Learning Lessons: The Development of US Tactical Air Power and Air-to-Ground Coordination during the North African Campaign, 1942-1943

By Major Darren Johnson

During the Second World War, the United States (US) achieved success on the battlefield, largely due to its effective coordination of air and ground forces. The integration of these elements did not come easily; personality conflicts, misinterpretation of doctrine, and a lack of joint training opportunities had hindered innovation during the interwar period and the early stages of the war. After initial setbacks following Operation TORCH in November 1942, US air and ground commanders and staffs utilised pre-existing doctrine and developed a force structure, in conjunction with Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF), that not only won the campaign in North Africa by May 1943 but also set the conditions for continued success in mainland Europe. This article argues that pre-existing air-ground coordination doctrine, developed in the interwar period, tested in training, and implemented in the latter stages of the North Africa campaign, sufficiently provided support to ground forces and achieved air superiority by degrading deep targets.

The Interwar Period and the Development of Air Doctrine

During the First World War, the United States Army Air Service (USAAS) supported the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France by destroying German aircraft, interdicting enemy rear areas through strafing and bombing, observing enemy movements, and performing other supporting missions. Aerial warfare proved to be immensely valuable in achieving results on the battlefield at the tactical and operational levels of war. It demonstrated its potential to influence war at the strategic level. German, British, and French air forces conducted ‘terror’ bombings to demoralise the home front and disrupt war production in World War I. However, at the conclusion of the First World War, the role of the USAAS in future conflicts was ill-defined. Advocates for an independent air force, seeking equal status with the US Army and US Navy, argued that strategic bombardment, not direct support of ground forces, should be the primary mission of the US Army Air Corps (USAAC). The USAAC was formed in 1926 by renaming the USAAS and given greater autonomy than its predecessor.

The Italian officer Giulio Douhet, who had commanded an air unit in 1915, was an air-war visionary who advocated a more expansive and independent role for the air arm. Military theorists like Douhet were the inspiration behind the creation of an independent American air force focused on strategic bombardment.^[2] Notably, in 1921, Douhet published The Command of the Air, which advocated for independent air forces ‘capable of launching powerful offensives on land and sea.’^[3] A key principle for an independent air force was the ability to concentrate its forces to ‘inflict the greatest damage in the shortest possible time.’^[4] Officers attending the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) at Maxwell Field, Alabama, for their professional military education (PME), along with their regular academic courses and practical exercises, discussed theories on strategic bombardment against adversaries’ economic and industrial bases to achieve strategic success. Air power enthusiasts believed that strategic bombing could deliver decisive blows, eliminating the need for another bloody struggle on land and effectively win the war through air power alone.^[5]

A Junkers Ju 87A of the German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. (Source: Wikimedia)

Based on their experiences during the First World War, interwar German air power theorists recognised the potential of strategic bombing and developed doctrine to enhance their air arm’s capabilities. The Germans, having ignored the restrictions in the Treaty of Versailles by building the Luftwaffe in 1933, ’envisioned the use of bomber fleets against an enemy’s air force, industry, communications, and supply systems.’^[6] However, the Germans also recognised that close air support (CAS), albeit a secondary mission, is vital to ground campaigns. Covertly, the Germans developed a CAS doctrine that included ‘the use of air liaison officers, recognition signals, and communication channels,’ which proved effective in their campaigns in Poland, France, and the Soviet Union between 1939-1941.^[7] The Luftwaffe also gained significant combat experience during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

Similarly, the British recognised the value of CAS; however, many of the lessons they drew from the First World War focused on its downsides, given the immense losses of pilots and aircraft in conducting those missions. Additionally, British military budgets in the interwar period were strained, and attention within the RAF remained focused on fighter aircraft for air-to-air missions rather than on a dedicated ground-support mission.[8] The British recognised the positive morale effect that CAS missions had on friendly troops but considered their use only under ‘certain and rare circumstances.’^[9] However, the cooperation and liaison between RAF officers and ground commanders conducting operations in India and Palestine in the 1930s indicated potential successful use on a larger scale, even against a well-trained adversary.^[10] It is, however, important to note that nations interpreted lessons from the interwar period differently. National will, economic constraints, and a nation’s political climate influenced how modern technology was incorporated into its doctrine before the Second World War.

The German invasion of Poland in September 1939 provided American and British analysts with examples of effective CAS of ground forces at the decisive point of a battle. However, challenges remained for the Germans in coordinating between air and ground commanders and planners. For example, German CAS was often pre-coordinated to support the advance of ground forces, and there was limited communication between air and ground elements, which contributed to incidents of fratricide. Nevertheless, German efforts in Poland and subsequent campaigns in Western Europe indicated that the Americans and British were inferior to the Germans in providing effective CAS.^[11]

In the US, the concept of strategic bombing also raised questions about aircraft commanders’ authority in combat. To achieve the greatest effect in strategic bombing, theorists believed bombers should be centralised and concentrated under a single air commander. In 1940, this led the Army to publish the Air Corps Field Manual (FM) 1-10 Tactics and Technique of Air Attack, which outlined how commanders and forces would conduct air attacks, with special reference to command authority, bombardment, and planning. FM 1-10 also outlined the differences in air missions and how air superiority was achieved through strategic bombing, interdiction, and close support for ground forces. Specifically, regarding tactical air power, FM 1-10 emphasised that ‘temporary decentralization of control of combat aviation in direct support of armoured forces may be necessary in order to ensure the timely employment of aviation in close coordination with the supported forces for the accomplishment of a specific task.’^[12]

Nonetheless, ground commanders continued to view aircraft as an enabler in the combined arms team, much like an engineer or artillery asset that’s assigned to support a specific mission.^[13] The key outgrowth of this viewpoint was that ground force commanders should have tactical control of the aircraft. Ground force commanders feared that, if left concentrated under a single air commander, aviation assets would be delayed or unable to provide timely CAS. Ground commanders’ anxiety about delays in CAS was heightened during large-scale manoeuvre training in the Spring of 1942.[14] Conversely, airmen argued that without concentrating air assets, the USAACs would not achieve air superiority, resulting in further air and ground losses.^[15] Additionally, with increased demand for aviation units, fewer were available to participate in air-to-ground training manoeuvres. Moreover, air and ground commanders needed opportunities to train as combined arms teams to alleviate tension and solidify the newly developed doctrine through practical application.^[16]

Testing the Doctrine

In September 1941, the US Army Ground Forces (AGF) organised the Louisiana Maneuvers, led by its Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Lesley McNair. The Louisiana Maneuvers were a multi-week training exercise pitting the US Second Army against the US Third Army to test Army doctrine on a large scale.^[17] The manoeuvres recreated battlefield conditions to prepare leaders and units for combined-arms warfare by bridging the gap between doctrine and practice in large-scale training.^[18] Hundreds of aircraft ranging from medium and light bombers to US Navy dive bombers and fighters participated in the manoeuvres, demonstrating their capabilities to senior army commanders. Participating aircraft were evenly distributed between the two forces and organised under the Air Support Command (ASC). Air assets were centralised under the ASC for the exercise but remained available to support ground commanders’ missions, which was a doctrinal compromise specific to the Louisiana Maneuvers. The ASC focused heavily on achieving air superiority and conducting interdiction operations before the ground elements engaged each other, which aligned with the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) concept of employment in combat. The USAAF had been formed in 1941 and superseded the USSAC. It was one of three autonomous components of the US Army, each with its own chief of staff.

The Louisiana Maneuvers provided ground commanders with a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of aircraft at both tactical and operational levels of war. While air forces demonstrated their ability to attack fixed targets such as airfields, bridges, and key intersections, communication between air and ground elements remained difficult.[19] Additionally, due to communication delays, CAS requests took an average of 90 minutes to execute. The subsequent Carolina Maneuvers in November 1941 remedied this delay by implementing a ‘combat air support unit’ tasked with immediately responding to ground support requests.^[20] However, despite some successes in the Louisiana Maneuvers, conflict persisted between air and ground commanders over the lower priority of CAS missions relative to air superiority and interdiction.^[21]

The AGF had organised the Carolina Manoeuvres to test US Army armour and anti-tank doctrine. From an air power perspective, these manoeuvres differed from the Louisiana Maneuvers in that they created an imbalance of air assets, with IV Corps fighting against First Army, simulating the German assault across Europe from 1939 to 1941. As with the Louisiana Maneuvers, the ASC managed CAS requests; however, the preponderance of air missions still focused on gaining and maintaining air superiority and interdiction operations, thereby validating already published doctrine on the priority of air missions to isolate the battlefield in support of ground forces.^[22] Of the 167 raids flown by the 1^st and 3^rd ASCs, 99 went against aerodromes, railroads, and bridges, 37 against armoured and mechanised units and 31 against miscellaneous targets. As FM 1-10 stated, ‘the mission of first priority of combat aviation in support of ground force units is, whenever possible, the destruction or neutralization of effective hostile air resistance.’^[23] In an ideal environment, combat aviation eliminated hostile air threats before ground forces entered the battlefield. FM 1-10 provided for the use of combat aviation for CAS missions when ‘the operation is critical and the end to be accomplished warrants the acceptance of the risk of heavy losses in the friendly aviation forces.’^[24] The Carolina Maneuvers also demonstrated the potential of combat aviation to ‘set conditions’ before ground forces enter the battlefield by destroying hostile aircraft and disrupting sustainment efforts. While the issue of aircraft control persisted, advances in air-ground integration during the manoeuvres underscored combat aviation’s vital role within the combined-arms team in shaping the battlefield.

Another significant output from both manoeuvres was the publication of FM 31-35, Aviation in Support of Ground Forces, which refined guidance on how combat aviation could support ground forces. As with FM 1-10, FM 100-5 Operations, and FM 100-15 Larger Units, FM 31-35 emphasised the need for close coordination and liaison between air and ground commanders during the planning and execution phases of operations. Likewise, the updated doctrine, while acknowledging the benefits of increased firepower and improved soldier morale from CAS, emphasised that combat aviation should not engage targets within the effective range of artillery or mortars.^[25] FM 31-35 exempted armour and mechanised forces that outpaced their organic or attached artillery or mortars, which required urgent CAS to maintain the initiative on the battlefield.^[26] FM 31-35 also codified the use of observation aircraft to support artillery missions and for area and route reconnaissance by all ground forces. During the Louisiana Maneuvers, pilots directed artillery fire and conducted reconnaissance missions in light aircraft to support the Third Army. This proved so successful in support of Third Army’s mission that the umpires of the exercise banned its use, as it gave an ‘unfair advantage to Third Army.’^[27] The use of observation aircraft magnified a unit’s ability to adjust fire and observe the enemy’s composition and disposition on the battlefield.^[28] Indeed, in North Africa, ‘air observation posts proved their value by their ability to bring the far side of hill masses, hidden to ground observation posts, under observed fire […] the German artillery did not fire as long as one of the (45th) division’s L-4s (observation aircraft) was in the air.’[29] Furthermore, FM 31-35 highlighted the issue of communication between support aircraft and ground units. Significantly, however, the highly secret and sensitive manual failed to detail specific methods for marking friendly or enemy units – much as the wider issue of incorporating unproven doctrine remained throughout the war.

The British experience of coordinating CAS during fighting in France and Africa since 1940 provided the Americans with applicable lessons. As with their USAAF counterparts, the British believed that achieving air superiority was the RAF’s priority and a precondition for conducting CAS, particularly in support of armoured or mechanised formations.^[30] The RAF viewed CAS as a tool to support ground forces beyond artillery range, enabling them to defeat hostile forces when organic means were unavailable.^[31] Indeed, Lieutenant Colonel J.D. Woodhall, one of the key figures in the development of British tactical air power after the Fall of France, wrote on September 3, 1940, that ‘in recent operations the Germans have employed air bombardment most effectively in co-operation with their army to sustain the impetus of advance of almost all types of formation and especially that of their armoured units.’[32]

RAF leaders, however, recognised the limitations of CAS as a reliable method of aiding the ground fight. The aircraft’s speed, the lack of effective communication between air and ground elements, and limited means for differentiating friendly from enemy forces often contributed to inaccuracies in CAS and incidents of fratricide on the battlefield.^[33] For example, during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Luftwaffe provided CAS for advancing ground forces. Still, it relied upon Nazi flags draped across German vehicles to prevent incidents of fratricide.^[34] While there were instances of German innovations in air-to-ground coordination in Poland, it remained primitive. The inability to communicate effectively between air and ground forces negatively affected the Germans’ missions. Similarly, within the RAF, debate raged over which level of command would be delegated for CAS missions.^[35]

In October 1940, the RAF conducted an inter-service training exercise with ground and air personnel in Northern Ireland. The training scenario replicated the ideal British response to a German amphibious invasion of a British beach. The scope of the exercise focused on three challenges British commanders foresaw in conducting CAS for ground forces: first, the tactical employment of bombers in CAS for small forces; second, requesting CAS missions; and third, fighter cover or escort for bombers conducting CAS.^[36] After the exercise, the RAF and British Army identified communication between elements as a particular challenge, especially in a rapidly changing, dynamic combat environment. To ensure effective targeting of enemy forces, wireless communication between aircraft, ground forces, and command nodes had to be maintained. Additionally, the British recognised the value of attaching air reconnaissance squadrons to armoured formations to enhance situational awareness within units and battlefield effectiveness.^[37]

Another lesson with their Allied partners, once the United States entered the war, was the importance of close coordination between air and ground forces. The use of liaison officers at division-level echelons and above proved essential to the RAF’s successful CAS missions against Axis forces in Egypt and Libya in 1941. Furthermore, the RAF employed a system of ‘tentacles’ or forward control teams to maintain connectivity between air and ground forces via wireless communications.^[38] This system, which the British established, remained in place throughout the war. The concept of liaison personnel embedded in inter-service command posts was already in FM 31-35, confirming their effectiveness outside the training environment. The use of mobile forward control teams to manage the CAS fight was a novel idea for the Americans that gained traction in North Africa. The use of liaison officers provided significant value for the gaining command, and the forward control teams were the vital connection between air and ground forces.

Operation TORCH and the North Africa Campaign

Despite some experience in manoeuvres and benefits from British training and conceptual development, American forces entered the Second World War with an unproven doctrine of air-ground integration. Germany declared war on the US on 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Once British and American leaders adopted a ‘Germany First’ strategy at the ARCADIA Conference in Washington, D.C., they postponed a cross-channel invasion of northwest Europe in favour of an Allied attack on the periphery of occupied Europe in northwest Africa.

Planning for TORCH envisaged an amphibious landing of over 100,000 Allied soldiers establishing a lodgement inland, seizing ports and aerodromes, consolidating forces, and eventually moving east into the rear area of Axis forces in Tunisia. Before the invasion, Allied heavy bombers carried out raids against Axis supply lines and facilities in Italy and Sicily while medium bombers interdicted Axis shipping in the Sicilian Strait.^[39] The air elements for TORCH consisted of two air forces: the American Twelfth Air Force, supporting the Western and Centre Task Forces (the US Fifth Army) landing at Casablanca and Oran, and the RAF Eastern Air Command supporting the Eastern Task Force (the British First Army) landing at Algiers. Initial air support for the Allied soldiers landing in North Africa came from carrier-based fighters; the Twelfth Air Force and Eastern Air Command relieved naval aviation once aerodromes were seized by ground forces.^[40] However, before TORCH, Allied leaders were unsure if the Vichy French forces would resist the invasion in French Morocco and Algeria. In addition, there were questions about whether Spain would remain neutral or join the fighting against the Allies alongside Axis forces.

Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower, serving as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre, envisioned the Twelfth Air Force conducting strategic and tactical missions, including CAS and the bombing of Axis shipping, ports, communication centres, and airfields beyond the horizon. Eisenhower believed the USAAF should centralise its air assets to target theatre-level threats and opposed distributing these assets to corps and division commanders.^[41] Further complicating the USAAF’s role during the North African invasion were the planned geographically separated landings. The Twelfth Air Force and Eastern Air Command could not support or coordinate their efforts to achieve air superiority.

On 8 November 1942, TORCH commenced with amphibious landings near Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. With the support of naval gunfire and carrier-based aircraft, Allied ground forces advanced inland and established secure lodgements beyond the beachhead. The Vichy French resistance was sporadic yet stubborn across multiple Allied landing sites. However, on 10 November, Eisenhower secured peace with Vichy French Admiral François Darlan, relegating Axis forces to positions in Tunisia, between predominantly American ground forces from the west and British ground forces from the east. In response, Germany occupied Vichy France.

As Allied forces advanced eastward towards Tunisia, they encountered stiff resistance from German Stuka dive-bombers, fighters, and medium bombers based at aerodromes near the front line and on Sicily, Sardinia, and the Italian mainland. To compound the problem, Allied fighter aerodromes were located more than 100 miles from the front lines, and bomber aerodromes more than 600 miles away, severely limiting Allied dwell time in support of ground forces. Due to the Allied air forces’ initial failure to achieve air superiority and interdict Axis lines of communication, the Germans were able to reinforce their African forces, unimpeded, with up to 1,000 soldiers and shiploads of equipment each day after TORCH.^[42] Allied ground force commanders pleaded for aircraft to provide air cover for their ground operations against German aircraft.^[43] For example, a member of the US 1st Armoured Division described how ‘the Germans can call for air support with only three rounds of smoke, and when they do, the Stukas are over immediately.’^[44] His experience was representative of many Americans throughout the North Africa campaign.

Soldiers and leaders on the ground expected air cover to protect them from the repeated German air attacks. Hearing of attacks on Axis harbours or aerodromes, essentially ’deep targets’ did little to boost the morale of the average soldier.^[45] Major General Terry Allen, the commander of the US 1^st Infantry Division, advocated for a division-level air advisor to expedite CAS requests.[46] Brigadier General Paul Robinett, commander of Combat Command B of the 1st Armoured Division, insisted, ‘that men cannot stand the mental and physical strain of constant aerial bombing without feeling that all possible is being done to beat enemy air efforts.’^[47] The incessant calls for air cover by ground commanders were granted, despite the need to establish air superiority against Axis forces.

Requests for air cover or CAS were prioritised over air-superiority missions, despite objections from RAF and USAAF leaders and the violation of both Allied air forces’ doctrines.^[48] The Luftwaffe maintained air superiority during the opening weeks of the North Africa campaign due to the proximity of its aerodromes to ground forces, its experience in CAS, and Allied mismanagement of aerial assets.^[49]

Part of the problem was the limited number of aircraft available to provide defensive air cover for ground forces while simultaneously seeking air superiority. After months of the ineffective use of CAS, including the tactical setback at Kasserine Pass, which resulted in aircraft losses from enemy and friendly fire, Eisenhower was convinced that the theatre air plan was insufficient.^[50] Indeed, the Battle of the Kasserine Pass was a low point for the Allies, especially American forces, in North Africa, as German forces advanced against inexperienced US troops and pushed them back more than 50 miles from their original positions. Allied reinforcements and air support, though ill-coordinated and delayed, attacked the overextended Germans, forcing them to withdraw. However, Allied inefficiencies in CAS, their inability to achieve air superiority, and significant coordination challenges necessitated a reorganisation of the Allied air forces in North Africa.^[51] This led Eisenhower to conclude that placing air elements under a centralised air commander could resolve the issues the Allies were facing in the theatre. At Kasserine, air reconnaissance provided little help to forward ground units; bombing missions were untimely; and CAS was in short supply. The deviation from interwar air-to-ground coordination doctrine resulted in the American inability to coordinate their air efforts during the first four months of the North African campaign. The subsequent organisational change, which reflected American interwar doctrine and the RAF’s utilisation, paid immediate dividends in North Africa, resulting in a more effective application of air-to-ground coordination and CAS for ground forces.

Senior Allied air commanders gathered at the Headquarters of the North African Tactical Air Force, Ain Beida, Algeria in 1943. Left to right: Air Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Mary’ Coningham, Air Officer Commanding, North African Tactical Air Forces (NATAF), Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz, Commanding General, Northwest African Air Forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Mediterranean Air Command, and Brigadier General Laurence Kuter, Deputy Commander, NATAF. The meeting was probably called to defuse the public quarrel between Coningham and General George Patton, the Commander of the US II Army Corps in Tunisia, over the provision of air support to his troops. (Source: IWM (CNA 408))

On 18 February 1943, following the Casablanca Conference, which saw the American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, along with their staffs, solidify Allied strategy for the remainder of 1943, the Northwest African Air Force (NAAF) was formed under Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz. The formation of NAAF centralised control of aircraft from the Twelfth Air Force and the Eastern Air Command under one theatre air commander.^[52] The Twelfth Air Force remained an administrative headquarters commanded by Spaatz. This organisational change reflected the doctrinal developments during the interwar period and experiences of both the American and British air forces before the North Africa campaign. The lessons the USAAF learned were Allied ones, given the joint nature of the Allied command structure during the war. NAAF consisted of seven subordinate units, each with a unique task to support theatre operations: the Tactical Air Force, Strategic Air Force, Coastal Air Force, Photographic Reconnaissance Wing, Troop Carrier Command, Training Command, and Service Command.^[53] Brigadier General Laurence Kuter, deputy commander of the Northwest African Tactical Air Forces (NATAF), wrote that in the previous structure, aircraft ‘were employed in direct support roles to the neglect of the proper offensive task of obtaining air superiority and thus assisting the theatre task as a whole. Each commander agreed that superiority in the air was necessary, but that someone else’s air force should fight the air war which could gain that superiority.^[54] The establishment of NAAF facilitated better coordination and unity of effort in allocating the appropriate number of aircraft for both strategic- and tactical-level targeting.

Under the new organisation, air commanders received co-equal status with ground commanders, ensuring that the limited number of aircraft was used efficiently in line with the prescribed doctrine and battlefield conditions.^[55] Moreover, in a letter from Major General Carl Spaatz to Lieutenant General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, he wrote, ‘Air support of the ground forces on the other hand, cannot be made effective in the face of air supremacy, superiority and under certain conditions, even parity on the part of the enemy’s air forces. It follows from this that for the army to advance, the air battle must be won first […] Since air formations can move freely in the air without regard to terrain, it is evident from the above that the control of the air units must be centralised’ and cannot be divided into small packets among several armies or corps.’[56]

Leading NATAF was British Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, who was instrumental in developing the British forward air control parties in 1941. Opposing the employment of tactical aircraft in defensive air-cover missions, Coningham advocated the offensive pursuit of the enemy’s air force and bases, similar to the way the RAF employed its aviators against German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s forces in Libya.^[57] Coningham’s ideas on tactical-level air support were not new to the British contingent of officers on the NATAF staff, but they were for the American ones. As expected, ground commanders bristled at CAS being relegated to a secondary role in favour of air-superiority missions. Major General Omar Bradley, serving as the Deputy Commander of the American II Corps under General Lloyd Fredendall at the time, stated regarding CAS, ‘by the time our request for air support goes through channels the target’s gone, or the Stukas have come instead.’[58] To ease their concerns, Coningham distributed a pamphlet endorsed by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery that advanced the British principle of concentrated air power. Highlighting the battle-winning factor of concentrated air power, the pamphlet read that ‘nothing could be more fatal to successful results than to dissipate the air resources into small packets placed under command of army formation commanders, with each packet working on its own plan.’^[59] Coningham also received support from Eisenhower and Field Marshal Harold Alexander, the senior British army commander in North Africa, for the priority he placed on air superiority, despite continued complaints by Allied commanders for the lack of close air support aircraft. With the Kasserine Pass debacle behind them, the Allies began their counteroffensive against Axis forces with renewed vigour.

Central to Allied success in air-to-ground integration was inter-service and inter-Allied coordination. Coningham and Alexander, commander of the Allied 18^th Army Group, met daily to ensure that the air and land plans were synchronised to achieve a general victory on the battlefield.^[60] Concentrating air elements enabled greater flexibility to support prioritised ground forces while simultaneously fighting to gain air superiority. Eisenhower understood ground commanders’ demand for immediate air support but also recognised the far-reaching impact of air power beyond the tactical ground fight. Ground commanders’ vision was limited to their immediate operational area, preventing them from recognising the theatre’s needs.^[61] Improved communication between air and ground forces remained a critical need for the Allies as well. Spaatz encouraged increasing the number of air support parties assigned to ground forces to support CAS missions. Air support parties used radio communication with pilots, but its unreliability necessitated communication redundancy through landmarks, ground smoke, or coloured panels.^[62]

Despite operational setbacks and continued tension regarding the allocation of close support aircraft, the Allies achieved positive results by concentrating their strategic and tactical air formations in defeating the Axis forces in the air, interdicting Axis lines of communication between Tunisia and sustainment centres in Sicily, Sardinia, and mainland Italy, and through CAS, which enabled ground forces to isolate the increasingly tenuous Axis position on the continent.^[63] In late April 1943, the Allies successfully targeted German aerodromes at night and destroyed ‘129 Axis planes, including 72 out of 100 enemy transports. On 22 April, the Tactical Air Force destroyed 20 ME-323 6-engine transports carrying the equivalent of a regiment into Tunisia.’[64] The Allies’ greater focus on applying published doctrinal principles of airpower in North Africa enabled them to achieve air superiority and greater freedom of movement for the ground forces. NATAF aircraft conducted 1,500 sorties over ten days in the Medjerda Valley and other Axis strongholds to support the advance of Allied ground forces in their final push towards Bizerte and Tunis.^[65] The Allies achieved air superiority by early May, enabling the Allied breakthrough towards Tunis, which eventually fell on 13 May 1943, setting the stage for subsequent Allied operations in Sicily and mainland Europe.

Conclusion

The reorganisation of the Allied air forces in North Africa did not solve every problem in air-to-ground coordination during the Second World War. However, it established the path forward for the air component within the combined-arms team. In July 1943, during the height of the fighting in Sicily, the War Department published FM 100-20, ‘Command and Employment of Air Power.’ Identified as the USAAF ‘declaration of independence’ from ground forces, FM 100-20 harnessed the lessons from North Africa and directly influenced how the war was fought in Sicily and mainland Europe.^[66] FM 100-20 emphasised the primary role of the USAAF was to establish air superiority before interdicting enemy movement in rear areas and CAS for the ground component. The document codified command authority for aircraft in theatre, outlined their role as members of the combined arms team, and advocated increased interoperability with ground forces through liaison and training exercises.^[67]

As a result of the experience in North Africa, the USAAF’s role as part of the combined-arms team was solidified, and the air-ground doctrine written before the United States entered the war was validated.^[68] Indeed, tactical air forces are a theatre resource to serve at the behest of the theatre commander, not any one specific ground element. Major General Karl Truesdell, the Commandant of the Command and General Staff School (CGSS) at Fort Leavenworth, KS, wrote to Spaatz in March 1943 to inquire about the advancements in air-ground integration. Spaatz replied that, ‘until air supremacy has been established the commander of the Tactical Air Force may refuse any but the most urgent targets to concentrate his effort on the enemy aerodromes and installations necessary to secure air supremacy.’^[69] As a result of Spaatz’s letter and overall air-to-ground experiences in North Africa, students at CGSS in 1943 and after received more lessons on USAAF doctrine and its practical application than their predecessors, which proved essential for the success of planning and coordinating combined arms fighting on a massive scale in the European Theatre of Operations until the end of the war.

Major Darren Johnson is a US Army infantry officer currently serving as a Brigade Executive Officer in the 11^th Airborne Division. He’s previously served as a platoon leader, company commander, and instructor of military history at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Header image: Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Air Command (left), in conference with Major General Carl Spaatz, Commander of the North-West African Air Forces, at Tedder’s Headquarters in Algiers, 1943. (Source: IWM (CNA 181))

[1] Peter R. Faber, ‘Interwar US Army Aviation and the Air Corps Tactical School: Incubators of American Airpower’ in Phillip Meilinger (ed.), The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory (USAF. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1997), p. 213.

[2] Kent Greenfield, Army Ground Forces and the Air-Ground Battle Team Including Organic Light Aviation. History of the Army Ground Forces Study No. 35 (Fort Monroe, VA: Historical Section, Army Ground Forces, 1948), p. 1.

[3] Guilio Douhet, The Command of the Air (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2019), p. 49.

[4] Ibid., p. 47.

[5] Edgar Raines Jr., Eyes of Artillery: The Origins of Modern U.S. Army Aviation in World War II (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 2000), p. 17.

[6] Richard Muller, ‘Close Air Support: The German, British, and American Experiences, 1918-1941,’ in Williamson Murray and Alan Millett (eds.), Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 160.

[7] Ibid., p. 157.

[8] Ibid., pp. 164-5.

[9] Ibid., p. 165.

[10] Ibid., p. 171.

[11] Ibid., p. 181.

[12] FM 1-10 Air Corps Field Manual: Tactics and Techniques of Air Attack (Washington D.C.: War Department, 1942), p. 118.

[13] Christopher Rein, Forging the Ninth Army-XXIX TAC Team: The Development, Training, and Application of American Air-Ground Doctrine in World War II (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2019), p. 15.

[14] Greenfield, Army Ground Forces and the Air-Ground Battle Team, p. 7.

[15] Ibid., pp. 15-6.

[16] FM 1-10 Tactics and Techniques of Air Attack, p. 119.

[17] Greenfield, Army Ground Forces and the Air-Ground Battle Team, p. 88. McNair later became the Commanding General of the AGF after the War Department’s reorganization in March of 1942. Tragically, McNair was killed while observing close support bombing during the breakout from Normandy in July 1944.

[18] Christopher Gabel, ‘The 1941 Maneuvers: What did they Really Accomplish?’ Army History 14 (1990), p. 5.

[19] Rein, Forging the Ninth Army-XXIX TAC Team, p. 36.

[20] Ibid., p. 37.

[21] Greenfield, Army Ground Forces and the Air-Ground Battle Team, pp. 17-8.

[22] Rein, Forging the Ninth Army-XXIX TAC Team, pp. 39-40.

[23] FM 1-10 Tactics and Techniques of Air Attack, p. 115.

[24] Ibid., p. 116.

[25] FM 31-35 Basic Field Manual: Aviation in Support of Ground Forces (Washington D.C.: War Department, 1942), p. 10.

[26] Ibid., pp. 26-27.

[27] Raines Jr., Eyes of Artillery, p. 51.

[28] FM 31-35 Aviation in Support of Ground Forces, p. 26.

[29] Raines Jr, Eyes of Artillery, p. 162.

[30] Wann Woodall, Experimental Training in Close Support Bombing (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff School, 1941), p. 14.

[31] Ibid., pp. 14, 19.

[32] Ibid., p. 19.

[33] Ibid., p. 20.

[34] Williamson Murray, ‘May 1940: Contingency and fragility of the German RMA’ in Macgregor Knox, and Williamson Murray (eds.), The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 163.

[35] Woodall, Experimental Training in Close Support Bombing, p. 43.

[36] Ibid., p. 47.

[37] Ibid., p. 55

[38] Rein, Forging the Ninth Army-XXIX TAC Team, pp. 18-19.

[39] CMH Publication 100-6, To Bizerte with the II Corps (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1990), p. 3.

[40] Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Intelligence, Historical Division, Air Phase of the North African invasion, November 1942 (U.S. Air Force Historical Study, 1944), pp. 19-20.

[41] Daniel Mortensen, A Pattern for Joint Operations: World War II Close Air Support, North Africa (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1987), pp. 52-3.

[42] Ibid., 2.

[43] Matthew St. Clair, ‘Operation Husky and the Invasion of Sicily’: The Twelfth US Air Force: Tactical and Operational Innovations in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, 1943–1944, (Air University Press, 2007), p. 9.

[44] G-3 Training Section. Training Notes from Recent Fighting in Tunisia (Allied Force Headquarters, 1943), pp. 62-3.

[45] Thomas Mayock, AAF Historical Office, Headquarters, Army Air Forces. Twelfth Air Force in the North African winter campaign, 11 November 1942 to the reorganization of 18 February 1943, (U.S. Air Force Historical Study, 1946), p. 44.

[46] Mortensen, A Pattern for Joint Operations, p. 61.

[47] Ibid., p. 61.

[48] Ibid., p. 61.

[49] St Clair, Operation Husky and the Invasion of Sicily, p. 9.

[50] Mortensen, A Pattern for Joint Operations, pp. 70-2.

[51] Ibid., pp. 59, 62.

[52] St Clair, Operation Husky and the Invasion of Sicily, pp. 11-12.

[53] Karl Truesdell, ‘Northwest African Air Forces’ (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff School, 1943), pp. 1-2.

[54] Laurence Kuter, ‘Northwest African Tactical Air Forces: Organization of American Air Forces’ (Washington D.C.: Headquarters, Army Air Forces, 1945), p. 2.

[55] St Clair, Operation Husky and the Invasion of Sicily, pp. 12-3.

[56] Ibid., p. 13.

[57] Mortensen, A Pattern for Joint Operations, p. 72.

[58] Muller, Close Air Support, p. 187.

[59] Ibid., p. 76.

[60] Ibid., p. 83.

[61] Ibid., p. 84.

[62] Ibid., p. 85.

[63] Robert Ehlers Jr., The Mediterranean Air War: Airpower and Allied Victory in World War II (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2015), p. 285.

[64] CMH Publication 100-6, To Bizerte with the II Corps, p. 3.

[65] Ibid., pp. 4, 28, 40.

[66] St. Clair, Operation Husky and the Invasion of Sicily, p. 13.

[67] FM 100-20 Field Service Regulations: Command and Employment of Air Power (Washington D.C.: War Department, 1943), pp. 15-6.

[68] Kuter, ‘Northwest African Tactical Air Forces,’ p. 9.

[69] Truesdell, ‘Northwest African Air Forces,’ p. 9.

#ResearchNote – No. 1 Squadron RAAF Goes to War in Malaya

By Dr Ross Mahoney

Editorial note: This article appears on the author’s website. It has been reproduced here with permission.

On 26 July 1950, No. 1 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) conducted its first operations in support of Operation FIREDOG, the British Commonwealth’s air operations against insurgents during the Malayan Emergency. The operation consisted of two missions. The first operation involved two GAF Lincolns (A73-36 and A73-31), which dropped 20 1,000-pound bombs from an altitude of 5,000 feet over the Kota Tinggi area. The attack was commanded by the commanding officer of No. 1 Squadron, Squadron Leader Len Williamson. The second mission saw two more Lincolns (A73-39 and A73-31) attack targets in the Yong Peng area. This time, the attack was a combination of dropping bombs (20 x 1,000lb bombs) from 5,000 feet with strafing. The Operations Record Book for 26 July noted that the British Army reported the attack on Yong Peng had been successful, while the success of the raid on Kota Tinggi was yet to be reported.[1] These operations took place just 10 days after No. 1 Squadron arrived at RAF Tengah in Singapore on 17 July 1950.[2]

After several years of peaceful protest, on 16 June 1948, three European estate managers and two Asians were murdered in Malaya. This led to the declaration of an emergency in Malaya, which in turn prompted a counterinsurgency against the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and its military arm, the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA). The counterinsurgency officially ended in 1960; however, a second communist insurgency took place in Malaysia from the late 1960s to 1989. In 1950, the British launched the so-called Briggs Plan to deal with the insurgency. Named after the Director of Operations, General Sir Harold Briggs, the plan aimed to cut the MCP and MNLA off from the populace by combining civil and military actions. In severing the MCP and MNLA off from its primary source of supply, it was hoped to destroy ‘the terrorists and preventing a recurrence of their activities.’[3]

The use of air power in support of counterinsurgency operations during the Malayan Emergency became known as FIREDOG. It utilised both kinetic and non-kinetic forms of air power.[4] Primarily, air power was used to provide offensive air support, a variety of air transport roles and air reconnaissance. By 1954, offensive air support had been codified to include air strikes, harassing attacks, close support, air alert, and psychological warfare.[5] With regard to No. 1 Squadron, the RAF Air Historical Branch’s narrative on FIREDOG noted that in this role, an ‘Australian medium bomber squadron bore the brunt of offensive operations from 1950 to 1958.’[6]

In June 1950, the RAAF’s first deployment to Malaya came in the form of No. 38 Squadron equipped with the Douglas C-47 Dakota. This came about because on 21 April 1950, the British Government requested Australian support in Malaya in the form of ‘air reinforcements.’ Specifically, the British sought a transport squadron, a ‘squadron or flight’ of Lincoln bombers and support for servicing aeroplanes either in Singapore ‘and/or’ Australia.[7] This led to a meeting of the Defence Committee on 27 April, which agreed with the idea that Australia might contribute a transport squadron and a ‘small squadron’ of four Avro Lincolns to the air effort over Malaya.[8] The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal George Jones, noted that the contribution of Lincolns could be increased to six at a later date. On 19 May, the Australian Government agreed to the dispatch of No. 38 Squadron but not the Lincolns.[9] At the end of May, the Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, announced the dispatch of No. 38 Squadron in Parliament and noted that ‘the winning of the “cold” war in Malaya is of vital importance to the security of Australia.’[10] However, the reticence to dispatch Lincolns was partly due to Menzies’s scepticism about the efficacy of air power in this type of conflict.[11] The outbreak of the Korean War at the end of June 1950 shifted this perception.

On 27 June, the Australian Government finally resolved to deploy No. 1 Squadron to Malaya. As the Official Historian of Australia’s contribution to the Korean War, Robert O’Neill has written:

It is significant that Australia’s first military response to the outbreak of the Korean war was to undertake at once a commitment elsewhere [Malaya] of a kind which, until the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, it had been reluctant to accept.[12]

More recently, in 2017, Andrea Benvenuti wrote that the outbreak of the Korean War dispelled the Australian Government’s ‘last reservations’ over the deployment.[13] Further announcements by the Australian Government clarified the links between Korea and Malaya. They were seen as part of the same problem: communist aggression against the West. The British High Commission in Canberra recorded that the news of the deployment of No. 1 Squadron had been received with ‘great pleasure in London.’[14]

No. 1 Squadron received its orders on 28 June and began preparing for deployment by the start of July.[15] This included, for example, Williamson interviewing the ‘Immigration Department and Taxation Department officials’ about the clearances required for personnel deploying to Malaya.[16] The squadron departed RAAF Station Amberley on 15 July, stopping at Darwin en route to RAF Tengah in Singapore, where it arrived on 16 July. [17] By October 1950, No. 1 Squadron was stationed alongside 60 Squadron RAF, equipped with the Supermarine Spitfire FMk18 and 45 and 84 Squadrons RAF equipped with the Bristol Brigand B1.

No. 1 Squadron increased in strength to eight Lincolns in 1951 and would stay in Malaya until 1958. As David Lee, in his history of the RAF in the Far East, wrote, the squadron had made ‘a great contribution to FIREDOG operations for almost eight years, and its departure from Tengah was viewed with much regret.’[18] During this time, in 1955, it would be assigned to the newly established British Commonwealth Far East Strategic Reserve, to which Australia would contribute one bomber and two fighter squadrons.[19] Also, during this time, as a mark of the growing importance of the RAAF’s contribution to the campaign in Malaya and Australia’s growing ‘strategic interests’ in the region, Air Vice-Marshal Frederick Scherger was appointed Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Air Headquarters (AHQ) Malaya for two years between 1953 and 1955.[20] Air Vice-Marshal Valston Hancock would also serve as AOC for several months in 1957 before AHQ Malaya was reduced to No. 224 Group. Hancock continued to command No. 224 Group until mid-1959. Both Scherger and Hancock would go on to become CAS. The RAAF also took over Butterworth air base from the RAF and operated permanent squadrons from there until 1988.[21] The RAAF continues to maintain a presence at Butterworth, underscoring the region’s importance to Australian security.

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy 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, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum between 2013 and 2017. His other research interests are 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.

Header image: A No. 1 Squadron RAAF crew in front of their GAF Lincoln after returning from a mission over Malaya, c. 1950. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] National Archives of Australia (NAA), A9186, 2, No. 1 Squadron, Operations Record Book, 26 July 1950; ‘First Malayan Strike by RAAF,’ Daily Mirror, 27 July 1950, p. 6.

[2] ‘Planes Land at Singapore for Use in Malaya,’ Daily Mirror, 17 July 1950, p. 1.

[3] AP3410, The Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960 (London: Ministry of Defence, 1970), p. 16.

[4] The starting point for any analysis of the use of air power during the Malayan Emergency should be the RAF’s Air Historical Branch narrative: AP3410, The Malayan Emergency. This was later published as Malcolm R. Postgate, Operation Firedog: Air Support in the Malayan Emergency 1948–1960 (London: HMSO, 1992). Also see: Malcolm Postgate, ‘Operation Firedog: Air Support in the Malayan Emergency’ in Roger Miller (ed.), Seeing off the Bear: Anglo-American Cooperation during the Cold War (Washinton DC: United States Air Force History and Museums Program, 1995), pp. 181-90; David Jordan, ‘Countering Insurgency from the Air: The Postwar Lessons,’ Contemporary Security Policy 28, no. 1 (2007), pp. 96-111; Andrew Mumford, ‘Unnecessary or unsung? The utilisation of airpower in Britain’s colonial counterinsurgencies,’ Small Wars & Insurgencies 20, no. 3-4 (2009), pp. 638-44; Sebastian Ritche, The RAF, Small War and Insurgencies: Later Colonial Operations, 1945-1975 (London: Air Historical Branch, 2011), pp. 15-35; Roger Arditti, ‘The view from above: how the Royal Air Force provided a strategic vision for operational intelligence during the Malayan Emergency,’ Small Wars & Insurgencies 26, no. 5, (2015), pp. 764–789. For a view of Australian air power and the Malayan Emergency, see: Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal Australian Air Force, 1946-1971 (Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995), pp. 224-44; Mark Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, 1950 to 1966 (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2021); Peter Hunter, ‘Australian air power strategy, technologies, and counter-insurgency in Malaya during the Cold War’ in Nicole Townsend, Kus Pandey, Jarrod Pendlebury (eds.), Australian Perspectives on Global Air and Space Power: Past, Present, Future (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023), pp. 46-60.

[5] Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, p. 108.

[6] AP3410, The Malayan Emergency, p. 56.

[7] NAA, A1209, 1957/4513, Office of the British High Commissioner to the Prime Minister, 21 April 1950.

[8] NAA, A2031, 59/1950, Minutes of a Meeting by the Defence Committee, 27 April 1950; Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, p. 74.

[9] NAA, A4638, SET 2, Minutes of the Meeting of Cabinet, p. 3.

[10] NAA, A1209, 1957/4513, Statement by the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives, 31 May 1950, p. 2.

[11] Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, p. 74.

[12] Robert O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1: Strategy and Diplomacy (Canberra, ACT: The Australian War Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service, 1981), p. 48.

[13] Andrea Benvenuti, Cold War and Decolonisation: Australia’s Policy Towards Britain’s End of Empire in Southeast Asia (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017), p. 20.

[14] NAA, A1209, 1957/4513, Office of the British High Commissioner to the Prime Minister, 1 July 1950.

[15] Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, p. 111.

[16] NAA, A9186, 2, No. 1 Squadron, Operations Record Book, 4 July 1950.

[17] NAA, A9186, 2, No. 1 Squadron, Operations Record Book, 15/16 July 1950.

[18] David Lee, Eastwood: A History of the Royal Air Force in the Far East, 1945-1972 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1984), pp. 150-1.

[19] Tristan Moss, ‘Planning for war in Southeast Asia: The Far East Strategic Reserve, 1955–66’ in Peter Dean and Tristan Moss (eds), Fighting Australia’s Cold War: The Nexus of Strategy and Operations in a Multipolar Asia, 1945–1965 (Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, 2021), p. 99.

[20] NAA, A5954, 2293/1, Office of the High Commissioner to the Prime Minister’s Department, 10 May 1952.

[21] On life at RAAF Butterworth, see: Matthew Radcliffe, Kampong Australia: The RAAF at Butterworth (Sydney, NSW: NewSouth Publishing, 2017).

#ResearchNote – The RAF Staff College (Overseas) at Haifa

By Dr Ross Mahoney

Editorial note: This article first appeared on the author’s website. It has been reproduced here with permission.

During its existence from 1922 to 1997, the Royal Air Force (RAF) Staff College was located in several different places. When the Staff College was initially founded in 1922, it was located at Andover and remained there until the course was suspended in 1940. When the RAF reestablished its Staff College in late 1941, it did so at Bulstrode Park, Gerrards Cross. The first course at Bulstrode Park began in January 1942. It remained here until the Staff College transferred to Bracknell in 1945. At the same time as the move to Bracknell, a detachment of the Staff College remained at Gerrards Cross, and this eventually transferred to Andover in 1948. Bracknell was responsible for providing command and staff training to officers of the RAF, the United States Air Force, and members of the air forces of the ‘old’ Dominions. Andover provided command and staff training to members of the RAF and other foreign air forces. In 1965, it was announced that the two Staff Colleges would merge and be located in Bracknell. This eventually happened at the end of 1969. This is where the Staff College remained and eventually merged to become the Joint Services Command and Staff College in 1997.

This, however, is not the whole story. As well as its primary Staff College in the UK, the RAF also provided command and staff training in the Middle East at Haifa, Palestine (modern-day Israel), for four years. In 1940, the British Army established the Middle East Staff School, and in late 1941, they admitted RAF students to the No. 5 War Course. Then, from No. 6 War Course in early 1942, an RAF Wing was added to the Middle East Staff School.[1] During the No. 12 War Course in 1944, the RAF Wing became its own reporting unit, the RAF Staff College (Overseas).[2] It came under the administrative control of Air Headquarters Levant. The first Commandant was Air Commodore S.H.C. Gray, formerly the senior RAF instructor at the Middle East Staff School. The object of Haifa was to ‘train Staff Officers, not necessarily Commanders’ while the syllabus mirrored that undertaken at the Staff College back in the UK.[3] The last course, No. 16 War Course, took place in 1946 and ended in October. After this date, both the RAF Staff College and Army Staff College (the Middle East Staff School had been redesignated the Middle East Staff College in 1943) were disbanded.[4]

It is hard, without further research, to assess the impact of the RAF Staff College (Overseas) at Haifa, but it was clearly an important institution. As the then Wing Commander R.A. Mason (later Air Vice-Marshal Professor Tony Mason) noted in 1972, ‘the constant opportunities for joint service studies [at Haifa] conferred no small advantage on the Middle Eastern College over its Gerrards Cross counterpart.’[5] However, Mason’s conclusion was not his own, and context is important here. As the RAF Staff College prepared to commemorate the 50^th Anniversary of its establishment, two publications appear to have been commissioned to detail the history of the institution.[6] The first was a history of the Staff College, written by Mason and widely cited by historians since. However, his was not the only volume commissioned. Another volume of the history of the Staff College at Haifa was also commissioned. Squadron Leader D.J. Read wrote this. This history detailed the Staff College at Haifa, but, unlike Mason’s more widely known counterpart, it is not widely cited. Indeed, I know of several copies in the library at the RAF Museum and a copy at the National Archives at Kew.[7] Importantly, while Mason details Haifa in his history, he is indebted to Read’s history.[8] For example, while Mason noted the importance of ‘jointery’ at Haifa, it was Read who reflected that:

Sometime in the future 2, or all 3, of Britain’s armed forces may well decide to combine their Staff Colleges into one establishment. If and when this occurs there may well be a temptation to acclaim the occurrence as a ‘first’. But perhaps someone will be around to remind the publicists that, for a few years in the mid-1940s, the Army and Royal Air Force had co-located Staff Colleges at The Telsch Hotel on Mount Carmel, Haifa.[9]

Of course, the Staff Colleges of the RAF, British Army and Royal would eventually amalgamate to form the Joint Services Command and Staff College, originally located on the site of the RAF Staff College at Bracknell.

Header image: Flying Officer C.L. Collings, Officer in charge of the Desert Air Force’s Anti-Malaria Control Unit, lectures to pilots and ground crew of No. 152 Squadron RAF on defence tactics against the disease, in front of one of the Squadron’s Supermarine Spitfire Mark VCs at Lentini East, Sicily, c. 1943. (Source: IWM (CNA 1235))

[1] Squadron Leader D.J. Read, The Royal Air Force Staff College at Haifa, 1942-46 (Bracknell: RAF Staff College, 1972), p. 1.

[2] Ibid., p. 11.

[3] ‘Annex C – Middle East Staff School – Joining Instructions for RAF Officers, 2 April 1943’ in Ibid., p. C-1; ‘Annex D – Middle East Air Order No. 1261 – Formation of RAF Staff College (Overseas), 30 September 1944’ in Ibid., p. D-1.

[4] Ibid., p. 7, 19.

[5] Wing Commander R.A. Mason, History of the Royal Air Force Staff College, 1922-1972 (Bracknell: RAF Staff College, 1972), p. 28.

[6] Read, The Royal Air Force at Staff College at Haifa, p. i.

[7] It can be found in AIR 20/11980 at The National Archives at Kew.

[8] Mason, History of the Royal Air Force Staff College, p. 28, fn. 28.

[9] Read, The Royal Air Force Staff College at Haifa, p. 25.

#BookReview – Balloon Ace: The Life of an Early Airpower Visionary

Reviewed by Ray Ortensie

Charles D. Dusch Jr., Balloon Ace: The Life of an Early Airpower Visionary. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2025. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pbk. 269 pp.

Charles D. Dusch Jr.’s Balloon Ace: The Life of an Early Airpower Visionary chronicles the brief, heroic, and influential life of Louis Bennett Jr., a figure who sought to revolutionise American military aviation during the First World War. Dusch skilfully integrates Bennett’s personal history, familial pressures, military ambitions, and spectacular combat achievements with the broader cultural and military history of the Great War, resulting in a biography that is both insightful into early air power concepts and profoundly moving in its examination of wartime loss and subsequent commemoration. The book’s comprehensive scope, spanning from Bennett’s Southern upbringing to his mother’s tireless post-war efforts, illuminates how one young man’s vision anticipated future air power strategy and how the ensuing grief shaped public memory.

The narrative begins by establishing Bennett’s complex heritage. Born into a prominent Southern family with service in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, his identity was heavily influenced by the narrative of the Lost Cause. His family was related by marriage to Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, a figure elevated to the pantheon of Confederate heroes and Bennett was taught by his mother to embrace the Lost Cause mythology and recognise that he had ‘big shoes to fill.’ Despite this powerful heritage, as a student at Yale University on the eve of the Great War, Bennett intended to be ‘his own man’ and forge his own path, perhaps spurred by this very Civil War legacy.

Bennett and his classmates followed newspaper accounts that dramatically romanticised the war, particularly focusing on the new air weapon, often casting aviators as ‘medieval knights, jousting high above the clouds.’ (p. 24) This glamour, coupled with the speed of aviation, appealed greatly to Bennett. He became an early advocate for military flying, joining the Aero Club of America in 1915. While many Yale students debated the war or joined the Connecticut National Guard, Bennett focused on flying, securing a summer job at an aircraft factory in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1916 to learn how aircraft were assembled – a pursuit he deemed a ‘good healthy job’ and ‘quite a science.’ (p. 38)

Upon America’s entry into the war in April 1917, Bennett, a senior at Yale, departed mid-semester. He purchased a Curtiss aeroplane and immediately pursued his most significant, yet ultimately unrealised, vision: the creation of the West Virginia Flying Corps (WVFC). Bennett sought to form a state aerial militia, as outlined in his ‘West Virginia Aerial Reserve Unit’ sketch, to train 15 aviators. The unit’s goal was to establish ‘aerial efficiency in this section of the country.’ Bennett’s expansive concept went beyond West Virginia, where he envisioned a national aviation reserve system with a decentralised network of airfields and repair stations. Dusch notes that this systematic approach made practical sense, especially given the unprepared state of American aviation technology and industry, which lagged well behind Europe. Furthermore, Bennett’s idea closely resembled the air power arguments William ‘Billy’ Mitchell put forth in 1925.

To ensure the unit’s sustainability, Bennett incorporated the WVFC and established the West Virginia Aircraft Factory in Warwood, West Virginia, along the Pennsylvania Railroad line. This factory later produced spare parts and Curtiss JN-4D airframes for the Army, valued at about $1 million. Crucially, Bennett hired Captain E.A. Kelly, an officer on leave from the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC), as an instructor, ensuring his cadets would learn modern combat tactics, which few available US Army aviators were qualified to teach.

Despite his patriotic efforts, the War Department resisted Bennett’s efforts to create an elite, independent unit. General George Squier, head of the US Army’s Signal Corps, advised Bennett that the government was reluctant to recognise individual units because doing so would restrict the stationing of officers. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker appreciated the WVFC’s patriotism but asserted that military aviation demanded far more than mere flying skills, requiring training in ‘radio telegraphy, aerial combat, and reconnaissance, machine guns, topography, etc..’ Baker recommended that WVFC members apply for regular US Army training. Discouraged by the US Army’s refusal and aware of the logistical ‘growing pains’ and production delays plaguing the fledgling US Army Air Service, Bennett made a realistic choice: the ‘quickest and most direct route’ to active combat was through the RFC in Canada. (p. 87) This decision was upsetting to his father, who questioned Bennett’s choice of Canadian service over American service once the US declared war.

A Royal Air Force pilot affixing to his Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a biplane a notice reading: ‘Huns: 39 in 14 Days.’ Saint-Omer Aerodrome, 21 June 1918. This was the same type of aircraft flown by No. 40 Squadron during 1918. (Source: IWM)

Bennett was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the RFC in January 1918. After primary training, he progressed rapidly through advanced aircraft in England, moving from the Avro 504 to the beloved Sopwith Pup. He then trained on the highly manoeuvrable but notoriously tricky Sopwith Camel and the Sopwith Dolphin. Dusch expertly discusses the deadly instability of the rotary-powered Camel, which was known for killing new pilots.

Posted to France around 21 July 1918, Bennett joined No. 40 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF) the following day, replacing Lieutenant Indra ‘Laddie’ Roy, an ace from India recently killed in combat. Placed in ‘C Flight’ under Captain George E.H. ‘McIrish’ McElroy, one of Britain’s leading aces, whose reputation for ‘great determination, reckless bravery and abandonment’ galvanised the squadron. Bennett was thrilled, believing he would learn more from the experienced flight commander. (p. 114) Bennett’s combat career was intensive but brief, occurring during the great Allied counteroffensive of summer 1918. His first combat sortie was disastrous; on 31 July, his commander, McElroy, was shot down and killed by ground fire. This high rate of attrition was sobering; one pilot estimated the average life expectancy of a pursuit pilot was just three weeks.

Bennett soon became known as a highly effective ‘balloon buster,’ targeting German observation balloons (Drachen). Dusch emphasises the strategic importance of these attacks: balloons and observation aircraft provided the necessary aerial observation for accurate artillery fire, which accounted for approximately 75 per cent of First World War casualties. Neutralising these platforms was key to achieving air superiority, thereby protecting Allied soldiers and blinding enemy commanders.

Bennett scored his first confirmed air victory on 15 August, sending a German Fokker DVII down out of control. Later that same day, he destroyed his first balloon near Merville using Buckingham incendiary ammunition. On 19 August, demonstrating unusual courage, Bennett took off alone after being delayed by engine trouble and dove on an easterly balloon, setting it ablaze instantly. Emboldened, he took off again that afternoon, destroying two more balloons near Merville and Hantay. In just four hours, he destroyed four German targets. On 23 August, he destroyed two more balloons in a single sortie, bringing his confirmed score to seven.

However, on 24 August 1918, Bennett was reported missing. Later accounts from villagers and German Lieutenant Emil Merkelbach confirmed his final heroic actions. Bennett was shot down after successfully attacking German balloons. He had pursued the balloonists fiercely, despite being low to the ground and facing intense anti-aircraft fire, a risk he willingly took. Wounded by a bullet to the head and suffering severe burns and two broken legs, he died that evening in the German field hospital at Wavrin without regaining consciousness. He was buried the next day with full military honours by his German captors.

Dusch spends the concluding section of the book discussing the legacy established by Bennett’s mother, Sallie Maxwell Bennett, a woman driven by intense, personal bereavement. Dusch frames Sallie’s actions within the larger context of First World War grief, noting that the absence of identifiable bodies caused acute psychological suffering for families, linking the experience back to the American Civil War. Sallie, already mourning the death of her husband earlier that August, immediately began a tireless quest to find her only son. Despite being initially denied a passport by the US government, she prevailed by becoming a correspondent for the Wheeling Register.

Once in France, Sallie overcame bureaucratic obstacles and conflicting reports about the location of her son’s grave. With assistance from Major General Mason Patrick and local French villagers, she eventually located his grave in the Wavrin cemetery. Her efforts soon expanded beyond her son; profoundly moved by the devastation and the grief of other mothers, Sallie undertook a ‘private quest’ to find, visit, photograph, and map the graves of other fallen American servicemen for their families back home. She overcame French governmental resistance to repatriation and, in April 1920, successfully arranged for Bennett’s remains to be returned secretly to Weston, West Virginia, where he was buried next to his father.

Sallie ensured Bennett’s legacy through perpetual memorials. She dedicated the family home in Weston as the Louis Bennett Jr. War Memorial and Public Library. More globally, she commissioned a stained-glass window in Westminster Abbey to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, dedicating it to ‘all flying men.’ In a unique blending of collective and personal memory, the artist used Bennett’s image as the model for the angel holding the shield of Faith within the window. Her final major endeavour was commissioning the statue of ‘The Aviator,’ designed to inspire the nation’s youth with his example of ‘able courage.’ This statue was ultimately dedicated at Linsly Military Institute in Wheeling, strategically positioned along the National Road to be seen continually by the American public.

Dusch’s Balloon Ace paints a comprehensive portrait of Louis Bennett Jr., not merely as a combat hero, but as an insightful, if ultimately thwarted, early air power visionary whose innovative ideas predated official policy. Furthermore, the detailed account of Sallie Bennett’s unrelenting efforts provides a powerful case study of maternal grief and the profound role of women in shaping national commemoration during the tumultuous post-war years. Balloon Ace: The Life of an Early Airpower Visionary convincingly demonstrates how Bennett’s story, though tragic and brief, became a foundational part of America’s public memory of the First World War.

Ray Ortensie is the Command Historian for Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, giving command oversight and support to 13 field-level history offices and four field-level museums. He is also an adjunct professor at American Public University System and Southern New Hampshire University, teaching undergraduate and upper-level graduate courses in U.S. history. His research focuses on aviation depots and Civil War guerrilla warfare. Ray received his master’s from Purdue University in 2004 and started working as an Air Force Historian shortly afterwards.

Header image: A Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 returning to St Omer aerodrome in the evening, 26 June 1918. This was the same type of aircraft flown by Bennett when he served with No. 40 Squadron RAF in 1918. (Source: IWM)

#BookReview – Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning

Reviewed by Dr Ross Mahoney

Randall Wakelam, David Varey and Emanuele Sica (eds.), Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2020. Hbk. Notes. Index. vii + 260 pp.

Air power history is dominated by accounts of operations, especially those of the First World War, the Second World War, and the Vietnam War. There is relatively little written about how air forces prepared for war. However, an inherent part of this preparation is how air forces have educated their aviators throughout history. As such, it is refreshing to read a volume dedicated to the subject of learning in air forces. Moreover, as the editors of the volume correctly write (p. 1), [i[f we accept that militaries are professions and that professions need education […] then we could reasonably want to know how militaries are educated and how well they perform this task.’

This edited volume is the outgrowth of a 2016 conference held at the Royal Military Academy of Canada on air power education. The book consists of 13 chapters organised into three chronological eras (the interwar years, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War). Many of the chapters were presented as keynote lectures at the 2016 conference. Several chapters, such as James Beldon and Peter Gray’s reflection on air power education in the modern Royal Air Force (RAF), were added for the publication of the volume (pp. 232-44). The addition of such chapters helps to round out the book and give shape to the subject.

Before examining some of the chapters, it is essential to recognise that, conceptually, this edited volume focuses on learning rather than solely on education. However, the latter is its main focus. This is an important distinction, as some of the chapters deal with educational establishments whose primary focus was training rather than education. As the editors relate, a tiered system of learning exists in military organisations that moves from training through to education (pp. 3-4). Nonetheless, for example, the chapters by Emanuele Sica (pp. 30-50) and John Farquhar (pp. 111-33) address institutions – the Accademia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force Academy) and the United States Air Force (USAF) Academy, respectively – whose primary focus is training. However, such institutions still have a broader educational role to play, and in this, we have a case of ‘Athens in Sparta,’ or a mix of skills-based training (Sparta) with broader education (Athens).

A review of this kind cannot hope to critique each chapter individually. As such, a couple of examples taken from each period will suffice. In the section on the interwar years, Sica examines the role that Giulio Douhet’s writing played in the education of the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) through the lens of the Accademia Aeronautica. In doing this, Sica presents a well-trodden subject – the writing of Douhet – in a new light. As Sica highlights, the place of Douhet in the development of his own country’s air force remains ‘open to debate’ (p. 43). Moreover, while the appointment of Italo Balbo in 1926 as undersecretary for air in the Italian government has been interpreted as ‘boon for Douhet’s fortune,’ the former’s policies illustrate the difficulty of assessing Douhet’s impact. This is born out in the teaching at the Accademia Aeronautica. As Sica argued, Douhet’s ‘ideas […] did not appear to gain wide acceptance, especially in the first years of the Italian Air Force Academy’ (p. 44).

In the section on the Cold War, the chapter by Richard Goette is of particular interest to this author, given the parallels between the Canadian and Australian experiences in the early years of the Cold War. Canada’s experience with creating its own Staff College is the subject of Goette’s chapter. However, it is worth noting that during the interwar years, both the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) relied on the RAF to provide mid-level officer education through the RAF Staff College at Andover, the latter examined by Gray in his chapter (pp. 15-29). The experience of the Second World War led the RCAF and RAAF to establish their own staff colleges. Goette, however, points out (p. 103) that ‘[a]ir force education at the RCAF Staff College […] involved much more than studying and time spent in the classroom.’ Goette’s point here is important. Attendance at institutions such as staff colleges is about more than just formal learning; it is about the experience as a whole and the opportunity for socialisation, networking and the sharing of ideas amongst peers.

The establishment of the USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies (now the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS)) by the world’s preeminent air force is the subject of Harold Winton’s chapter. In this chapter, Winton compares SAASS with the interwar Air Corps Tactical School and examines five key areas of comparison: origins and purpose, faculty, curriculum, students, and significance (p. 154). In his conclusion, Winton rightly highlights that, in creating an institution for the ‘elite’ education of select officers in the form of SAASS, the USAF must ensure that its officers show ‘intellectual humility’ to prevent them from degenerating (p. 163) into ‘elites of privilege and entitlement.’ Conversely, Martin James discusses the role of education and the establishment of the Air Power Studies Centre (APSC) (now the Air and Space Power Centre) by the RAAF. In this, James highlights the importance of key stakeholders, notably, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Ray Funnell, in supporting the establishment of APSC. Indeed, the role of such ‘champions’ needs to be more fully understood. For example, Marshal of the RAF Lord Cameron was instrumental in establishing the role of Director of Defence Studies for the RAF in 1977. The RAAF was fortunate in having a CAS, Funnell, who recognised that the study and writing of air power, including its doctrine, had been neglected (p. 170).

It is hard to criticise an edited work such as this, as it does not purport to be a comprehensive examination of air power learning. It could never hope to be, but it does offer a valuable insight into a much-underappreciated subject. However, the volume focuses on the experience of Western air forces. It would have been interesting to compare the experience of Western air forces in learning with that of non-Western countries. For example, discussing air power learning in communist countries such as the Soviet Union and China could highlight the role ideology played in officer education.

In conclusion, despite the author’s criticism above, the editors are to be commended for bringing this volume to fruition. The volume offers a starting point for any scholar researching learning in the military, generally, and in air forces specifically. It should be read by both scholars and practitioners who are interested in military learning.

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has 20 years of experience in the education, museum, heritage and government sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum from 2013 to 2017. His other research interests are 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.

Header image: Ramslade House, the home of the RAF Staff College in Bracknell after the Second World War. (Source: Wikimedia)

Air Vice-Marshal Professor R.A. ‘Tony’ Mason – A Reflection

By Dr Ross Mahoney

Editorial note: This piece was originally drafted not long after the passing of Air Vice-Marshal Mason. However, several personal reasons delayed its publication.

On 12 November 2023, Air Vice-Marshal Professor R.A. Mason, one of the doyens of air power studies, sadly passed away. Known to most who knew him personally and professionally as Tony, Mason can be considered one of the fathers of air power studies in the UK. As I have argued elsewhere, Mason was arguably the critical British air power thinker of the late 20^th Century. From being the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) first Director of Defence Studies (DDefS) to his writing and commentary work, Mason was consistently at the forefront of the field until the 2010s. Indeed, his consistent commitment to the field and the length of his career made him stand out. He was also generous with his time and knowledge and always happy to share material with those who shared his interests.

Mason joined the RAF in 1956 and entered the Education Branch. He gradually rose through the ranks in his branch and undertook various assignments, including attending King’s College London, the United States Air War College and the RAF Staff College. Eventually, in 1976, Mason was informed that he would be the RAF’s first DDefS. Mason took up the role at the start of 1977. The position of DDefS was established due to the perceived state of thinking on air power within the RAF and public awareness of the Service’s role. In a letter to Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Support Command, Air Marshal Sir Reginald Harland, Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Neil Cameron noted that the position was being established ‘to help provide a new stimulus to air power thinking’ throughout the RAF.[1] This point was also emphasised in the terms of reference for the DDefS post, as there was a need to ‘write on air power and defence issues,’ which was to be encouraged.[2]

The establishment of the post of DDefS at the RAF Staff College at Bracknell and Mason’s perceived suitability for the role caused some debate. While this is not the place to consider that debate, the view of Mason’s successor, Group Captain Timothy Garden, is worth noting. Garden, a pilot and later Air Marshal Baron Garden, noted in 1982 in Air Clues that a colleague had questioned why he would want to take over what was perceived by 1982 as an ‘admin branch’ role. Garden reflected that the most appropriately qualified person should essentially hold the post to achieve its aims and that it ‘should not be the prerogative of any branch.’[3] That Garden, as a pilot, viewed the post in such a way was as much down to Mason’s hard work in the role as it was to the importance of the RAF’s intellectual development.

Mason nonetheless quickly sought to encourage discussion and debate about the role of air power within the service on taking up the role of DDefS. Despite the demise of the RAF Quarterly in 1977, Mason regularly contributed to Air Clues, which, up to the 1970s, had primarily been a technical publication for the RAF. In 1980, he established the Air Power Supplement to Air Clues, the spiritual ancestor to the RAF’s current professional flagship journal, Air and Space Power Review.[4] He also regularly contributed to other publications, such as The RUSI Journal. Perhaps his critical success in this period was organising an academic symposium in his first year in post. This symposium was entitled ‘Air Power in the Next Generation.’ It was well attended and laid the basis for similar endeavours by his successors. It was also published as Air Power in the Next Generation, co-edited with Edgar Feuchtwanger and published by The Macmillan Press in 1979. The book included contributions from the senior USAF, Luftwaffe, and Israeli officers, as well as civilian academics such as John Erickson. Much of Mason’s work initiated a process whereby his successors have continued to contribute to the RAF’s collegiate intellectual development through various schemes, including publications, conferences, and the management of defence fellowships.[5] Many former post-holders, such as Air Commodore (ret’d) Professor Peter Gray, are also notable for their contribution to developing British air power thinking through their engagement with academia after leaving the post of DDefS and the RAF.

Mason’s contributions to air power studies continued after moving on from the DDefS role. In 1983, Mason published Air Power in the Nuclear Age in conjunction with Air Marshal Michael Armitage. This publication helped cement Mason’s position as a leading thinker on air power. As Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Cameron noted in the foreword to the book, ‘[t]he joint authors of this book are advanced and enlightened thinkers about the doctrine of air power as a vital and perhaps the most important element of modern and future warfare.’[6] This view was not hyperbole. For example, in his 1984 overview of air power literature, historian Richard Hallion described the book as an ‘excellent survey’ of the development of air power during the Cold War.[7] The book was updated as a second edition in 1985. Mason’s other notable works in this period were the edited book War in the Third Dimension and the establishment of the Brassey’s Air Power: Aircraft, Weapons Systems and Technology Series. This latter series was interesting because it was explicitly designed to develop awareness of air power amongst junior military personnel.

After retiring from the RAF in 1989, Mason moved into academia. He became the Leverhulme Air Power Research Director for the Foundation for International Security and took up a post as a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy at the University of Birmingham, where he was director. In 1996, he was made an Honorary Professor of Aerospace Policy at the University of Birmingham.

In 1994, Mason published what might be considered his magnum opus, Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal. This book confirmed Mason’s place as one of Britain’s leading air power thinkers. In this book, Mason examined the development of air power between 1989 and 1994. In doing so, he took a historical approach to examine how air power developed in the years up to this period. Mason then conceptualised the period 1989 to 1994, focusing on several key themes, such as the place of air power in arms control. Notably, he sought to contextualise much of the then-contemporary debate about the role of air power in the First Gulf War. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the book lay in Mason’s conceptualisation of what he called ‘differential air power.’[8] In short, Mason argued that while many nations shared ideas about the implementation of air power, only one in 1994 might be able to fully apply its advantages – the US. Using the concept of differential air power, Mason explored why the US stood out as a unique user of air power. These were important views for the time; however, while the book remains a significant contribution to air power studies, given factors such as the rise of China in the 21^st Century and the distributed use of off-the-shelf technology such as drones, it remains to be seen whether his view remains applicable. Nevertheless, Mason concluded that:

One enduring concept underlay all air power thinking and all operations from the first day of the century to the last, and will continue to do so. Any nation intent on going to war to pursue an interest or defend a principle must first secure the air above it.[9]

Mason’s book was well-received upon publication and has become a widely cited work. In his 1995 review in The RUSI Journal, Garden described the book as ‘excellent [and] thought-provoking.’[10] Thomas Keaney, who had worked on the Gulf War Air Power Survey, noted that the book made an ‘important contribution to any discussion on the future of airpower in the United States or elsewhere’ in a 1996 review for the US Joint Forces Quarterly.[11] However, historian Philip Sabin, reviewing the book in the Journal of Strategic Studies in 1995, offered a more tempered view. While recognising that the book had certain strengths, particularly Mason’s ‘balanced insights into many of the controversial issues regarding air power,’ Sabin also highlighted the challenge of reading a book that was ‘dense and difficult to follow without careful reading.’[12]

After the publication of Air Power, Mason continued to contribute to both the public’s and the RAF’s understanding of air power through his continued contributions to publications.[13] He also served as an expert member of the House of Commons Defence Committee in the early 2000s and helped inform British defence policy. He was also an inveterate media commentator and was often called to provide expert opinion. Mason’s contribution to air power studies was wide-ranging. While he had retired several years before his passing, his expertise will undoubtedly be sorely missed by many air power scholars for decades to come.

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 Heritage Policy 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: Ramslade House, the home of the RAF Staff College in Bracknell when Mason took up the role of Director of Defence Studies. (Source: Wikimedia)

[1] Author’s Personal Collection, Letter from the Chief of the Air Staff to AOC-in-C Support Command, 2 November 1976. I am grateful to the late Air Vice-Marshal Professor R.A. Mason for a copy of this and other documents linked to the establishment of the DDefS post.

[2] Author’s Personal Collection, Terms of Reference for Director of Defence Studies appended to a Letter from the Chief of the Air Staff to AOC-in-C Support Command, 2 November 1976, p. 1.

[3] Group Captain Timothy Garden, ‘Why don’t we forget Defence Studies and get on with the job?’ Air Clues 36, no 10 (1982), p. 364.

[4] Air Vice-Marshal Tony Mason, ‘Air Power Review’s Place in RAF History,’ Air Power Review 21, no. 1 (2018), p. 10.

[5] For a variety of publications produced under the guidance of DDefS, see: Andrew Lambert and Arthur C. Williamson (eds.), The Dynamics of Air Power (London: HMSO, 1996); Stuart Peach (ed.), Perspectives on Air Power: Air Power in its Wider Context (London: The Stationary Office: 1998); Peter W. Gray (ed.), Air Power 21: Challenges for the New Century (London: The Stationary Office, 2000); Peter W. Gray and Sebastian Cox (eds.), Air Power Leadership: Theory and Practice (London: The Stationary Office, 2002).

[6] Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Cameron, ‘Foreword’ in M’J’ Armitage and R.A. Mason, Air Power in the Nuclear Age: Theory and Practice, Second Edition (Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1985), p. vii.

[7] Richard Hallion, The Literature of Aeronautics, Astronautics, and Air Power (Washington DC: Office of Air Force History, 1984), p. 36.

[8] Tony Mason, Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal (London: Brassey’s, 1994), pp. 235-278.

[9] Mason, Air Power, p. 278.

[10] Timothy Garden, ‘Book Reviews – Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal,’ The RUSI Journal 140, no. 3 (1995), p. 60.

[11] Thomas Keaney, ‘A Jubilee for Airmen: A Book Review,’ Joint Forces Quarterly 11 (1996), p. 134

[12] Philip Sabin, ‘Book Review – Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 18, no. 4 (1995), pp. 141-2.

[13] For example, see: Tony Mason, ‘British Air Power’ in John Andreas Olsen (ed.), Global Air Power (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2011), 7-62; R.A. Mason, ‘The Response to Uncertainty’ in John Andreas Olsen (ed.), European Air Power: Challenges and Opportunities (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2014), pp. 215-30; Mason, ‘Air Power Review’s Place in RAF History,’ pp. 10-1.

Call for Submissions: Air Power and 1944 Revisited

In 2024, From Balloons to Drones will run a series of articles that examines the role of air power during the defining year of the Second World War – 1944.

The year 1944 was the defining year of the Second World War. Events such as the fall of Rome, the invasion of France and the destruction of Germany’s Army Group Centre on the Eastern Front defined the war in Europe. In the Pacific and Southeast Asia, events such as the Battles of Imphal and Kohima and the Battle of the Philippine Sea marked important points in the war. In the strategic air war, the Combined Bomber Offensive in Europe peaked. At the same time, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress was introduced in the Far East and Pacific as the US increased its strategic air operations in this theatre of operations.

2024 marks the 80th Anniversary of the critical events of 1944. At all levels of war, air power played an essential role in the various battles and campaigns of 1944. As such, From Balloons to Drones is seeking submissions for articles examining the varied use of air power in 1944. Articles might, for example, explore the strategic air campaigns of 1944, the use of tactical air power, or the use of carrier-based air power. Possible themes 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
Memory and Memorialisation

We are looking for articles of between 500 to 4,000 words, but we will accept larger pieces and reserve the right to publish them in parts. Please visit our submissions page for more information on the types of articles published by From Balloons to Drones.

We plan to begin running the series in March 2024, and it will continue for as long as we receive potential contributions. We welcome and encourage submissions from academics, policymakers, service personnel, and relevant professionals.

Submissions should be submitted in Word format and emailed to the email address below with ‘SUBMISSION – Air Power and 1944 Revisited’ in the subject line. Also, please include a 50-100-word biography with your submission. Footnotes can be used, and please be careful to explain any jargon. If you are unsure if your idea fits our requirements, please email us with ‘POTENTIAL SUBMISSION – Air Power and 1944 Revisited’ 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 contact us via our contact page here.

Header image: Rows of fuel tanks in front of a B-29 Superfortress of the 40th Bombardment Group assigned to the US Twentieth Air Force in China, c. 1944. (Source: Wikimedia)

#ResearchNote – Brassey’s Air Power: Aircraft, Weapons Systems and Technology Series

By Dr Ross Mahoney

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-20^th 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).
Walker, J.R., Air-to-ground Operations (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1987).
Armitage, M.J., Unmanned Aircraft (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1988).
Browne, J.P.R, and Thurbon, M. T., Electronic Warfare (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1998).
Walker, J.R., Air Superiority Operations (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1989).
Chapman, K., Military Air Transport Operations (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1989).
Elsam, M.B., Air Defence (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1989).
Knight, M., Strategic Offensive Air Operations (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1989).
Oxlee, G.J., Aerospace Reconnaissance (London: Brassey’s, 1997).
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)

#Podcast – Best Aviation and Air Power Books of 2022: An Interview with Dr Ross Mahoney

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.

The books discussed:

Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, 1950-1966 by Mark Lax
Air Power in the Falklands Conflict: An Operational Level Insight into Air Warfare in the South Atlantic by John Shields
Air Power Supremo: A Biography of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor by William Pyke
Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb by James Scott – reviewed here.
A Long Voyage to the Moon: The Life of Naval Aviator and Apollo 17 Astronaut Ron Evans by Geoffrey Bowman – reviewed here.
Dark Horse: General Larry O. Spencer and His Journey from the Horseshoe to the Pentagon by General Larry O. Spencer, USAF (Ret.) – interviewed here.
Wings of Gold: The Story of the First Women Naval Aviators by Beverly Weintraub – interviewed here.
Tomcats and Eagles: The Development of the F-14 and F-15 in the Cold War by Tal Tovy
Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today by Craig McNamara.

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)

#BookReview – Rearming the RAF for the Second World War: Poor Strategy and Miscalculation

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.

Vildebest — 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)

From Balloons to Drones

Air Power throughout the Ages

Tag: Royal Air Force

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