#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (November 2021)

Editorial note: In this series, From Balloons to Drones highlights research resources available to researchers. Contributions range from discussions of research at various archival repositories to highlighting new publications. As part of this series, we are bringing you a monthly precis of recent articles and books published in air power history. This precis will not be exhaustive but will highlight new works published in the preceding month. Publication dates may vary around the globe and are based on those provided on the publisher’s websites. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.

Articles

John Alexander, ‘The Worsted Manufacturer, Roderick Hill and ‘the most courageous decision of the War’: The Decision to Reorganise Britain’s Air Defence to Counter the V-1 Flying Bomb,’ RAF Air and Space Power Review 23, no. 1 (2021).

The first four V-1 flying bombs crossed the Channel in the early hours of 13 June 1944, exactly one week after D-Day; none were engaged and one reached Bethnal Green killing four people. When overnight 15/16 June the German Air Force launched 244 V-1s against London, the long-planned British counter V-1 defences, consisting of fighter, gun and balloon belts, brought down only thirty-three V-1s, including eleven shot-down by anti-aircraft (AA) guns, and seventy landed on London. This paper explores the decision to reorganise Britain’s Air Defence during this crucial stage of the War.

Orazio Coco, ‘The Italian Military Aviation in Nationalist China: General Roberto Lordi and the Italian Mission in Nanchang (1933–1937),’ The International History Review (2021). DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2021.1984277

On 7 September 1933, military officers of the Italian Air Force led by Colonel Roberto Lordi departed from Naples to reach China with the task, agreed upon by Italian fascist and Chinese nationalist governments, of building a factory assembling Italian-made aircraft and training pilots for the Republic of China. The mission was stationed at Nanchang, in today’s Jiangxi province. The initiative was developed in competition with a similar American mission, which had operated since 1932 in Hankou, in the Hubei province, at the time led by Colonel John H. Jouett. The Italian government won Chiang’s attention with the agreement to use the military airfield and Italian aircraft against the Communist resistance, which pleased the expectations of the Generalissimo. In April 1934, the headquarters of the Chinese military aviation finally moved to Nanchang. The mission’s commander, Roberto Lordi, was promoted Brigadier General of the Italian Royal Air Force and appointed Chief of Staff of the Chinese Air Force. This article presents, through extensive use of unpublished private and public archive documents, the controversial history of the Italian military mission and unveils the circumstances that changed the fortune of that successful story, as well as the career and personal life of its commander.

Steven Paget, ‘The ‘Eeles Memorandum’: A Timeless Study of Professional Military Education,’ RAF Air and Space Power Review 23, no. 1 (2021).

Examinations of historical examples are an important element of the professional military education debate and demonstrate the enduring nature of some of the necessary considerations. Air Commodore Henry Eeles, the Commandant of Royal Air Force (RAF) College Cranwell between August 1952 and April 1956 wrote a prescient report in 1955. The military, political and social changes that were occurring have some parallels to the contemporary context, including expectations about access to higher education and the introduction of new technology, which was viewed as leading to an era of so-called ‘push button warfare’. Eeles was also cognisant of issues such as balance, time and life-long learning that are just as pertinent today as in 1955. The context and content of the report has ensured that it has enduring relevance for the RAF.

Matthew Powell, ‘Royalties, Patents and Sub-Contracting: The Curious Case of the Hawker Hart,’ RAF Air and Space Power Review 23, no. 1 (2021).

Aircraft procurement by the Air Ministry in the inter-war period was beset by various problems, with numerous solutions proposed in an attempt to resolve them. One such potential solution was the proposal to sub-contract the production to other aircraft manufacturers within the Air Ministry’s ring of firms who were allocated firm orders. This action by the Air Ministry, it was believed, would spread the technical knowledge of aircraft production to a wider base that could be built upon in a time of national emergency or war. This approach was also a way of ‘artificially’ keeping firms alive where they had been unsuccessful in being awarded contracts. Such a scheme would, from the industry’s perspective, however, lead to less orders for firms successful in aircraft design and allow the potential sharing of industry secrets amongst direct competitors.

Richard Worrall, “Bumps along “The Berlin Road”’: Bomber Command’s forgotten Battle of Hanover, September-October 1943,’ RAF Air and Space Power Review 23, no. 1 (2021).

The many accounts on RAF Bomber Command follow the usual chronology of the ‘Main Offensive’ against Germany throughout 1943/4, with a linear progression from the Battle of the Ruhr, to the Battle of Hamburg, to the Battle of Berlin. Yet adopting this approach is problematic. The Battle of Berlin was halted by Harris in mid-September only to be recommenced in mid-November, but it, therefore, begs the simple question: what was Bomber Command doing during the interim ten weeks? Harris’ force was far from inactive during this time, in which the centrepiece was the ‘Battle of Hanover’ that comprised four heavy-attacks in twenty-six days. This article identifies what happened during this period of the ‘Main Offensive’, to suggest why this ‘bomber battle’ has remained forgotten, highlighting how Bomber Command’s experiences over Hanover revealed its limitations at this critical stage of the bombing war.

Books

Tony Fairbairn, The Mosquito in the USAAF: De Havilland’s Wooden Wonder in American Service (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2021).

On 20 April 1941, a group of distinguished Americans headed by the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, John Winant, and which included Major General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, Chief of the US Army Air Corps, visited the de Havilland Aircraft Company’s airfield at Hatfield, England.

The party was there ostensibly to gain an insight into how various US aircraft supplied to Britain were performing, as well as to observe some of the latest British products being put through their paces. The eighteen types on display included both US and British bombers and fighters. But the star of the day was undoubtedly the de Havilland Mosquito.

Having first flown only a few months earlier, on 25 November 1940, the aircraft that was put through its paces was flown by none other than Geoffrey de Havilland. Striving to impress the trans-Atlantic visitors, de Havilland provided an outstanding display of speed and manoeuvrability. It was a routine that impressed the Americans and left them in no doubt as to the Mosquito’s abilities.

Though the visitors harboured doubts about an aircraft made of wood, they returned to the United States with full details of the design. The Mosquito had also caught the eye of Elliott Roosevelt, son of the US President and a serving officer in the USAAC. An early specialist in military aerial mapping and reconnaissance, ‘ER’ swiftly realized the value of the Mosquito in the reconnaissance role and began lobbying vigorously for its acquisition. The Air Ministry duly noted ‘ER’s’ interest and influence.

Following America’s entry into the war, formal requests for Mosquitoes began in earnest in 1942. Initial deliveries for evaluation purposes in the United States soon followed in June 1943, the aircraft initially being supplied by de Havilland Canada. From February 1944 a steady flow of the photographic reconnaissance version, from Hatfield, were provided to what would become the USAAF’s 25th Bomb Group at Watton, England. There they served with distinction in a variety of specialist roles, including day and night photography, weather reconnaissance, ‘chaff’ (Window) dropping, scouting for the bomber force, raid assessment, and filming of special weapons projects.

A number of these Mosquitoes, serving with the 492nd Bomb Group at Harrington, were involved in the so-called ‘Joan-Eleanor’ project, working with OSS secret agents on the Continent. Finally, in 1945, the USAAF received much-anticipated night fighter Mosquitoes which enjoyed combat success with the 416th Night Fighter Squadron in Italy.

In this highly illustrated work, the author explores the full story of why the Americans wanted Mosquitoes, how they went about obtaining them, and their noted success and popularity with USAAF units.

Michael Hankins, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021).

Flying Camelot brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. It was an era when debates about aircraft superiority went public—and these were not uncontested discussions. Michael W. Hankins delves deep into the fighter pilot culture that gave rise to both designs, showing how a small but vocal group of pilots, engineers, and analysts in the Department of Defense weaponized their own culture to affect technological development and larger political change.

The design and advancement of the F-15 and F-16 reflected this group’s nostalgic desire to recapture the best of World War I air combat. Known as the “Fighter Mafia,” and later growing into the media savvy political powerhouse “Reform Movement,” it believed that American weapons systems were too complicated and expensive, and thus vulnerable. The group’s leader was Colonel John Boyd, a contentious former fighter pilot heralded as a messianic figure by many in its ranks. He and his group advocated for a shift in focus from the multi-role interceptors the Air Force had designed in the early Cold War towards specialized air-to-air combat dogfighters. Their influence stretched beyond design and into larger politicized debates about US national security, debates that still resonate today.

A biography of fighter pilot culture and the nostalgia that drove decision-making, Flying Camelot deftly engages both popular culture and archives to animate the movement that shook the foundations of the Pentagon and Congress.

Norman Ridley, The Role of Intelligence in the Battle of Britain (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2021).

The Battle of Britain was fought between two airborne military elites and was a classic example of pure attack against pure defence. Though it was essentially a ‘war of attrition’, it was an engagement in which the gathering, assessment and reaction to intelligence played a significant role on both sides.

In some respects, both the RAF and the Luftwaffe were hamstrung in their endeavours during the Battle of Britain by poor intelligence. The most egregious Luftwaffe blunder was its failure to appreciate the true nature of Fighter Command’s operational systems and consequently it made fundamental strategic errors when evaluating its plans to degrade them. This was compounded by the Luftwaffe’s Intelligence chief, Major Josef ‘Beppo’ Schmid, whose consistent underestimation of Fighter Command’s capabilities had a huge negative impact upon Reichsmarschall Göring’s decision-making at all stages of the conflict.

Both the Luftwaffe and the RAF lacked detailed information about each other’s war production capacity. While the Luftwaffe did have the benefit of pre-war aerial surveillance data it had been unable to update it significantly since the declaration of war in September 1939. Fighter Command did have an distinct advantage through its radar surveillance systems, but this was, in the early stages of the conflict at least, less than totally reliable and it was often difficult to interpret the data coming through due to the inexperience of many of its operators. Another promising source of intelligence was the interception of Luftwaffe communications.

It is clear that the Luftwaffe was unable to use intelligence as a ‘force multiplier’, by concentrating resources effectively, and actually fell into a negative spiral where poor intelligence acted as a ‘force diluter’, thus wasting resources in strategically questionable areas. The British, despite being essentially unable to predict enemy intentions, did have the means, however imperfect, to respond quickly and effectively to each new strategic initiative rolled out by the Luftwaffe.

The result of three years intensive research, in this book the author analyses the way in which both the British and German Intelligence services played a part in the Battle of Britain, thereby attempting to throw light on an aspect of the battle that has been hitherto underexposed to scrutiny.

Stephen Wynn, Hitler’s Air Defences (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2021).

The first Allied bombing raid on Berlin during the course of the Second World War, took place on 7 June 1940, when a French naval aircraft dropped 8 bombs on the German capital, but the first British raid on German soil took place on the night of 10/11 May 1940, when RAF aircraft attacked Dortmund.

Initially, Nazi Germany hadn’t given much thought about its aerial defences. being attacked in its ‘own back yard’ wasn’t something that was anticipated to be an issue. Germany had been on the offensive from the beginning of the war and Hitler believed that the Luftwaffe was the much stronger air force.

In addition, from 1939-1942, the Allied policy of aerial attacks on German soil was to hit targets with a distinct military purpose, such as munitions factories, airfields etc. This meant that the Germany military could focus where they placed their anti-aircraft batteries and had a very good idea of how many they would need.

However, Germany’s defensive capabilities were forced to improve as Allied raids on towns and cities increased in size and frequency. Fighter aircraft were included as part of anti-aircraft defences and flak units mastered the art of keeping attacking Allied aircraft at a specific height. This made it more difficult for them to identify their specific targets, and easier for German fighter aircraft to shoot them down before they could jettison their bomb loads.

With the Allied tactic of ‘area bombing’, Germany’s anti-aircraft capabilities became harder to maintain as demand increased. The longer the war went on, along with the increased Allied bombing raids, sometimes involving more than 1,000 bomber aircraft, so the worth and effectiveness of German air-defences dwindled.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (October 2021)

Articles

Mateusz Piątkowski, ‘War in the Air from Spain to Yemen: The Challenges in Examining the Conduct of Air Bombardment,’ Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 2021; https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krab017

Air power is a dominant factor in both past and modern battlespace. Yet, despite its undisputed importance in warfare, its legal framework did not correspond with the significance of the air military operations, especially before the adoption of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977. Even after this date, not all the particulars of air warfare are regulated by the positive rules, as the law is scattered in norms of customary character. Even more challenging process than reconstruction of the legal architecture of the air warfare is the evaluation of the specific incidents containing the elements of military aviation activity. The aim of the article is to present possible challenges arising from very complex normative and operational background of the air warfare and air bombardments in particular. The pivotal point in considerations is the forgotten inquiry conducted by the military experts operating within the established by the League of Nations commission reviewing the conduct of air bombardment during the Civil War in Spain. The adopted methodology of the commission could be considered as a reasonable and balanced approach of analyzing the cases including the involvement of the air power and a relevant reference in contemporary investigations.

Jasmine Wood (2021) ‘Lashings of Grog and Girls’: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Rehabilitation of Facially Disfigured Servicemen in the Second World War, War & Society, DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2021.1969172

This article explores the importance of masculinity in the rehabilitation experience of members of the Royal Air Force who were facially disfigured during the Second World War. Other historical work has highlighted the significance of masculinity in the rehabilitation of other groups of disabled veterans, but the experience of the facially disfigured is somewhat neglected. This article investigates the methods employed at Rooksdown House and East Grinstead Hospital where men suffering from burns injuries and disfigurements were both physically and psychologically rehabilitated. It explores the key themes of hospital environment, occupational therapy and relationships. In using oral histories and memoirs this article argues that masculinity and sexuality were key aspects of servicemen’s identity that had to be restored through rehabilitation to ensure their successful reintegration into society.

Books

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club: Naval Aviation in the Vietnam War (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

On August 2, 1964, the USS Maddox became embroiled in the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident that led directly to America’s increased involvement in the Vietnam War. Supporting the Maddox that day were four F-8E Crusaders from the USS Ticonderoga, and this was the very start of the US Navy’s commitment to the air war over Vietnam.

The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club is titled after the nickname for the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet which was stationed off the coast of Vietnam, and it tells the full story of the US Navy’s war in the air. It details all the operations from the USS Maddox onwards through to the eventual withdrawal of the fleet following the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975.

The Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 77, which at points during the war had as many as six carriers on station at any one time with 70-100 aircraft on each, provided vital air support for combat troops on the ground, while at the same time taking part in the major operations against North Vietnam itself such as Rolling Thunder, Linebacker I and II. All of these operations took place in a hostile environment of flak, missiles and MiGs.

The story is told through the dramatic first-hand accounts of those that took part in the fighting, with many of the interviews carried out by the author himself. The Vietnamese perspective is also given, with the author having had access to the official Vietnamese account of the war in the air. The author also has a personal interest in the story, as at the age of 20 he served with the US Seventh Fleet off the coast of Vietnam and was personally involved in the dramatic history of The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.

Kenneth Jack, Eyes of the Fleet Over Vietnam: RF-8 Crusader Combat Photo-Reconnaissance Missions (Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2021).

Photo reconnaissance played a significant role during the Cold War, however, it remained unknown to the public for many years because its product and methods remained classified for security purposes. While the U-2 gets most of the credit, low-level photo reconnaissance played an equally important role and was essential to target selection and bomb damage assessment during the Vietnam War. Moreover, the contribution of naval aviation photo-reconnaissance to the bombing effort in Vietnam is largely an untold story. This book highlights the role of the unarmed supersonic RF-8A/G photo-Crusader throughout the war, and also the part played by its F-8 and F-4 escort fighters.

Veteran and historian Kenneth Jack pieces together the chronological history of photo recon in the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1972, describing all types of missions undertaken, including several Crusader vs. MiG dogfights and multiple RF-8 shootdowns with their associated, dramatic rescues. The narrative focuses on Navy Photo Squadron VFP-63, but also dedicates chapters to VFP-62 and Marine VMCJ-1. Clandestine missions conducted over Laos began in 1964, becoming a congressionally authorized war after the Tonkin Gulf incident in August 1964. VFP-63 played a role in that incident and thereafter sent detachments to Navy carriers for the remainder of the war. By the war’s end, they had lost 30 aircraft with 10 pilots killed, six POWs, and 14 rescued. The historical narrative is brought to life through vivid first-hand details of missions over intensely defended targets in Laos and North Vietnam. While most books on the Vietnam air war focus on fighter and bombing action, this book provides fresh insight into the air war through its focus on photo-reconnaissance and coverage of both versions of the Crusader.

Mark Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, 1950-1966 (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2021).

Australia’s involvement in the Malayan Emergency from 1950 to 1960 and later in a Confrontation with Indonesia in the 1960s is little remembered today. Yet the deployment of over a third of the RAAF to support the British and Malayan governments in what became a long war of attrition against communist insurgents in the former case, and against Indonesian regulars and militia in the latter, kept the RAAF engaged for over 15 years. Wars by another name, these two events led to the birth of Malaysia and the establishment of an ongoing RAAF presence in South East Asia. Until recent operations in Afghanistan, the Malaya Emergency was Australia’s longest conflict. Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation recounts the story of the politics, strategies and operations that brought these two conflicts to a close.

Ian Pearson, Cold War Warriors: Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion Operations 1968-1991 (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2021).

Cold War Warriors tells the little-known story of the operations by the Royal Australian Air Force’s P-3 Orions during the latter years of the Cold War. The aircraft’s largely low-profile missions, usually flown far from their base, were often shrouded by confidentiality. Now, access to declassified documents has allowed this story to be told. From the lead-up to their delivery in 1968, to the end of the Cold War in 1991; from the intrigues associated with the procurement of the aircraft and subsequent upgrades, to perilous moments experienced by the aircraft and their crews while conducting operations; and from triumphs to tragedies; Cold War Warriors documents the P-3’s service in the RAAF in the context of the unfolding domestic and international events that shaped the aircraft’s evolving missions. As well as being a story of the RAAF Orions and their growing capabilities, Cold War Warriors is also the story of the crews who flew the aircraft. Using their words, Cold War Warriors faithfully describes a number of incidents, both on the ground, and in the air, to provide a sense of the enormous breadth of service the P-3 Orion has provided to the Royal Australian Air Force, to Australia and to our allies.

John Shields, Air Power in the Falklands Conflict: An Operational Level Insight into Air Warfare in the South Atlantic (Barnsley: Air World, 2021).

From the television footage shown in all its stark reality and the daily coverage and subsequent memoirs, the impression delivered from the air battles in the Falklands Conflict was that of heroic Argentine pilots who relentlessly pressed home their attacks against the British. While, by contrast, there is a counter-narrative that portrayed the Sea Harrier force as being utterly dominant over its Argentine enemies. But what was the reality of the air war over the Falkland Islands?

While books on the air operations have published since that time, they have, in the main, been personal accounts, re-told by those who were there, fighting at a tactical level, or back in their nation’s capital running the strategic implications of the outcome. But a detailed analysis of the operational level of the air war has not been undertaken – until now. At the same time, some analysts have inferred that this Cold War sideshow offers little insight into lessons for the operating environment of future conflicts. As the author demonstrates in this book, there are lessons from 1982 that do have important and continued relevance today.

Using recently released primary source material, the author, a serving RAF officer who spent two-and-a-half years in the Falklands as an air defence navigator, has taken an impartial look at the air campaign at the operational level. This has enabled him to develop a considered view of what should have occurred, comparing it with what actually happened. In so doing, John Shields has produced a comprehensive account of the air campaign that has demolished many of the enduring myths.

This is the story of not why, but how the air war was fought over the skies of the South Atlantic.

Mark Stille, Pacific Carrier War: Carrier Combat from Pearl Harbour to Okinawa (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

The defining feature of the Pacific Theatre of World War II was the clash of carriers that ultimately decided the fate of nations. The names of these battles have become legendary as some of the most epic encounters in the history of naval warfare. Pre-war assumptions about the impact and effectiveness of carriers were comprehensively tested in early war battles such as Coral Sea, while US victories at Midway and in the waters around Guadalcanal established the supremacy of its carriers. The US Navy’s ability to adapt and evolve to the changing conditions of war maintained and furthered their advantage, culminating in their comprehensive victory at the battle of the Philippine Sea, history’s largest carrier battle, which destroyed almost the entire Japanese carrier force.

Examining the ships, aircraft and doctrines of both the Japanese and US navies and how they changed during the war, Mark E. Stille shows how the domination of American carriers paved the way towards the Allied victory in the Pacific.

Richard Worrall, The Ruhr 1943: The RAF’s Brutal Fight for Germany’s Industrial Heartland (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

Between March and July 1943, RAF Bomber Command undertook its first concentrated bombing campaign, the Battle of the Ruhr, whose aim was nothing less than the complete destruction of the industry that powered the German war machine. Often overshadowed by the famous ‘Dambusters’ single-raid attack on the Ruhr dams, the Battle of the Ruhr proved much larger and much more complex. The mighty, industrial Ruhr region contained not only some of the most famous and important arms makers, such as the gunmakers Krupp of Essen, but also many other industries that the German war economy relied on, from steelmakers to synthetic oil plants. Being such a valuable target, the Ruhr was one of the most heavily defended regions in Europe.

This book examines how the brutal Ruhr campaign was conceived and fought, and how Bomber Command’s relentless pursuit of its objective drew it into raids on targets well beyond the Ruhr, from the nearby city of Cologne to the Skoda works in Czechoslovakia. Drawing on a wide-range of primary and secondary sources, this is the story of the first titanic struggle in the skies over Germany between RAF Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (September 2021)

Books

David Axe, Drone War Vietnam (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2021)

While the use of drones is now commonplace in modern warfare, it was in its infancy during the Vietnam War, not to mention revolutionary and top secret. Drones would play an important – and today largely unheralded – role in the bloody, two-decade US air war over Vietnam and surrounding countries in the 1960s and ’70s. Drone aircraft spotted targets for manned US bombers, jammed North Vietnamese radars and scattered propaganda leaflets, among other missions.

This book explores that obscure chapter of history. DRONE WAR: VIETNAM is based on military records, official histories and published first-hand accounts from early drone operators, as well as on a close survey of existing scholarship on the topic.

In their fledgling efforts to send robots instead of human beings on the most dangerous aerial missions, US operators in South-East Asia in the 1960s and ’70s wrote the first chapter in the continuing tale of autonomous warfare.

Dmitry Degtev and Dmitry Zubov, Air Battle for Moscow 1941–1942 (Barnsley: Air World, 2021)

In October 1941, Operation Typhoon and the battle for Moscow began. According to Hitler’s plan, it was to be the ‘last offensive’, after which nothing could stop Germany from conquering Britain and the rest of Europe – but first he had to overcome the Soviets and especially their air force.

Air Battle for Moscow is the first detailed description of one of the most vital, yet little known, air battles of the Second World War. The battle for Moscow opened with the flights of long-range reconnaissance aircraft, which photographed Moscow and the Kremlin. Then, on 22 July 1941, Operation Clara Zetkin, the Luftwaffe’s aerial assault on Moscow, began. But the Luftwaffe was opposed by the ‘Stalin’s Falcons’, the elite 6th Air Defence Corps, which defended the Soviet capital with a determination which saw bitter duels to the death and horrendous casualties on both sides.

The book presents new facts about this dramatic battle and describes in detail the actions of the aircrew on both sides. Yet this is not just the story or the air war. The authors also describe the lives of people during the war, of suppressed anti-Soviet opposition in Moscow, and of the bloodthirsty and inhuman actions of the Stalin regime. The book also tells of the fate of German pilots caught in Russian captivity, and the adventures of those who were able to survive and escape from the Russian executioners. Many myths concerning the battle are also challenged, such as the often-stated belief that Moscow’s anti-aircraft defences were the most powerful in the world and that it was the Soviets who were the finest pilots.

In this comprehensive account, details of losses, biographical outlines of the key individuals, analyses of the different aircraft and a full chronology of the battle are presented, as well as numerous exclusive photos, documents and drawings.

But it is the stories of those who fought in the Battle for Moscow that, undeniably, have the greatest impact. The harrowing tales of death and survival in conditions that are almost beyond description demonstrate just how important this conflict was to both Russia and the Third Reich and, ultimately, to the outcome of the Second World War.

Tim Jenkins, Flying Pantechnicons: The Story of the Assault Glider Trust (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021)

In the summer of 2001 the Midlands Branch of the Glider Pilot Regiment identified a significant gap in the proud heritage of British aviation. Despite numerous preserved aircraft assemblages both in the United Kingdom and abroad the fact remained that there was no complete surviving example of a publicly accessible Airspeed Horsa assault glider to be found anywhere in the world. The Assault Glider Trust was formed in order to put the situation straight once and, very much, for all.

Between 2001 and 2014 a skilled team of aviation enthusiasts worked tirelessly on the manufacture, conservation and restoration of not only the Airspeed Horsa but a wider collection of aircraft in honour of all those associated with airborne forces during The Second World war. These included an American WACO CG-4A ‘Hadrian’, C-47 Dakota and a DH82a Tiger Moth.

‘Flying Pantechnicons’ is a fascinating miscellany charting the remarkable story of The Assault Glider Trust and the determination of an entirely charitable voluntary organisation in achieving a most ambitious aviation project. The book follows their incredible journey from original idea through acquisition, restoration and the final challenge of finding permanent locations for public display and interpretation.

The development of British Airborne Forces and their military application is contextualised alongside the engineering challenges faced in the physical construction of historic airframes. Consequently, this book provides a valuable contribution to both historical interpretation and the machinations of large-scale object conservation making it ideal for aviation enthusiasts and heritage professionals alike.

Mikhail Maslov, King of Fighters: Nikolay Polikarpov and His Aircraft Designs, Volume 2 – The Monoplane Era (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021)

In the century-long history of the conquest of the sky there have been a number of outstanding personalities. Among them is the name of designer Nikolay Polikarpov (1892-1944), who is inseparably associated with the best achievements of Russian and Soviet aviation.

His practical activity in the aircraft industry began upon graduation from the Petersburg Polytechnic Institute in 1916. Aged 25, Polikarpov was sent to the Russo-Baltic Wagon Factory (RBWF), where the four-engined Ilya Muromets bombers designed by Igor Sikorsky were being built at that time. Later, beginning in August 1918, he worked in Moscow at the Dux aircraft factory. For several years, he was engaged in improving products manufactured by the factory, and upgrading production aircraft to accommodate the available engines, equipment and materials. From 1922, Polikarpov focused his attention on fighter aircraft, creation of which was a priority for him during the following years. The first of them was the IL-400 monoplane, designated I-1 by the Air Force. The monoplane was followed by biplanes including the 2I-N1 (1925), the I-3 (1927), the D-2 (1928), and the I-6 (1929). It was specialization in fighter aircraft which, from then on, became his mission in life. At the peak of his career as a designer, Polikarpov was informally styled ‘the King of Fighters’, which was quite in line with the level of his merits and achievements.

In the 1930s, the TsKB-3 (I-15) and TsKB-12 (I-16) fighters were designed under Polikarpov’s supervision. These aircraft were the designer’s undoubtable success. They also were the main combat fighters in service with the Red Army Air Force. For the creation of the I-15 and the I-16 fighters, Polikarpov was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935, and the Order of the Red Star a year later.

During the 1930s, Nikolay Polikarpov devised a lot of aircraft of various designs, the majority of which can be described as ‘advanced’ and ‘innovative’. In 1940, Polikarpov was granted the degree of the Doctor of Engineering and the title of the Chief Designer of the highest category. In the same year, he was awarded the title of the Hero of Socialist Labor. A year later, he became a recipient of the Stalin Prize.

This gifted Soviet engineer was destined to live only 52 years. On 30 July 1944, Nikolay Polikarpov died of a rapidly evolving cancer. To venerate his memory, the U-2 trainer has ever since been designated the Po-2 (Polikarpov-2).

This book describes all Polikarpov’s original projects, both those put into reality and unimplemented ones. It took the author many years to prepare for the creation of the book. The author studied materials on the respective topics in all Russian archives, and made use of the recollections of Polikarpov’s contemporaries, as well as publications by other researchers.

For purposes of clarity and in order to facilitate publication, the author split the book on Nikolai Polikarpov’s aircraft into two parts – the ‘Biplane Era’ and the ‘Monoplane Era’. Indeed, during the designer’s activity from 1918 through to 1932, he devoted himself predominantly to creating biplanes. For the 1920s, the biplanes were a preferable option; they were more common, more reliable, better studied, and even more desirable for the Red Army Air Force. The first design of the IL-400 (I-1) monoplane fighter appeared as early as 1923; however, it was through its novelty and unpredictability that the aircraft failed to achieve the deserved success. It should be noted that the U-2 (Po-2) and the R-5 biplanes, which were created during that period, became one of the best Polikarpov aircraft, and brought him recognition as a designer. In the 1930s, Nikolai Polikarpov’s activity reached its pinnacle. It was during that period that he created his advanced monoplanes such as the I-16, the I-17, the VIT-2, and others. He continued his fruitful and quite successful activity in the area of creating modern aircraft during the war of 1941—45 as well.

Volume 2 comprehensively covers Polikarpov’s monoplane designs.

Jerry Murland, The Schneider Trophy Air Races: The Development of Flight from 1909 to the Spitfire (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2021)

When Jacques Schneider devised and inaugurated the Coupe d’Aviation Maritime race for seaplanes in 1913, no-one could have predicted the profound effect the Series would have on aircraft design and aeronautical development, not to mention world history.

Howard Pixton’s 1914 victory in a Sopwith Tabloid biplane surprisingly surpassed the performance of monoplanes and other manufacturers turned back to biplanes. During The Great War aerial combat was almost entirely conducted by biplanes, with their low landing speeds, rapid climb rates and manoeuvrability.

Post-war the Races resumed in 1920. The American Curtiss racing aircraft set the pattern for the 1920s, making way for Harold Mitchell’s Supermarines in the 1930’s. Having won the 1927 race at Venice Mitchell developed his ground-breaking aircraft into the iconic Spitfire powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. This new generation of British fighter aircraft were to play a decisive role in defeating the Luftwaffe and thwarting the Nazis’ invasion plans.

This is a fascinating account of the air race series that had a huge influence on the development of flight.

Ryan Noppen, Holland 1940: The Luftwaffe’s First Setback in the West (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021)

The German invasion of the Netherlands was meant to be a lightning-fast surgical strike, aimed at shoring up the right flank of the assault on France and Belgium. With a bold plan based largely on Luftwaffe air power, air-landing troops, and the biggest airborne assault yet seen, a Dutch surrender was expected within 24 hours.

But the Netherlands possessed Europe’s first fully integrated anti-aircraft network, as well as modern and competitive aircraft. On 10 May, the German attack was only partly successful, and the Dutch fought on for another four days. On the fifth day, with its original strategy having largely failed, the Luftwaffe resorted to terror-bombing Rotterdam to force a surrender.

Explaining the technical capabilities and campaign plans of the two sides, and charting how the battles were fought, this fascinating book reassesses this little-known part of World War II. Author Ryan K. Noppen argues that while the Holland campaign was a tactical victory for Germany, the ability of the well-prepared but outnumbered Dutch to inflict heavy losses was a warning of what would come in the Battle of Britain.

Russell Peart, From Lightnings to MiGs: A Cold War Pilot’s Operations, Test Flying & And Airspeed Record (Barnsley: Air World, 2021)

It was supposed to be just a training flight. The two Soviet-manufactured MiG 21s, each with two practice bombs and four air-to-ground rockets, were lined up on the runway in Bangladesh at the height of the Cold War, when air traffic control suddenly reported an incursion by Indian Air Force Jaguars. Though ill-equipped for combat, the two MiGs were scrambled.

One of the MiGs’ pilots was an RAF officer – Squadron Leader Russell Peart. On a seven-month loan to the Bangladeshi Air Force, Peart suddenly found himself at the centre of the simmering hostility between two neighbouring nations. By the time they reached the area that had been threatened by the Indian pilots, the Jaguars had gone. Later, when Squadron Leader Russell Peart spoke of the incident to the British High Commissioner, he was told not to shoot down any Jaguars as the Indians had still not paid for them!

Russell Peart flew many other aircraft in his varied career, including the MiG 19, and while a test pilot at Boscombe Down trialled such designs as the Tornado GR1. But it was whilst he was seconded to the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force, particularly during the so-called ‘Secret War’ in Dhofar, that he saw the most action. In that theatre the author flew some 200 operational sorties, 180 of which involved live fire, during which he was hit many times. He was also hit and wounded by a 75mm shell.

Russ Peart has written in detail of his exciting RAF career, from flying Lightnings in the Far East to winning the top prize in the International Tactical Bombing Competition against a handpicked team of United States Air Force fighter pilots and being awarded the Sultan Of Oman’s Distinguished Service Medal. Supplemented by a selection of previously unseen photographs, this uniquely original memoir throws new light on the operational flying undertaken by some RAF pilots during the tense years of the Cold War.

Kevin Wright, We Were Never There, Volume 1: CIA U-2 Operations over Europe, USSR, and the Middle East, 1956-1960 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021)

Devised by Kelly Johnson and initially operated by the CIA, the U-2 is the world’s most famous ‘spyplane.’ It flew at unprecedented altitudes and carried the most sophisticated sensors available, all in the greatest secrecy. Operating from remote locations and without markings, they often took-off before first light. Ostensibly operated by civilians flying meteorological research missions, their bold overflights took them far across Eastern Europe, the USSR, Middle and Far East. However, many details of the aircraft’s operational history remain vague and a considerable amount is still classified. Continuing national political sensitivities have meant that much about these early operations has still not been fully revealed even more than 60 years later.

This book utilises a large number of recently declassified documents to explore the remaining hidden details. It provides in-depth examinations of some missions not previously fully described and include more about Norway’s role in U-2 operations, and a breakdown of British U-2 overflights of the Middle East using recently released files from the British Ministry of Defence. It examines some of the U-2’s extensive efforts to collect intelligence on Soviet ballistic missile test launches and space programme, on ‘Fast Move’ staging operations and lots more from these missions up to May 1960.

Chapters explore some of the ground-breaking technology employed by the U-2 to photograph and eavesdrop on Soviet nuclear, military and industrial activities. These include revealing secrets of the Fili heavy bomber production plant, just five miles from the Kremlin. Overflights of the ‘Arzamas-16′ closed nuclear city, Vozrozhdeniya biological warfare centre in the Aral Sea and the mystery that was Mozhaysk. Over 90 photographs, maps and illustrations provide details of the aircraft, the cameras and electronic defensive and eavesdropping systems. The specialised nuclear fallout sampling role is explored and the ‘weather packs’ installed to substantiate the wafer-thin false cover story of the U-2’s role as a ‘meteorological research’ aircraft. Maps, most never been seen before, record the detailed routes flown by U-2 pilots deep into denied airspace to reveal the secrets of Soviet military, nuclear, scientific and industrial sites.

#AirWarBooks – Ashleigh Brown

Editorial Note: In the next instalment of our Air War Books series, Ashleigh Brown discusses the ten books that have influenced and shaped her writing as an air power historian.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney asked me to contribute my top ten air war books – those that have influenced and shaped my own approach to the topic. Catching me in the midst of PhD research, this list clearly shows that my interest primarily centres on the First World War.

Michael Molkentin, Fire in the Sky: The Australian Flying Corps in the First World War (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2010). Michael Molkentin’s Fire in the Sky was the first military aviation book I ever read. In many ways, this book is responsible for moving my interest from the ground war to the air war, which ultimately led to my PhD research. In the first effort to revise Cutlack’s official history volume on the AFC, Molkentin presents a thoroughly researched and highly readable account of the efforts of Australians in the air during the First World War. Importantly, in doing so, Molkentin places the AFC in its rightful context within wider British air operations. This book, along with his centenary history volume, Australia and the War in the Air, is the authoritative account of the AFC

James Streckfuss, Eyes All Over: Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War (Oxford: Casemate Publishers, 2016). Before the outbreak of the First World War, the predicted purpose of military aviation was reconnaissance. Accordingly, the focus in the opening years of war was reconnaissance, aerial combat being seen as necessary to ensure that this could be carried out uninhibited. Even with the creation of dedicated fighter squadrons, reconnaissance remained a core task for the air services throughout the war. James Streckfuss captures the importance of reconnaissance and details its progression by explaining early developments in Britain and the American perspective. This book expertly describes the intricacies and difficulties of carrying out aerial reconnaissance.

James Pugh, The Royal Flying Corps, the Western Front and the Control of the Air, 1914-1918 (New York: Routledge, 2017). The advantage found in having control of the air was recognised early in the First World War. The primary purpose of the RFC was to support ground forces through reconnaissance, photography, bombing missions, and artillery assistance; achieving superiority in the air was considered necessary to provide this support. James Pugh’s authoritative work discusses the development and application of air power over the Western Front, demonstrating the approach to obtaining and retaining aerial superiority (or control of the air). In doing so, Pugh rationally and expertly analyses the offensive policy (too often attributed solely to Hugh Trenchard), explaining how it was devised in conjunction with the French air services.

Malcolm Cooper, The Birth of Independent Air Power: British Air Policy in the First World War (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986). The high command of the RFC and RAF, and the political context of the air war, is complex, to say the least. Malcolm Cooper explains the various changes that took place at this level and details the development of the air war from this perspective. Cooper provides important context for understanding the execution of the air war, importantly contributing to the historiographical movement away from the view of First World War air power being exclusively a tactical concern.

Dennis Haslop, Early Naval Air Power: British and German Approaches (New York: Routledge, 2018). Dennis Haslop presents a comparative study of the Royal Naval Air Service and the Imperial German Naval Air Service, highlighting many striking similarities in the experiences of the two. This includes discussions of inter-service rivalry experienced by both the British and German air services and movements towards unification to create a single air service in each military. In other instances, discussions about the creation of the RAF from a naval perspective tend to present it as a hostile takeover of the RNAS rather than the amalgamation and unification of the two air services. Haslop avoids this, instead he presents a measured and factual account of this important part of Britain’s air power history. (N.B. You can read Ashleigh’s review of Haslop’s book here)

Richard Overy, RAF: The Birth of the World’s First Air Force (New York: Norton & Company, 2018). Richard Overy’s RAF provides an overview of Britain’s air war leading up to 1918, the events that led to the creation of the RAF, the process of achieving this, and the post-war struggle to keep it as a separate service. Although Overy does not engage with all the complexities of the air war in this relatively short book, he presents an excellent overview in the form of a very readable narrative.

Arthur Henry ‘Harry’ Cobby, High Adventure (Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1943). In the years following the First World War, many pilots wrote memoirs detailing their war experience. Among those to do so was Australian pilot Arthur Henry – or Harry – Cobby. Cobby was the leading fighter ace of the AFC, boasting 29 victories during his time with No. 4 Squadron. In High Adventure, he presents a captivating account of his war in the air that I would recommend to anyone interested in how the AFC’s pilots fought the air war on a day-to-day basis.

Charles Rumney Samson, Fights and Flights: A Memoir of the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I (Nashville: The Battery Press, 1990). Continuing with the theme of memoirs, Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson’s Fights and Flights details his experiences in positions of command in the RNAS. Among these was his involvement in the Gallipoli campaign, in which he led No. 3 Squadron RNAS which was responsible for reconnaissance over the Gallipoli peninsula and Dardanelles straits. Samson’s squadron operated over Gallipoli in the months leading up to the landing of ground forces, remained in support of the land campaign, and supported the eventual evacuation. Although only a portion of the book, this is an important account of the Gallipoli campaign from the air and captures the early contribution of the RNAS in the First World War.

Frederick Sykes, Aviation in Peace and War (London: E. Arnold & Co., 1922). Aviation in Peace and War details Frederick Sykes’ thoughts on the development and use of air power before, during, and after the First World War. Sykes discusses his pre-war thoughts on the potential use of aviation, the Military and Naval Wings of the RFC, technology and tactics, the offensive policy, and how he saw air power progressing after the war. Sykes is somewhat of a controversial character in the wartime RFC, particularly due to his strained relationship with David Henderson and Hugh Trenchard, and this book provides a valuable insight into his involvement in early British air power.

Peter Dye, The Bridge to Airpower: Logistic Support for Royal Flying Corps Operations on the Western Front, 1914-18 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015). Peter Dye’s The Bridge to Airpower considers the evolution of First World War air power through a study of logistics on the Western Front. This thoroughly researched account allows for a greater understanding of the difficulties encountered in waging the air war, specifically due to problems sourcing airframes and aero-engines, both in sufficient amounts and of a high quality. Dye also discusses the changing logistic requirements in line with the changing nature of the air war and presents an impressive collection of statistics to show the evolution of British air power during the war.

Ashleigh Brown is the Social Media Editor at From Balloons to Drones and a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. Her thesis focuses on aviation command in the British air arms during the First World War. It considers developments across the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of command, extending the learning curve theory to the air war. Ashleigh is a researcher for the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq & Afghanistan and Australian Peacekeeping Operations in East Timor, where her focus is Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan between 2005 and 2010. Her research interests include the First World War, recent conflicts, air power, and military command. Ashleigh can be found on Twitter at: @ash__brown.

Header image: A group of pilots of No. 32 Squadron RFC at Beauval in 1916. Behind them is an Airco DH.2 biplane. (Source: Wikimedia)

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (July 2021)

Articles

Phil Haun, ‘Winged Victory: How the Great War Ended: The Evolution of Giulio Douhet’s Theory of Strategic Bombing,’ War in History (2021). doi:10.1177/09683445211027596.

A war’s conclusion can impact strategic thinking even when the outcome is misinterpreted or an outlier. For a century, Giulio Douhet in Command of the Air, 1921 and a 1926 revision, has been the prophet for the utilitarian morality of bombing cities to gain decisive victory. His earlier work, Winged Victory: How the Great War Ended, written in 1918, has been ignored where he argued for the interdiction of enemy lines of communication. His theory changes by how the Great War ends with the collapse of the German population’s will. Had it ended differently, he could have reached a different conclusion that could have impacted the development of air power theory in the twentieth century.

Colin Tucker, ‘The Effect of Aerial Bombardment on Insurgent Civilian Victimization,’ Security Studies (2021), DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2021.1951834

Little is known about how air strikes influence insurgent behavior toward civilians. This study provides evidence that air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by counterinsurgency forces were a contributing factor in its civilian victimization. I theorize that air strikes expanded the distribution of insurgent fatalities to include higher-echelon membership and, at the same time, imposed psychological impairments on its fighters. As a consequence, these changes relaxed restraints on civilian abuse at the organizational and individual levels. This theory is informed by interviews of ISIS defectors and translations of ISIS documents and tested through a statistical analysis of granular-level data on air strikes and one-sided violence during ISIS’s insurgency. These findings contribute to our knowledge of insurgent behavior and provide important policy implications in the use of air strikes as a counterinsurgency (COIN) tool.

Books

James Corum, Norway 1940: The Luftwaffe’s Scandinavian Blitzkrieg (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

The Campaign for Norway in 1940 was a pivotal moment in modern warfare. It was the first modern joint campaign that featured not only ground and naval operations, but also airpower as an equal element of all operations. Indeed, Norway was the first campaign in history where air superiority, possessed by the Germans, was able to overcome the overwhelming naval superiority, possessed by the British. German success in Norway was not pre-ordained. At several times in the opening weeks of the campaign the Norwegian and Allied forces could have inflicted a major defeat on the Germans if their operations had been effectively supported. It was, in fact, the superior German use of their air force that gave the Germans the decisive margin of victory and ensured the failure of the Allied counteroffensive in central Norway in April and May of 1940.

The Norwegian campaign featured some firsts in the use of airpower including the first use of paratroops to seize key objectives and the first sinking of a major warship by dive bombers. All aspects of airpower played important roles in the campaign, from air reconnaissance to strategic bombing and ground-based air defenses. The British employed their Bomber Command in long-distance strikes to disrupt the German air and naval bases and the Germans used their bomber force to carry out long-range support of their ground forces. The German ability to transport large numbers of troops by air and the ability to supply their ground and air forces over great distances gave the Germans their first major campaign victory over the Western Allies.

Covering the first true joint campaign in warfare, this book provides a complete view of a compelling turning point in World War II. Featuring an analysis of the cooperation of ground, naval and air forces, this book is intended to appeal to a broad range of readers interested in World War II, and specifically to those interested in the role airpower played in the strategic and operational planning of the Campaign for Norway.

Bill Norton, 75 Years of the Isreali Air Force – Volume 3: Training, Combat Support, Special Operations, Naval Operations, and Air Defences, 1948-2023 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

The Israeli Air Force grew from humble beginnings to one of the largest and most experienced air combat teams in the world. This came through several major and minor wars with its Arab neighbors, almost continuous military actions short of war, and preparation for power-projection operations unusual for so small a nation. The 75-year history of the Israeli Air Force is, then, a fascinating study of a relatively small military organization working to meet shifting obligations under multiple impediments while being repeatedly tested in combat. Many factors over the decades shaped the air fighting capability, not the least being the demands of the evolving battlefield, uncertain funding, available weapons, and quality of personnel. Tactics and doctrine were, in turn, shaped by government policies, international pressures, and confronting adversaries likewise evolving. When the trials in war or combat short of war came, success was a measure in relevance of the service’s weapons, adequacy of training, and experience of personnel.

As a companion to Volumes 1 and 2 giving the chronological history of the Israeli Air Force, this third volume details special topics underscoring the service’s capability growth. These richly illustrated topics are flight training, photo reconnaissance, aerial refueling, electronic warfare, support of Special Forces, support of the Navy, and the Air Defence Forces. A summary of aircraft that served with the Israeli Air Force is provided, with a photograph of each type and major models. A summary of all IAF air-to-air “kills” is also included.

Written at a time of historical changes for the air force, and the Israel Defense Forces as a whole, this volume informs understanding of the service emerging and operating in future years. Backed by official and unofficial histories published in the last 20 years, and the unprecedented openness in the past few decades, the author has worked to make this account more accurate and complete than those of the past. It also stands apart from many other books in performing this examination in a more dispassionate and critical manner, without the common hyperbole.

Harry Raffal, Air Power and the Evacuation of Dunkirk: The RAF and Luftwaffe During Operation Dynamo, 26 May – 4 June 1940 (Bloomsbury Publishing: London, 2021).

The evacuation of Dunkirk has been immortalised in books, prints and films, narrated as a story of an outnumbered, inexperienced RAF defeating the battle-hardened Luftwaffe and protecting the evacuation. This book revives the historiography by analysing the air operations during the evacuation. Raffal draws from German and English sources, many for the first time in the context of Operation DYNAMO, to argue that both sides suffered a defeat over Dunkirk.

This work examines the resources and tactics of both sides during DYNAMO and challenges the traditional view that the Luftwaffe held the advantage. The success that the Luftwaffe achieved during DYNAMO, including halting daylight evacuations on 1 June, is evaluated and the supporting role of RAF Bomber and Coastal Command is explored in detail for the first time. Concluding that the RAF was not responsible for the Luftwaffe’s failure to prevent the evacuation, Raffal demonstrates that the reasons lay elsewhere.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (June 2021)

Articles

Cynthia Buchanan, ‘Mexicans in World War II: America’s Ally of the Air,’ Air Power History 68, no. 2 (2021).

No abstract available.

William Cahill, ‘Fly High, Fly Low: SAC Photographic Reconnaissance in Southeast Asia,’ Air Power History 68, no. 2 (2021).

No abstract available.

Yin Cao, ‘The Last Hump: The Lahore Elementary Flying Training School, the Chinese Civil War, and the final days of the British Raj,’ Modern Asian Studies (2021). doi: 10.1017/S0026749X21000081.

This article centres on the evacuation of the Lahore Elementary Flying Training School, which was built in 1943 to train Chinese pilots and mechanics. It details the British and Chinese authorities’ concerns over the school and how the chaotic situation in India during the final days of the British Raj influenced its evacuation back to China. This article locates the story within the broad context of the British withdrawal from India and the Chinese Civil War, and it uses this case to uncover the links between the two most significant events in the history of modern India and China. In so doing, it puts forward an integrated framework for studying modern Indian and Chinese history.

Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, ‘Gene Deatrick: An Appreciation,’ Air Power History 68, no. 2 (2021).

No abstract available.

James Greenhalgh, ‘The Long Shadow of the Air War: Composure, Memory and the Renegotiation of Self in the Oral Testimonies of Bomber Command Veterans since 2015,’ Contemporary British History (2021), DOI: 10.1080/13619462.2021.1906654

The following article examines oral testimonies collected by the International Bomber Command Centre project since 2015. The study considers the challenges posed by post-war discourses that contest the morality of bombing and contemporary constructions of Britishness to Bomber Command veterans making account of their lives. The contested nature of bombing’s position within narratives of the Second World War creates a discursive environment where veterans struggle to assemble satisfying life stories. Despite using a set of similar narrative frameworks to counter questions concerning the morality or purpose of bombing, veterans found limited opportunities to demonstrate personal agency or achieve emotional composure. The interviews illustrate unresolved and challenging feelings stemming from a discourse that has proved inimical to creating satisfying selfhoods. In addition, the difficulty of integrating the story of Bomber Command into narratives of Britain’s wartime myth proved to be a source of considerable discomfort for the interviewees. In their attempts to situate themselves within longer trajectories of Britain and its military in the twenty-first century, the testimonies are thus revealing of the importance to Britain of its wartime past in forming current identities and the ongoing conflict in how Britishness should confront more complex versions of its history.

K.A. Grieco and J.W. Hutto, ‘Can Drones Coerce? The Effects of Remote Aerial Coercion in Counterterrorism,’ International Politics (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00320-5

Weary of costly on-the-ground military interventions, Western nations have increasingly turned to “Remote Warfare” to address the continued threat of terrorism. Despite the centrality of drone strikes to the practice of Remote Warfare, we still know relatively little about their effectiveness as instruments of coercion. This article offers a conceptual framework for assessing their coercive efficacy in counterterrorism. We argue that remote control drones are fundamentally different from traditional airpower, owing to changes in persistence, lethality, and relative risk. Critically, these technological characteristics produce weaker coercive effects than often assumed. While persistent surveillance combined with lethal, low-risk strikes renders armed drones highly effective at altering the cost–benefit calculations of terrorists, these same technological attributes cause them to be less effective at clear communication, credibility, and assurance—other key factors in coercion success. Overall, drone strikes are poor instruments of coercion in counterterrorism, underscoring some potential limitations of Remote Warfare.

Ron Gurantz, ‘Was Airpower “Misapplied” in the Vietnam War? Reassessing Signaling in Operation Rolling Thunder,’ Security Studies (2021). DOI: 10.1080/09636412.2021.1915585.

Operation Rolling Thunder’s failure has been widely blamed on the strategy of using force to send “signals.” It discredited the associated theory of coercion among a generation of military officers and scholars. In this paper I show that, whatever its other failures, Operation Rolling Thunder did successfully signal a threat. I rely on the latest research to demonstrate that Hanoi believed the bombing would eventually inflict massive destruction. I also show that Washington accurately ascribed the failure of the threat to North Vietnam’s resolve and continued the operation for reasons other than signaling. These findings show that Operation Rolling Thunder can be productively understood as an exercise in both signaling and countersignaling. Rather than discrediting the theory of coercion, these findings modify it. They show that failed threats can be informative and that coercive campaigns can become prolonged for reasons other than a lack of credibility.

Heather Hughes, ‘Memorializing RAF Bomber Command in the United Kingdom,’ Journal of War & Culture Studies (2021), DOI: 10.1080/17526272.2021.1938840

This article traces the ways in which RAF Bomber Command has been memorialized in the UK since the 1940s, focusing on those who have organized memorials and associated commemorations. Distinct phases can be identified. Until the 1970s, the Command was accorded a prominent role in official memorial and ceremonial activities. Veterans’ activities reflected this acknowledgement. From the 1980s, in the face of debates about the morality of area bombing of German cities, however, veterans’ organizations and families began to articulate the view that Bomber Command’s wartime contribution had been overlooked. In consequence, they embarked upon activities to revise official memory. This included distinctive forms of memorial activity on the part of veterans and the postmemory generation, including the widespread appearance of ‘small memorials’ and, in the twenty-first century, two large-scale memorial sites, in London and in Lincoln.

John A. Schell, ‘The SA-2 and U-2: Secrets Revealed,’ Air Power History 68, no. 2 (2021).

No abstract available.

James Shelley, ‘The Germans and Air Power at Dieppe: The Raid and its Lessons from the ‘Other Side of the Hill,’ War in History (2021), DOI: 10.1177/0968344521995867

Despite the vast academic and popular interest in the Dieppe raid of 19 August 1942, there remains a curious oversight of the German side of the story. This contribution interrogates German sources in order to explore the Dieppe air battle and its consequences from the perspective of the German armed forces. The paper ultimately demonstrates that the Germans learnt much about the role of air power in coastal defence from their experiences at Dieppe, but that the implementation of those lessons was lacking.

Samuel Zilincik, ‘Technology is awesome, but so what?! Exploring the Relevance of Technologically Inspired Awe to the Construction of Military Theories,’ Journal of Strategic Studies (2021), DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2021.1923919.

Military theories are thoughts explaining how armed forces are to be used to achieve objectives. These thoughts are often influenced by emotions, yet the influence of emotions on military theory-crafting remains underexplored. This article fills the gap by exploring how awe influences military theorising. Awe is an emotion associated with the feeling of transcendence. Several military theorists felt that way about the technologies of air power, nuclear power and cyber power, respectively. Consequently, their theories became narrowly focused, technocentric and detached from the previous theories and military history. Understanding these tendencies can help improve military theorising in the future.

Books

Bojan Dimitrijevic and Jovica Draganić, Operation ALLIED FORCE: Air War over Serbia 1999 – Volume 1 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

On 24 March 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) launched Operation Allied Force against Serbia.

Lasting 78 days, this was an unusual conflict fought at several levels. The campaign was fought at the negotiation tables, in the media, and via cyber warfare. In the air, NATO sought to destroy or at least minimise the capability of the Serbian forces, while on the ground the Serbian forces fought the Kosovo-Albanian insurgency. It had an unusual outcome, too: without NATO losing a single soldier in direct action, they still forced the Serbian authorities and armed forces to withdraw from Kosovo, which in 2008 then proclaimed its independence. In turn, the war inflicted serious human and material losses upon the Serbian’s and the air force was particularly devastated by air strikes on its facilities. Nevertheless, many within NATO subsequently concluded that the skies over Serbia were as dangerous on the last night of this conflict as they were on its first.

Largely based on cooperation with the joint commission of the Serbian Air Force and the U.S. Air Force in Europe (USAFE), Volume 1 of Operation Allied Force provides a detailed overview of NATO’s aerial campaign, including reconstructions of operations by ‘stealth’ aircraft such as the F-117A and B-2A, and the only loss of an F-117A in combat. Volume 1 of Operation Allied Force also offers a detailed reconstruction of the planning and conduct of combat operations by the Serbian Air Force and Air Defence (Ratno vazduhoplovstvo i protivvazdušna odbrana, RV i PVO) with a special emphasis on the attempts of its sole MiG-29 squadron and its surface to air missile batteries to challenge enemy strike packages.

Adrien Fontanellaz, Tom Cooper, and José Augusto Matos, War of Intervention in Angola – Volume 4: Angolan and Cuban Air Forces, 1985-1987 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, continues the coverage of the operational history of the Angolan Air Force and Air Defence Force (FAPA/DAA) as told by Angolan and Cuban sources, in the period 1985-1987.

Many accounts of this conflict – better known in the West as the ‘Border War’ or the ‘Bush War’, as named by its South African participants – consider the operations of the FAPA/DAA barely worth commentary. At most, they mention a few air combats involving Mirage F.1 interceptors of the South African Air Force (SAAF) in 1987 and 1988, and perhaps a little about the activity of the FAPA/DAA’s MiG-23s. However, a closer study of Angolan and Cuban sources reveals an entirely different image of the air war over Angola in the 1980s: indeed, it reveals the extent to which the flow of the entire war was dictated by the availability – or the lack – of air power. These issues strongly influenced the planning and conduct of operations by the commanders of the Angolan and Cuban forces.

Based on extensive research with the help of Angolan and Cuban sources, War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, traces the Angolan and Cuban application of air power between 1985-1987 – during which it came of age – and the capabilities, intentions, and the combat operations of the air forces in support of the major ground operations Second Congress and Salute to October.

Alexander Howlett, The Development of British Naval Aviation, 1914–1918 (London: Routledge, 2021).

The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) revolutionized warfare at sea, on land, and in the air. This little-known naval aviation organization introduced and operationalized aircraft carrier strike, aerial anti-submarine warfare, strategic bombing, and the air defence of the British Isles more than 20 years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Traditionally marginalized in a literature dominated by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, the RNAS and its innovative practitioners, nevertheless, shaped the fundamentals of air power and contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the First World War. The Development of British Naval Aviation utilizes archival documents and newly published research to resurrect the legacy of the RNAS and demonstrate its central role in Britain’s war effort.

David Nicolle and Gabr Ali Gabr, Air Power and the Arab World, 1909-1955 – Volume 4: The First Arab Air Forces, 1918-1936 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

Volume 4 of Air Power and the Arab World, 1918-1936, continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab world. The earliest of the Arab air forces to be established trace their histories back to the 1920s and 1930s when the overwhelming majority of Arab countries, and an even larger majority of the Arabic-speaking people, were ruled or dominated by four European powers. This volume continues with the story of the period from 1918 to 1936.

The role, organisational structure and activities of the first Arab air forces are described based on decades of consistent research, newly available sources in Arabic and various European languages, and is richly illustrated with a wide range of authentic photography. These air forces ranged from dreams which never got off the ground, to small forces which existed for a limited time then virtually disappeared, to forces which started very small then grew into something more significant. Even so, the successful air forces of Iraq and Egypt would only have a localised impact within the frontiers of their own states.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (May 2021)

Editorial note: In this series, From Balloons to Drones highlights research resources available to researchers. Contributions range from discussions of research at various archival repositories to highlighting new publications. As part of this series, we are bringing you a monthly precis of recent articles and books published in air power history. This precis will not be exhaustive but will highlight new works published in the preceding month. Publication dates may vary around the globe and are based on those provided on the publisher’s websites. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.

Chapters

Peter Elliott, ‘‘Flight without feathers is not easy’: John Tanner and the development of the Royal Air Force Museum’ in Kate Hill (ed.), Museums, Modernity and Conflict: Museums and Collections in and of War since the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge, 2021).

The founding director of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum, John Tanner, was the driving force behind its creation and development between 1963 and 1987.

The RAF Museum’s successful opening at Hendon in 1972 – more than 40 years after the idea was first mooted – led to expansion, through museums dedicated to the Battle of Britain and Bomber Command. It managed the RAF’s Aerospace Museum at Cosford where Tanner, working with British Airways, built up a collection of airliners. His final collaboration created the Manchester Air & Space Museum – now part of the Museum of Science and Industry.

Tanner’s overarching aim was to create a national aviation museum for the United Kingdom, comparable with those in France, Canada and the USA. Negotiations in the early 1980s with government departments failed, ironically partly due to concerns similar to those that prompted calls for an RAF Museum in the 1930s.

This chapter details the tortuous birth of the RAF Museum, and examines the conflict between an air force museum and one covering all forms of aviation. Drawing on files in the National Archives, and the Museum’s own archive, I explain why Tanner’s vision was not realised, despite his passion, dedication and forthright advocacy.

Books

Daniel Jackson, Fallen Tigers: The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II (Lexington, KT: The University Press of Kentucky, 2021).

Mere months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a volunteer group of American airmen to the Far East, convinced that supporting Chinese resistance against the continuing Japanese invasion would be crucial to an eventual Allied victory in World War II. Within two weeks of that fateful Sunday in December 1941, the American Volunteer Group – soon to become known as the legendary “Flying Tigers” – went into action. Audaciously led by master tactician Claire Lee Chennault, daring airmen such as David Lee “Tex” Hill and George B. “Mac” McMillan fought enemy air forces and armies in dangerous aerial duels despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Aviators who fell in combat and survived the crash or bailout faced the terrifying reality of being lost and injured in unfamiliar territory.

In Fallen Tigers: The Fate of America’s Missing Airmen in China during World War II, historian Daniel Jackson, himself a combat-tested pilot, sheds light on the stories of downed aviators who attempted to evade capture by the Japanese in their bid to return to Allied territory. In gripping detail, he reveals that the heroism of these airmen was equaled, and often exceeded, by the Chinese soldiers and civilians who risked their lives to return them safely to American custody. His comprehensive research shows the drive to aid these airmen transcended ideology, as both Chinese Communists and Nationalists realized the commonality of their struggle against a despised enemy.

Fallen Tigers is an incredible story of survival that insightfully illuminates the relationship between missing aircrew and their Chinese allies who were willing to save their lives at any cost. Based on thorough archival research and filled with compelling personal narratives from memoirs, wartime diaries, and dozens of interviews with veterans, this vital work offers an important new perspective on the Flying Tigers and the history of World War II in China.

Ben Kite, Undaunted: Britain and the Commonwealth’s War in the Air – Volume 2 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

Undaunted is the second volume of Britain and the Commonwealth’s War in the Air 1939-45. It combines detailed studies into the tactics, techniques and technology that made British air power so effective, together with the personal accounts of the aircrew themselves. Undaunted includes chapters on air intelligence, photographic-reconnaissance and Special Duties operations. It then covers how the British Commonwealth Air Forces supported ground operations in the Western Desert, Italy, NW Europe, Burma and the SW Pacific. The book contains a number of chapters on the development of airborne forces from an air perspective and covers the use of air transport in support of General Slim’s operations in Burma. Undaunted concludes with poignant chapters on the ‘Guinea Pigs’, Prisoners of War, Air Sea Rescue and the efforts of aircrew to escape and evade when shot down. Exceptionally well-illustrated with over 150 photographs and 15 maps and diagrams, this book will undoubtedly appeal to the general reader, as well as the aficionado, who will find considerable new information.

Brian Laslie, Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

Filling a substantial void in our understanding of the history of airpower in Vietnam, this book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the air wars in Vietnam. Brian Laslie traces the complete history of these air wars from the beginning of American involvement until final withdrawal. Detailing the competing roles and actions of the air elements of the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, the author considers the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. He also looks at the air war from the perspective of the North Vietnamese Air Force. Most important for understanding the US defeat, Laslie illustrates the perils of a nation building a one-dimensional fighting force capable of supporting only one type of war.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (March 2021)

Editorial note: In this series, From Balloons to Drones highlights research resources available to researchers. Contributions range from discussions of research at various archival repositories to highlighting new publications. As part of this series, we are bringing you a monthly precis of recent articles and books published in air power history. This precis will not be exhaustive but will highlight new works published in the preceding month. Publication dates may vary around the globe and are based on those provided on the publisher’s websites. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.

Articles

Jan M. Waga and Maria Fajer, ‘The Heritage of the Second World War: Bombing in the Forests and Wetlands of the Koźle Basin,’ Antiquity, 2021, pp. 1–18, doi:10.15184/aqy.2020.154.

The Koźle Basin in Poland was radically transformed by aerial bombardment during the Second World War. Today, the region has approximately 6000 well-preserved bomb craters with diameters ranging from 5–15m and depths often exceeding 2m. Combining remote-sensing data and fieldwork with historical accounts, this article analyses these craters, demonstrating that their varied morphologies derive from the weight of the bombs that created them, and on the type and moisture content of the soil on which the bombs fell. Based on their results, the authors issue a call for the official protection of the Koźle landscape, which has particular historical, educational and ecological value.

Books

Krzysztof Dabrowski, Tsar Bomba: Live Testing of Soviet Nuclear Bombs, 1949-1962 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

On 30 October 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/Soviet Union) conducted a live test of the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. Codenamed ‘Ivan’, and known in the West as the ‘Tsar Bomba’, the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was detonated at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemla archipelago, in the Barents Sea.

The Tsar Bomba unleashed about 58 megatons of TNT, creating a 8-kilometre/5-mile-wide fireball and then a mushroom that peaked at an altitude of 95 kilometres (59 miles). The shockwave created by the RDS-202 eradicated a village 55 kilometres (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread damage to nature to a radius of dozens of kilometres further away, and created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometres (170 miles) distant. And still, this was just one of 45 tests of nuclear weapons conducted in the USSR in October 1961 alone.

Between 1949 and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air. Dozens of these were released from aircraft operated by specialised test units. Equipped with the full range of bombers – from the Tupolev Tu-4, Tupolev Tu-16, to the gigantic Tu-95 – the units in question were staffed by men colloquially known as the ‘deaf-and-dumb’: people sworn to utmost secrecy, living and serving in isolation from the rest of the world. Frequently operating at the edge of the envelope of their specially modified machines while test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential, several of them only narrowly avoided catastrophe.

Richly illustrated with authentic photographs and custom-drawn colour profiles, Tsar Bomba is the story of the aircrews involved and their aircraft, all of which were carefully hidden not only by the Iron Curtain, but by a thick veil of secrecy for more than half a century.

Ken Delve, How the RAF and USAAF Beat the Luftwaffe (Barnsley: Greenhill Books, 2021).

“The Luftwaffe had to be used in a decisive way in the Battle of Britain as a means of conducting total air war. Its size, technical equipment and the means at its disposal precluded the Luftwaffe from fulfilling this mission.” Adolf Galland

How did the RAF beat the Luftwaffe during the Second World War? Was it actually the fact that they did not lose which later enabled them to claim victory – a victory that would have been impossible without the participation of the Americans from early 1943?

This groundbreaking study looks at the main campaigns in which the RAF – and later the Allies – faced the Luftwaffe. Critically acclaimed writer Ken Delve argues that by the latter part of 1942 the Luftwaffe was no longer a decisive strategic or even tactical weapon.

The Luftwaffe was remarkably resilient, but it was on a continual slide to ultimate destruction. Its demise is deconstructed according to defective strategic planning from the inception of the Luftwaffe; its failure to provide decisive results over Britain in 1940 and over the Mediterranean and Desert in 1941–1942; and its failure to defend the Reich and the occupied countries against the RAF and, later, combined Allied bomber offensive.

Delve studies numerous aspects to these failures, from equipment (aircraft and weapons) to tactics, leadership (political and military), logistics, morale and others.

Bojan Dimitrijevic, Operation DELIBERATE FORCE: Air War over Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992-1995 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

Operation Deliberate Force describes the air war fought over the former Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995.

Based on extensive research and with the help of participants, the first part of this book provides a detailed reconstruction of the emergence of three local air forces in 1992; the emergence of the air force of the self-proclaimed Serbian Krajina in Croatia, the Croat Air Force, the Bosnian Muslim air force, and their combat operations in 1992-1995.

In reaction to the resulting air war, in 1992 the United Nations declared a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Codenamed Operation Deny Flight, the resulting military operations culminated in the summer of 1995, when NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force against the Serbian forces – and which forms the centrepiece of this story.

Operation Deliberate Force was NATO’s first active military operation, yet to date it has only been covered from the Western point of view: this volume is the first authoritative account providing details and analysis from both sides – that of NATO and of the Serbs. For example, it remains essentially unknown that the local Serbian air force continued flying strikes almost a month after Operation Deliberate Force was over, as late as of mid-October 1995.

Untangling an exceptionally complex conflict, Operation Deliberate Force is illustrated with a blend of exclusive photography from local sources and from official sources in the West. As such it is a unique source of reference about the air war fought in the centre of Europe during the mid-1990s.

Dimitry Khazanov, Air Battles over Hungary, 1944-45 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

Air Battles over Hungary 1944-45 is dedicated to the fighting over Hungary during the course of the Debrecen (6 October – 27 October 1944) and Budapest (29 October 1944 – 13 February 1945) offensives, as well as the Balaton Defensive Operation (6 – 15 March 1945), which the Red Army carried out from autumn 1944 until the spring of 1945. The conduct of these operations preceded an attempt by the Regent of Budapest, Miklos Horthy, to pull his country out of the war. This attempt however was unsuccessful – Vice Admiral Horthy was replaced under Hitler’s orders by the pro-Nazi henchman Szalasi, after which fierce and desperate battles broke out both on the ground and in the air.

The Red Army Air Force enjoying numerical superiority, the quality of Soviet aircraft and high level of aircrew training having improved signifcantly by the time of the fighting. Conversely, it appeared there were almost no air aces left in the ranks of the Luftwaffe. Thus it appeared Soviet airmen would have no difficulty securing a victory. This, however, was not the case. Erich Hartmann, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Gerhard Barkhorn, and many others fought here. Amongst the Hungarians the highest scoring ace, Dezso Szentgyorgyi, stood out, as did the outstanding Aladar de Heppes. Amongst their Soviet opponents were Kirill Yevstigneyev, Grigoriy Sivkov, Aleksandr Koldunov, Nikolai Skomorokhov, and Georgiy Beregovoy.

The fact that from time to time the aerial combat took place directly over Budapest – one of the most beautiful cities in Europe – could be considered a distinguishing feature of this fighting. Bristling with anti-aircraft artillery, Budapest was frequently subjected to bombing raids, and from the end of December to the beginning of January, certain areas in the Hungarian capital were transformed into improvised airfields and landing strips for German and Hungarian transport aircraft and gliders. Despite all the efforts to set up an air bridge, the German high command never succeeded in achieving this. This forced the besieged to attempt a breakout, after which the remaining garrison surrendered. The subsequent long drawn out battle near Lake Balaton ended in the ultimate defeat of the German troops, and their allies.

Michael Napier, Korean Air War: Sabres, MiGs and Meteors, 1950-53 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

Often overlooked, the time is now right for a new account of the Korean War (1950-53) given recent political events and, in particular, the aerial aspect. With a paucity of major accounts that go beyond one side or aspect of the conflict, Michael Napier has written this meticulously-researched new volume. The war proved a technological watershed as the piston-engined aircraft of WW2 seceded to the jet aircraft of modern times, establishing tactics and doctrine that are still valid today.

This wide-ranging study covers the parts played by the forces of North Korea, China, the former Soviet Union, the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa in a volume rich with combat reports and first-person accounts. This lavishly illustrated hardback will appeal to aviation enthusiasts and those with a fascination for the Korean War as we enter the 70th anniversary of the conflict.

Amaru Tincopa, Air Wars Between Ecuador and Peru: Volume 3 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2021).

The series of sharp clashes between Ecuador and Peru of 1981 left the dispute between the two countries unresolved as there was still no definitive delimitation of the border. During the following years, both parties had to deal with a series of internal and external issues and, ultimately, these affected the planning and operational capabilities of their respective armed forces. While Peru underwent a severe economic crisis including hyperinflation caused by poor management of its economy, and a leftist insurgency, Ecuador underwent a transition from a centrally-controlled economy to a free market: in turn, it was one of countries in Latin America least affected by the precipitous fall in regional economic indices of the 1990s. These factors had an immediate impact upon the armed forces of both countries: they proved decisive for the development of their defensive and offensive planning, and would exercise direct influence upon the decisions taken by field commanders of both countries during the final, third war between Ecuador and Peru in 1995.

Drawing upon extensive research in the official archives from both the Fuerza Aérea del Ecuador and Fuerza Aérea del Perú (FAP), with documentation from multiple private sources in both countries, Air Wars Between Ecuador and Peru Volume 3 completes the history of the aerial operations launched by the forces of both nations in the brief – but also the most violent – engagement between these two countries.

By accessing details from both parties to the conflict, this volume avoids biased and one-sided coverage of the conflict, while providing detail of the military build-up, capabilities and intentions of both of the air forces involved, their training, planning, and the conduct of combat operations.

Illustrated by nearly 200 exclusive photographs, maps and 15 authentic colour profiles, Air Wars Between Ecuador and Peru Volume 3 provides the first authoritative account of the air warfare between Ecuador and Peru in early 1995.

Wolfgang W.E. Samuel, Flights from Fassberg: How a German Town Built for War Became a Beacon of Peace (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2021).

Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, Colonel, US Air Force (Ret.), interweaves his story and that of his family with the larger history of World War II and the postwar world through a moving recollection and exploration of Fassberg, a small town in Germany few have heard of and fewer remember. Created in 1933 by the Hitler regime to train German aircrews, Fassberg hosted Samuel’s father in 1944–45 as an officer in the German air force. As fate and Germany’s collapse chased young Wolfgang, Fassberg later became his home as a postwar refugee, frightened, traumatized, hungry, and cold.

Built for war, Fassberg made its next mark as a harbinger of the new Cold War, serving as one of the operating bases for Allied aircraft during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. With the end of the Berlin Crisis, the airbase and town faced a dire future. When the Royal Air Force declared the airbase surplus to its needs, it also signed the place’s death warrant, yet increasing Cold War tensions salvaged both base and town. Fassberg transformed again, this time into a forward operating base for NATO aircraft, including a fighter flown by Samuel’s son.

Both personal revelation and world history, replete with tales from pilots, mechanics, and all those whose lives intersected there, Flights from Fassberg provides context to the Berlin Airlift and its strategic impact, the development of NATO, and the establishment of the West German nation. The little town built for war survived to serve as a refuge for a lasting peace.

Rick Tollini, Call-Sign KLUSO: An American Fighter Pilot in Mr. Reagan’s Air Force (Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2021).

Eagle pilot Rick “Kluso” Tollini’s life has embodied childhood dreams and the reality of what the American experience could produce. In his memoir, Call Sign KLUSO, Rick puts the fraught minutes above the Iraqi desert that made him an ace into the context of a full life; exploring how he came to be flying a F-15C in Desert Storm, and how that day became a pivotal moment in his life.

Rick’s first experience of flying was in a Piper PA-18 over 1960s’ California as a small boy, and his love of flying through his teenage years was fostered by his pilot father, eventually blossoming into a decision to join the Air Force as a pilot in his late twenties. Having trained to fly jets he was assigned to fly the F-15 Eagle with the “Dirty Dozen,” the 12th Tactical Fighter Squadron, at Kadena AB, Japan before returning Stateside to the 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron “The Gorillas.” Throughout training, Reagan’s fighter pilots expected to face the Soviet Union, but Rick’s first combat deployment was Desert Storm. He recounts the planning, the preparation, and the missions, the life of a fighter pilot in a combat zone and the reality of combat. Rick’s aerial victory was one of 16 accumulated by the Gorillas, the most by any squadron during Desert Storm.

Returning from the combat skies of Iraq, Rick continued a successful fulfilling Air Force career until, struggling to make sense of his life, he turned to Buddhism. His practice led him to leave the Air Force, to find a new vocation, and to finally come to terms with shooting down that MiG-25 Foxbat in the desert all those years before. Most importantly, he came to a deeper understanding of the importance of our shared humanity.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (February 2021)

Editorial note: In this series, From Balloons to Drones highlights research resources available to researchers. Contributions range from discussions of research at various archival repositories to highlighting new publications. As part of this series, are bringing you a monthly precis of new articles and books published in the field of air power history. This precis will not be exhaustive but will highlight key new works published in the preceding month. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here.

Articles

Kenneth W. Allen, Brendan S. Mulvaney and James Char, ‘Ongoing organizational reforms of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 44, no. 2 (2021)

Since the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Military Commission launched a major reorganization of the entire People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in early 2016, the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) has followed up with its own reforms at all levels. In February 2016, the changes entailed ‘above the neck’ reforms at PLAAF Headquarters and reduced the number of Military Region Air Force Headquarters from 7 to 5, renaming them Theatre Command Air Forces. Changes in 2017 focused on ‘below the neck’ reforms by creating a ‘base-brigade’ structure by reforming several command posts into bases; abolishing fighter, fighter-bomber, and ground attack aircraft air divisions; replacing air regiments with brigades; as well as changing the name of its former 15th Airborne Corps to Airborne Corps. Whilst the PLA leadership has moved ahead with pushing the PLAAF towards becoming a modern air force with enhanced aerial power alongside greater interoperability with the other PLA services, the reconstitution of its organizations has nevertheless led to a fallout due to policy changes concerning its rank-and-file.

David Devereux, ‘Jets across the Atlantic?: Britain and its civil aviation industry, 1945–63,’ Journal of Transatlantic Studies (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00065-8

Britain emerged from the Second World War with a huge aviation industry dedicated primarily to military production. During the war, in agreement with the USA, Britain used US transport aircraft, thereby giving the USA a huge potential advantage in post-war civil aviation. Nevertheless, during the war Britain charted a course of aircraft development that would allow new, competitive civil aircraft to be in place by 1950. Under the Labour government of 1945–51, Britain imposed a “Fly British” policy to encourage production of civil aircraft and required the national airlines to buy British aircraft. However, American competition, the demands of rearmament and the tightly controlled ordering process for civil and military aircraft made the production of British civil aircraft costly and uncompetitive. Faced with changing technology, rising costs and the development of US jet aircraft, the British aviation industry was forced into a radical consolidation by the Macmillan government.

Liam Kane, ‘Allied air intelligence in the South West Pacific Area, 1942-1945,’ Journal of Intelligence History, (2021). DOI: 10.1080/16161262.2021.1884793

This article provides the first account of air intelligence in the South West Pacific Area during the Second World War. Centring on the organisational aspects of intelligence-gathering, analysis, and dissemination, it brings the Directorate of Intelligence within the combined Royal Australian Air Force-US Army Air Force Allied Air Forces into sharp focus. This article argues that Australian-American cooperation in air intelligence was shaped by strategic circumstances, the balance of Allied air forces in the theatre, and personal relations between intelligence personnel. Though cooperation in air intelligence largely ended on a sour note in late 1944 when the Australians were largely excluded from the US-led second Philippines campaign and the Directorate of Intelligence was essentially dissolved, this article demonstrates that the Directorate became a sophisticated, if under-appreciated, intelligence organisation by mid-1943.

Andrew Williams, ‘French airmen and the challenges of post-war order: francophone literary figures during the second world war,’ Journal of Transatlantic Studies (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-020-00062-x

This paper will examine the political thought of a selection of literary figures who fought in the Free French air forces during the Second World War: Romain Gary, Joseph Kessel and Antoine de St Exupery, all of whom fought under the Free French colours in the Royal Air Force. I intend to show how the literary output of these writers all, in their different ways, reflected the feelings of humiliation felt by the French in exile about the defeat of 1940, and how they suggested ways for France to recover in the post-war era. Their thinking about French domestic politics, their Allies (especially the British) and the future of Europe are all dominant themes. The writings of all of these personalities also reflect a strong belief in a future European détente in which the British and Americans have a lesser role than the one they often envisaged for themselves in the Washington-based ‘post-war planning’ process.

Books

Jan Forsgren, The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch: The First STOL Aircraft (Stroud: Fonthill Media, 2021).

First flown in May 1936, the Fieseler Fi 156, or Storch (Stork) as it was better known, was designed in answer to a request from the Luftwaffe for a short-range reconnaissance aircraft.

For its time, the Fi 156 had amazing performance and flight characteristics for what today is known as STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing). It could take-off from a lawn considerably smaller than a football field.

During the Second World War, the ubiquitous Storch was the airborne eyes of the German Wehrmacht (Army) and was also used on daring missions, including the rescue of Mussolini, the Italian dictator.

One of the last flights into Berlin was made in a Storch. Many were sold to Germany’s allies while one was used by Churchill after D-Day to observe the progress of the invasion. Others were used by the RAF as squadron ‘hacks’ with one being flown off an aircraft carrier.

The STOL concept was copied by many countries, including France, Japan and the USSR. Post-war, production continued in Czechoslovakia, France and Romania with more than 3,000 built. Some are still today flying.

Mark Lardas, Battle of the Atlantic 1942-45: The climax of World War II’s greatest naval campaign (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2021).

As 1942 opened, both Nazi Germany and the Allies were ready for the climactic battles of the Atlantic to begin. Germany had 91 operational U-boats, and over 150 in training or trials. Production for 1942-44 was planned to exceed 200 boats annually. Karl Dönitz, running the Kriegsmarine’s U-boat arm, would finally have the numbers needed to run the tonnage war he wanted against the Allies.

Meanwhile, the British had, at last, assembled the solution to the U-boat peril. Its weapons and detection systems had improved to the stage that maritime patrol aircraft could launch deadly attacks on U-boats day and night. Airborne radar, Leigh lights, Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) and the Fido homing torpedo all turned the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft into a submarine-killer, while shore and ship-based technologies such as high-frequency direction finding and signals intelligence could now help aircraft find enemy U-boats. Following its entry into the war in 1941, the United States had also thrown its industrial muscle behind the campaign, supplying VLR Liberator bombers to the RAF and escort carriers to the Royal Navy. The US Navy also operated anti-submarine patrol blimps and VLR aircraft in the southern and western Atlantic, and sent its own escort carriers to guard convoys.

This book, the second of two volumes, explores the climactic events of the Battle of the Atlantic, and reveals how air power – both maritime patrol aircraft and carrier aircraft – ultimately proved to be the Allies’ most important weapon in one of the most bitterly fought naval campaigns of World War II.

Colin Pateman, Arming for Accuracy: RAF Bomb Aimers of the Second World War (Stroud: Fonthill Media, 2021).

During the Second World War, Bomber Command witnessed the large four-engine ‘heavy bombers’, namely the Handley Page Halifax, Short Stirling and Avro Lancaster develop into significant bomb-carrying platforms.

Arming for Accuracy: RAF Bomb Aimers During the Second World War studies the origin of bomb aimers, their training and the complexity of dropping many types of ordinance. Technical and scientific developments are examined to provide an understanding that enabled the bomb-aimers wing to be awarded to the men who volunteered.

Accounts of dangerous operational flying will be revealed by bomb aimers in numerous aircraft. This book will examine true accounts that took place, and many are based upon personal flying logbooks and other unique material originating from the aircrew.

David Stumpf, Minuteman: A Technical History of the Missile that Defined American Nuclear Warfare (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2020).

In Minuteman: A Technical History of the Missile That Defined American Nuclear Warfare, David K. Stumpf demystifies the intercontinental ballistic missile program that was conceived at the end of the Eisenhower administration as a key component of the US nuclear strategy of massive retaliation. Although its nuclear warhead may have lacked power relative to that of the Titan II, the Minuteman more than made up for this in terms of numbers and readiness to launch—making it the ultimate ICBM.

Minuteman offers a fascinating look at the technological breakthroughs necessary to field this weapon system that has served as a powerful component of the strategic nuclear triad for more than half a century. With exacting detail, Stumpf examines the construction of launch and launch control facilities; innovations in solid propellant, lightweight inertial guidance systems, and lightweight reentry vehicle development; and key flight tests and operational flight programs—all while situating the Minuteman program in the context of world events. In doing so, the author reveals how the historic missile has adapted to changing defense strategies—from counterforce to mutually assured destruction to sufficiency.

Becca Wasser, Stacie L. Pettyjohn, Jeffrey Martini, Alexandra T. Evans, Karl P. Mueller, Nathaniel Edenfield, Gabrielle Tarini, Ryan Haberman, and Jalen Zeman, The Air War Against The Islamic State: The Role of Airpower in Operation Inherent Resolve (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021).

Airpower played a pivotal role in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from 2014 to 2019 and contributed to the success of Operation Inherent Resolve. This report sheds light on the impact of the air operations in Operation Inherent Resolve and whether airpower could have been applied differently to achieve faster, more-sustainable outcomes. The authors incorporate interviews with U.S. and coalition personnel, primary-source documents, and U.S. and coalition strike and sortie data to document the operational history of the air war, assess the relationship between airpower effects, and analyze the strategic and operational impact of airpower in Operation Inherent Resolve.

The authors find that, although airpower played an essential role in combating ISIS, airpower alone would not have been likely to defeat the militant organization. Instead, the combination of airpower and ground forces—led by Iraqi and Syrian partners—was needed to destroy the Islamic State as a territorial entity. The overarching strategy of Operation Inherent Resolve, which put ground-force partners in the lead, created several challenges and innovations in the application of airpower, which have implications for future air wars. To be prepared to meet future demands against nonstate and near-peer adversaries, the U.S. Air Force and the joint force should apply lessons learned from Operation Inherent Resolve.

Brent Ziarnick, To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of Strategic Air Command in the Cold War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021).

To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of Strategic Air Command in the Cold War fills a critical gap in Cold War and Air Force history by telling the story of General Thomas S. Power for the first time. Thomas Power was second only to Curtis LeMay in forming the Strategic Air Command (SAC), one of the premier combat organizations of the twentieth century, but he is rarely mentioned today. What little is written about Power describes him as LeMay’s willing hatchet man—uneducated, unimaginative, autocratic, and sadistic. Based on extensive archival research, General Power seeks to overturn this appraisal.Brent D. Ziarnick covers the span of both Power’s personal and professional life and challenges many of the myths of conventional knowledge about him. Denied college because his middle-class immigrant family imploded while he was still in school, Power worked in New York City construction while studying for the Flying Cadet examination at night in the New York Public Library. As a young pilot, Power participated in some of the Army Air Corps’ most storied operations. In the interwar years, his family connections allowed Power to interact with American Wall Street millionaires and the British aristocracy. Confined to training combat aircrews in the United States for most of World War II, Power proved his combat leadership as a bombing wing commander by planning and leading the firebombing of Tokyo for Gen. Curtis LeMay. After the war, Power helped LeMay transform the Air Force into the aerospace force America needed during the Cold War. A master of strategic air warfare, he aided in establishing SAC as the Free World’s “Big Stick” against Soviet aggression. Far from being unimaginative, Power led the incorporation of the nuclear weapon, the intercontinental ballistic missile, the airborne alert, and the Single Integrated Operational Plan into America’s deterrent posture as Air Research and Development Command commander and both the vice commander and commander-in-chief of SAC. Most importantly, Power led SAC through the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Even after retirement, Power as a New York Times bestselling author brought his message of deterrence through strength to the nation.

Ziarnick points out how Power’s impact may continue in the future. Power’s peerless, but suppressed, vision of the Air Force and the nation in space is recounted in detail, placing Power firmly as a forgotten space visionary and role model for both the Air Force and the new Space Force. To Rule the Skies is an important contribution to the history of the Cold War and beyond.

#DesertStorm30 – Planning and Executing the Air Campaign

By Lieutenant General David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.)

Editorial Note: 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of Operation DESERT STORM. To mark this anniversary, during 2021, From Balloons to Drones will be publishing a series of articles that examine various aspects of DESERT STORM’s air campaign. We will be publishing pieces throughout 2021, and if you would like to contribute to the series, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Dr Ross Mahoney, at airpowerstudies@gmail.com or via our contact page here. The official call for submissions can be found here.

Over the coming weeks, From Balloons to Drones is pleased to be working in conjunction with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies to publish a series of articles on various aspects of the DESERT STORM air campaign. These articles were initially published as part of a Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies special report, Desert Storm: 30 Years Later – Lessons from the 1991 Air Campaign in the Persian Gulf War. You can download the report here.

In this latest instalment, we are pleased to present a piece by Lieutenant General David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.) on the planning and execution of the DESERT STORM air campaign. Deptula was the principal attack planner for the air campaign, and in this article, he provides valuable insights into some of the issues and challenges that affected the conduct of the air campaign.

January 17, 2016, at 0239 Baghdad time marked the 25^th anniversary of the start of Operation Desert Storm. Desert Storm was a turning point in the conduct of warfare as it set the conditions for modern warfare in five major ways: 1) it set expectations for low casualties – on both sides of the conflict; 2) it presaged precision in the application of force for all future conflicts; 3) it introduced prosecution of a combined/joint air campaign integrating all coalition/service air operations under the functional command of an airman, 4) it established desired effects as the focus of strategy and in the planning and conduct of operations, and 5) for the first time in history, airpower was used as the key force – or centerpiece – in the strategy and execution of a war.

Desert Storm was a 43-day war – airpower operated throughout the conflict from start to finish; ground forces acted as a blocking force for almost the entire war as airpower destroyed enemy forces and achieved desired effects against key systems from above. Only in the final days of the conflict were ground forces committed to combat and used to re-occupy Kuwait. In this respect, Desert Storm saw an inversion in the paradigm of traditional force application. Long-time military expert Dr Ben Lambeth has observed that today:

[t]he classic roles of airpower and land power have changed places in major combat […] Fixed-wing air power has, by now, proven itself to be far more effective than ground combat capabilities in creating the necessary conditions for rapid offensive success.

The opening attacks of Desert Storm signaled a radical departure in the conduct of war. Over 150 discrete targets – in addition to regular Iraqi Army forces and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites – made up the master attack plan for the opening 24 hours. The war began with more targets attacked in one day than the total number of targets hit by all of the Eighth Air Force in 1942 and 1943 combined – that’s more separate targets attacked in less time than ever before in history.

Twenty-five years ago, those involved in the Desert Storm air campaign applied force not only across the entire breadth and depth of the country geographically, but also across all the key strategic and operational level centers of gravity. How was that accomplished? And what was different from previous conflicts?

Advances in technology, in conjunction with an effects-based approach to planning and execution, allowed us to institute a new concept of operations that has been described as ‘parallel’ war: the simultaneous application of force across the totality of the enemy system.

While simultaneous attack has always been a desired element of offensive warfare, it had never evolved into the parallel war demonstrated in Desert Storm for three reasons: one, the requirement for mass to compensate for a lack of precise weapons delivery; two, the large number of resources required to suppress enemy air defenses; and three, the absence of a focus on effects rather than destruction to achieve control over an opponent.

The first two challenges required technological solutions, and were simply not mature before the mid-1980s. Those two solutions were stealth and precision. To provide insight into the significance of those two elements, in the first 24 hours of Desert Storm stealth, precision, and effects-based planning allowed targeting 36 stealth aircraft armed with precision-guided munitions against more separate targets than the complete non-stealth/non-precision air and missile force launched from the entire complement of six aircraft carriers and all the other ships in the theater combined. The stealthy F-117 force flew less than 2 percent of the combat sorties, but struck over 40 percent of the fixed targets.

The leverage that stealth demonstrated in the first Gulf War is further illustrated by the following example that involves the first non-stealthy attack on one target with three aimpoints in the Basrah area – Shaiba Airfield to be exact. The attack package consisted of 4 US Navy A-6s dropping bombs, along with 4 Saudi Tornado bomb droppers: 5 US Marine EA-6Bs jamming acquisition radars; 4 US Air Force F-4Gs taking out one type of surface to air missile system; 17 US Navy F-18s taking out another; 4 F/A-18s as escort; and three drones to cause the enemy radars to radiate. That is a total of 41 aircraft – 8 dropping bombs, on 3 aimpoints, on one target.

At approximately the same time we had 20 F-117s all dropping bombs on 38 aim points on 28 separate targets. That is less than half the aircraft hitting over 12 times the number of aim points.

Stealth and precision facilitated the actualization of the third and perhaps most important component of that conflict: a concept of operations designed to achieve control over an enemy’s essential systems. This methodology recognizes that negating an adversary’s ability to operate as desired is ultimately as important – or even more so – than the destruction of the forces it relies on for conquest.

We built the air attack strategy of Desert Storm by treating Iraq and the Saddam regime as a system of systems, and designed the operation to achieve paralysis of Saddam’s strategic centers of gravity: leadership; key essential systems; infrastructure; information; and fielded military forces. The campaign had five key objectives in this regard:

1. Gain/Maintain Air Supremacy to Permit Unhindered Air Operations
2. Isolate and Incapacitate Hussein Regime
3. Destroy Iraqi Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare Capability
4. Eliminate Iraq’s Offensive Military Capability
5. Render the Iraqi Army in Kuwait Ineffective, Causing Its Collapse

EF-111A Raven aircraft prepare to take off on a mission during Operation Desert Shield. (Source: Wikimedia)

These objectives were all achieved – rapidly, and decisively. The tenets that made Desert Storm such a success were:

1. Strong political will – a President who stated on 5 August 1990, ‘This will not stand’ in response to the invasion of Kuwait. President George H. W. Bush and his military commanders built a strategy; formed a coalition; deployed the forces required to execute that strategy; garnered United Nations backing; executed the strategy; and accomplished its declared objectives by February 28, 1991 – seven months from start to finish.
2. A comprehensive, coherent campaign plan that focused on dismantling the key centers of gravity – leadership; key essential systems; infrastructure; population perceptions; and military forces – that paralyzed Iraq as a state along with its military regime;
3. Putting a combined/joint force air component commander in charge of the air campaign, and treating each aircraft, missile, and air defense element according to the capability it brought to the campaign plan, regardless of which service or country from where it came;
4. Reversing the errors of Vietnam by replacing the gradualism of the ‘Rolling Thunder’ air campaign with the ‘Instant Thunder’ of the Desert Storm air campaign; and
5. Adopting a true combined/joint approach to the effort using the right force at the right place at the right time – not a traditional land-centric plan that singularly focused on fielded military forces.

Today, against the Islamic State, targets selected and ordnance employed go through a lengthy vetting process, and are approved or disapproved by ground commanders. According to a reported Air Force source on 26 August 2016 it, ‘take[s] an average of between 45 to 60 days before [targets] are vetted and approved.’ That is longer than the duration of Operation Desert Storm in its entirety. The excessive time factor in Operation Inherent Resolve target development due to of concern of unintended civilian casualties, allows critical Islamic State functions to continue to operate. By not rapidly striking them actually countenances the Islamic State to perpetuate its terror, atrocities, and murder.

What is the morality of a policy that restricts the use of airpower to avoid the possibility of collateral damage while allowing the certainty of the Islamic State’s crimes against humanity? Members of today’s coalition should enter into their casualty avoidance calculus how many of the Islamic State’s intentional murders of innocents would be avoided by rapidly collapsing the organizational elements that allow the Islamic State to function.

The current approach to the Islamic State is gradualist – over two years to date, and the prospect of years of continuance; it is an anemic approach – an average of only 6 US strike sorties a day over the first two years of operations; and it is without definition – no comprehensive and focused strategy has been identified to achieve the stated objectives of degrading and destroying the Islamic State. The result is an approach that is fragmented, less than optimal, and yields the advantage of time to the adversary resulting in expansion and export of its deleterious effects. The enemy, over time, learns how to deal effectively with the gradual use of airpower and grows stronger, while our allies and our citizens lose interest, and our military forces – our brave airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines – tire of the endless rotations into and out of the fight. Our present is our past: not the swift, decisive past of Desert Storm but rather the quagmire that was Vietnam.

Today’s generation of airmen must renew the spirit of innovation and creativity enabled by exploiting the virtues of operating in air and space, as did the founders of our Air Force. Those characteristics delivered success in Desert Storm, and can do so again in the future. The innovative application of the tenets of aerospace power is what made Desert Storm such a success, and can be applied to the challenge of the Islamic State. Replace the current desert ‘drizzle’ with a ‘thunderstorm’ aimed not just at the hands and feet of the Islamic State but at its head and heart as well. It is the duty of every Air Force member to understand airpower, advocate and articulate its characteristics and capabilities, and educate those who do not understand. For if they don’t, no one else will. The Nation deserves to hear the options allowed by airpower, and will benefit from their proper application.

Lieutenant General David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.) is the Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He is a world-recognized leader and pioneer in conceptualizing, planning, and executing national security operations from humanitarian relief to major combat. He was the principal attack planner for the Operation Desert Storm air campaign; commander of no-fly-zone operations over Iraq in the late 1990s; director of the air campaign over Afghanistan in 2001; twice a joint task force commander; and was the air commander for the 2005 South Asia tsunami relief operations. He served on two congressional commissions charged with outlining America’s future defence posture. He is a fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flying hours – 400 in combat – Including multiple command assignments in the F-15. His last assignment was as the Air Force’s first deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), where he transformed America’s military ISR and drone enterprises—orchestrating the largest increase in drone operations in Air Force history. He retired from the Air Force in 2010 after more than 34 years of distinguished service. He has BA and ME degrees from the University of Virginia and a MS degree from National War College. In addition to his duties as Dean of the Mitchell Institute, he is the RisnerSenior Military Scholar at the US Air Force Academy; a board member at a variety of organizations; an independent consultant; and sought after commentator around the world as a thought leader on defence, strategy, and ISR.

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Air Power throughout the Ages

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