked up this book for two reasons. First, I was recently hired at the Juno Beach Centre, Canada’s Second World War Museum on the D-Day beaches. Second, with the upcoming 75th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, it was about time that we had a detailed English-language study of the cost suffered by the French people in that great invasion. Readers will appreciate Bourque’s approach in dealing with General Dwight Eisenhower and his air commanders’ lines of action (effort). These targets included everything from airfields and ports to French towns or cities and the bridges, marshalling yards, and factories therein. As we move into this anniversary, it is important to remember that while the Allies were on the right side of history, 60,000 French civilians paid a dear price for their country’s freedom.
Ian Gooderson, Air Power at the Battlefront: Allied Close Air Support in Europe, 1943-1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1998). This one is not recent, but I was thrilled to discover that my university library owns a copy. I was struck by just how comprehensive Gooderson’s analysis is, and I found some of his evidence and conclusions comfortably surprising. For instance, although the Allied air forces assumed armed reconnaissance to be safer than close air support, the opposite was true. At the same time, air support was probably of greater value beyond the battlefront (greater opportunity comes with greater danger). The book also impressed upon me the importance of timing air strikes carefully and air power’s psychological effects, for better or worse.
Runner-up:
Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris (eds.), Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat, Revised and Expanded Edition (Lexington, KT: University Press of Kentucky, 2016). This was one of the first scholarly history books I ever read as a high school student. Its engaging chapters about how various air forces across the decades have failed to meet their objectives offer complex answers to a simple question: why did they fail? Although, as Randall Wakelam noted, he had hoped for more from the new edition, though newcomers will find the book a valuable addition to any aviation history library.
Dr Mike Hankins
Melvin Deaile, Always at War: Organizational Culture in Strategic Air Command, 1946-62 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018). This book is not only an excellent summary of the formative years of Strategic Air Command during the early Cold War, but Deaile gives us a close look at what it felt like to be there. What was the culture like? What was the daily life like for these pilots? What made SAC so unique and such a key component of American defence during the Cold War? Moreover, why is General Curtis LeMay such a big deal? This book gives excellent, substantive answers to all these questions.
Timothy P. Schultz, The Problem with Pilots: How Physicians, Engineers, and Airpower Enthusiasts Redefined Flight (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). Flying is hard–much harder than we give it credit for today. The capabilities of modern aircraft all came with difficult times of dangerous experimentation in the fields of medicine, engineering, and technology. The human body was not made to fly, and the limiting factor on advanced aircraft designs has always been humans. How we solved those problems and made complicated, advanced aircraft possible is the fascinating story of this book about integrating man and machine in increasingly sophisticated ways.
Steven A. Fino, Tiger Check: Automating the US Air Force Fighter Pilot in Air-To-Air Combat, 1950-1980 (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2017). Fighter pilots are a strange breed–they have a unique culture all their own. However, how does that culture evolve when it is faced with new technologies that threaten to automate tasks that fighter pilots hold dear? Former F-15 pilot Steve Fino explores just that in this incredible book. Examining the F-86 Sabre, the F-4 Phantom II, and the F-15 Eagle, Fino explores the evolving relationship between man and machine in the cockpit of jet-age fighter planes. You can find my review of this book here.
Runner-up:
Peter Fey, Bloody Sixteen: The USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 during the Vietnam War (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2018). The USS Oriskany had the highest loss rates of any navy air unit in the Vietnam War. In addition to two massive fires, it was the boat from which Jim Stockdale and John McCain (among many others) became POWs for years. Peter Fey’s accessible, exciting narrative traces the Oriskany throughout its multiple tours and gives a palpable sense of what it was like to be on board and in the cockpit of the A-4 Skyhawks, F-8 Crusaders, and other planes the ship carried. The book is not perfect, but it is an engaging read especially aimed at a general audience.
Dr Brian Laslie
Craig Morris, The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017). This book is ‘a twisting tale of individual efforts, organizational infighting, political priorities, and technological integration.’ It is also a book that places the development of American bombing theory firmly in the context of its time and rightly puts individuals into their proper place. Gone is the Billy Mitchell-centric view of air power development to be (rightly) replaced with an emphasis on Benjamin Foulois, Mason Patrick, William Sherman, Lord Tiverton, and others who worked tirelessly on the theories and doctrines of air power. In my opinion, the single best volume on American air power in the inter-war years.
Frank Ledwidge, Aerial Warfare: The Battle for the Skies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). I wrote about this book earlier in the year for The Strategy Bridge and called it ‘the single finest primer on air power covering every aspect from if you’ll excuse me, balloons to drones.’ I stand by that statement. This is the perfect primer for the history of air power. I cannot imagine someone interested in our profession not owning this book. I wish I had copies to serve as stocking stuffers…
David R. Honodel, The Phantom Vietnam War: An F-4 Pilot’s Combat over Laos (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2018). This is a ‘there I was’ and ‘shoot the watch’ book, but it is also an amazingly poignant and honest look about learning to survive in a war the American people were unaware was occurring. It is in the best of its class at conveying the transformation a person can take in the crucible of a forgotten war over the skies of Laos. ‘Buff’ Honodel passed away earlier this year, and as I count my blessings this year, one of them will be for a man like Buff.
Runner-up:
Peter Dye, “The Man Who Took the Rap”: Sir Robert Brooke-Popham and the Fall of Singapore (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2018). This one landed on my desk rather late in the year but intrigued me almost immediately. As someone who has recently written a biography of a relatively unknown figure myself, I was excited to dive into this one, and it does not disappoint. As air power scholarship continues to expand, it has become an enjoyable pastime of mine to read about lesser-known, but equally important contributors to air power development. This book also fills a void for me in expanding my knowledge and understanding of other nation’s air power efforts.
As well as providing you with our Christmas reading list, we would like to recognise the various presses and our social media friends who have been hard at work this year publishing the books above and some not strictly related to air power, but would make great gifts such as Redefining the Modern Military, edited by Tyrell Mayfield and Nathan Finney, and The Colour of Time: A New History of the World, 1850-1960 by Marina Amaral.
Our favourite military and air power related presses include Naval Institute Press and University Press of Kentucky who keeps on adding some excellent titles to their lists. Keep a lookout to the site in 2019 as we embark on expanding our writing on space power and space exploration a lot of which will be coming from the NASA Office of History and the University Press of Florida.
Finally, we would like to thank our contributors and readers. Without them, this site would not exist so thank you. If you want to write for us, then find out how to contribute here.
Header Image: A Royal Navy McDonnell Douglas Phantom FG.1 from 892 Naval Air Squadron aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (R09). (Source: Wikimedia)
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