Tag: Royal Australian Air Force

The Royal Australian Air Force on D-Day: Operations in the Mediterranean

The Royal Australian Air Force on D-Day: Operations in the Mediterranean

By Dr Ross Mahoney

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

D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe in Normandy on 6 June 1944, has left an indelible mark on our cultural memory, as illustrated by the 2026 US release of the film Pressure. This film tells the story of the decision to launch the invasion from the perspective of General Dwight Eisenhower’s Chief Meteorological Officer, Group Captain James Stagg of the Royal Air Force (RAF). Australia’s role in the invasion of Europe was small compared with those of the main participants, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States; however, it was nonetheless significant. On 6 June, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) units, in particular, served with the RAF’s 2nd Tactical Air Force, Bomber Command, and Coastal Command. However, the RAAF’s contribution to the war in the northern hemisphere was not limited to Northwest Europe.

From 1940 onwards, the RAAF had deployed units to the Middle East and North Africa. For example, in mid-1940, No. 3 Squadron, one of 12 pre-war permanent RAAF squadrons, was deployed to the Middle East to support the 2nd Australian Imperial Force. By June 1944, six RAAF units were deployed around the Mediterranean and in addition to No. 3 Squadron, the squadrons deployed included five Article XV Squadrons (Nos. 450, 451, 454, 458 and 459). Additionally, No. 462 Squadron had operated in the Mediterranean as a heavy bomber unit until it was converted to No. 614 Squadron RAF at the end of February 1944. Article XV Squadrons were those units raised and manned by graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Scheme. The RAAF raised 17 Article XV Squadrons during the Second World War, and the majority of these served under British command at various points.

Given the RAAF’s contribution to the broader Mediterranean during the Second World War, it is worth noting that while Australian contributions to D-Day were important, operations in the latter theatre continued. Indeed, operations at the tactical level on 6 June were very much business as usual despite the momentous events in Normandy. Moreover, and often overlooked, is the fact that on 5 June, the Allies took Rome, Italy’s capital. This came in the aftermath of the landings at Anzio (Operation ANVIL) and the breaking of the Gustav Line around Cassino (Operation DIADEM). In Italy, the period after the taking of Rome was characterised by operations to advance to the Gothic Line.

RAAF units deployed in the Mediterranean in 1944 came under the overall command of the Mediterranean Allied Air Force (MAAF), formed in December 1943 and commanded by Lieutenant-General Ira Eaker of the United States Army Air Forces. The MAAF comprised several major commands: the Mediterranean Allied Strategic Air Force, the Mediterranean Tactical Air Force (MATAF), the Mediterranean Allied Coastal Air Force (MACAF), RAF Middle East Command, the Mediterranean Allied Photographic Wing, and, from June 1944, the Balkan Air Force. Although no RAAF unit was assigned to the Balkan Air Force, at least 150 Australians served within its ranks.[1] Indeed, a sizeable number were assigned to No 148 Squadron RAF, which flew the Handley Page Halifax in the special duties’ role.[2] Additionally, for example, in 1944, there were ‘over 100 Australian individuals scattered among the various units of MACAF.[3]

Of the six RAAF squadrons in the Mediterranean, three operated as part of MATAF – Nos. 3, 450, and 451. Each undertook roles associated with fighter and tactical air operations in Italy, including fighter sweeps and direct air support to ground forces. Nos. 3 and 450 Squadron were part of No. 239 Wing. This Wing had been temporarily assigned to the US XII Air Support Command (ASC) until 6 June. However, on 6 June, control of Nos. 239 and 244 (which had also been attached to XII ASC) Wing reverted to the RAF’s Desert Air Force (DAF), commanded by Air Vice-Marshal William Dickson.[4] At the same time, DAF assumed responsibility for air operations on the fronts of the British Eighth Army and V Corps.[5] While key changes took place in the command and control of Nos. 3 and 450 Squadron, the day-to-day operations of the units remained largely unchanged. No. 3 Squadron was equipped with the Curtiss Kittyhawk IV and commanded by Squadron Leader R.H. Bayly. On 6 June, No. 3 Squadron was operating out of San Angelo and undertook four operations totalling 24 sorties.[6] Three of them were described as ‘armed recce’ operations, while one was to bomb motor transport in the Rocca Sinibalda area specifically. Total claims for the day were 12 motor transport and 2 tanks. Interestingly, the first operations failed to hit anything, but on the way back to San Angelo, they spotted 40 tanks and could not attack them for lack of bombs.[7] No. 450 Squadron, also equipped with the Curtiss Kittyhawk IV and flying out of San Angelo, undertook three operations and 24 sorties on 6 June.[8]

A Supermarine Spitfire MkIX aircraft of No. 451 Squadron RAAF, undergoing an engine overhaul by two squadron fitters in Corsica, June 1944. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

For No. 451 Squadron, operations were similar to those of Nos. 3 and 450 Squadron. However, the key difference was in the control of No. 451 Squadron. Originally raised in early 1941, No. 451 Squadron had served in North Africa and Syria and eventually re-equipped with the Supermarine Spitfire MkIX in early 1944. In April, they became part of No. 251 Wing RAF, which was attached to the US 87th Fighter Wing of XII ASC, though administratively under the command of DAF. No. 251 Wing served within the 87th Wing alongside another RAF wing, No. 322, also equipped with the Spitfire. Both ‘experienced’ wings ‘transferred specially for the task from the Middle East.’[9]  Primarily, the 87th Wing was tasked with ‘the provision of escort to the Mitchells and Marauders of the 42nd and 57th Wings, and the disruption and destruction of enemy communications and supplies.’[10] Eighty-seven Wings’ brief also included ‘ground support missions’ and ‘anti-shipping strikes.’[11] As the RAF Air Historical Branch (AHB) narrative noted, between 5 and 15 June, a ‘considerable percentage of the Spitfire effort was spent on escorting the medium bombers based on Corsican and Sardinian fields.’[12] However, on 6 June, No. 451 Squadron undertook two ‘armed reece’ operations from their base in Corsica over the Italian mainland. These consisted of 20 sorties.[13]

One unit, No. 458 Squadron, operated with MACAF on 6 June as part of No. 328 Wing RAF. The Squadron, equipped with the Vickers Wellington MkXIV, was assigned to the US 63rd Fighter Wing. Alongside the rest of No. 328 Wing, No. 458 Squadron formed one part of the offensive element of the 63rd Wing, undertaking anti-shipping operations from Sardinia and mainland Italy.[14]  Despite this, 6 June was quiet for No. 458 Squadron, as it was in the process of relocating its main operating base from Algeria to Alghero in Sardinia. Indeed, as John Herington remarked in the official history of RAAF air operations in Europe in 1944 and 1945, ‘[t]he month was a quiet one for No. 458 despite the momentous events in France and Italy.’[15] The squadron was ordered to move on 20 May, and its heavy equipment was loaded on 5 June; by 11 June, all aeroplanes had arrived at Alghero.[16] The road party of the squadron did not land on Sardinia until 20:00 hours on 6 June. Thus, elements of No. 458 Squadron spent most of that momentous day at sea.[17] Moreover, as recorded in the No. 458 Squadron Operation Record Book, the first operations from Alghero did not occur until the night of 13/14 June.[18]

Two RAAF squadrons, Nos. 454 and 459 operated under Air Headquarters Eastern Mediterranean, formed in February 1944 under Air Vice-Marshal Thomas Langford-Sainsbury. On 6 June, No. 454 Squadron was operating from RAF Berka in Libya and had been performing various roles, including bombing and anti-submarine operations. The squadron was equipped with the Martin Baltimore MkIV and V. Specifically, on 6 June, No. 454 Squadron flew three sorties providing anti-submarine cover for a convoy.[19] Due to visibility, one of the Baltimores struggled to locate the convoy. However, apart from that, there were no incidents on the day. The other squadron in AHQ Eastern Mediterranean was No. 459, equipped with the Lockheed Ventura MkV at RAF St Jean in Palestine. From here, it undertook bombing and anti-submarine operations in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. On 6 June, No. 459 Squadron undertook four sorties, including one aeroplane bombing seaplane installations in Rhodes harbour in the Aegean.[20] Interestingly, while No. 459 Squadron eventually replaced its Venturas with the Baltimore, the order of battle for 1 June in the relevant AHB Narrative for maritime air operations in the region suggests that the Squadron was to be replaced with the Vickers Warwick. Nonetheless, the eventual conversion of No. 459 Squadron to Baltimore’s implied a more aggressive role and was welcomed by the Squadron.[21]

These experiences were varied, reflecting the range and scope of operations undertaken by the RAAF as well as its geographical spread. They also differed from those of their RAAF counterparts in Northwest Europe, where operations were conducted under RAF command and control. In the Mediterranean, RAAF squadrons were deployed much more flexibly, as were RAF units, and often under US operational command, as illustrated by the experience of No. 451 Squadron. Finally, despite suggestions to the contrary, the Mediterranean was no backwater after the fall of Rome on 5 June, even on 6 June, when momentous events were unfolding elsewhere.

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war with particular reference to the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum in the UK. In Australia, he has worked as a Historian for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and taught at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University based at the Australian War College. His research interests are focused on the history of war, specifically on the history of air power and air warfare, military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here, and he can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.

Header image: Nos. 3 and 450 Squadron RAAF moved from Cutella on the Adriatic to San Angelo on the west coast of Italy. It is springtime and warm enough to enjoy a swim in the river, c. 1944. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] John Herington, Australia in the War of 1939–1945: Series 3 – Air, Volume IV – Air Power Over Europe, 1944–1945 (Canberra, ACT: Australian War Memorial, 1963), p. 329.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 97.

[4] RAF Narrative, The Italian Campaign, 1943-1945, Volume II: Operations, June 1944-May 1945 (London: Air Historical Branch, 1956), p. 4.

[5] Ibid.

[6] National Archives of Australia (NAA) A9186, 9, Detail of Work Carried Out, No. 3 Squadron Operations Record Book, 6 June 1944.

[7] Ibid.

[8] NAA, A9186, 135, No 450 Operations Record Book, 6 June 1944.

[9] RAF Narrative, The Italian Campaign, 1943-1945, Volume II, p. 14.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., p. 15.

[13] NAA, A9186, 136, Details of Work Carried Out, No. 451 Operations Record Book, 6 June 1944.

[14] RAF Narrative, The Italian Campaign, 1943-1945, Volume II, pp. 20-1.

[15] Herington, Air Power Over Europe, 1944–1945, p. 97.

[16] Ibid.

[17] NAA, A9186, 144, No. 458 Operations Record Book, June 1944.

[18] Ibid.

[19] NAA, A9186, 140, No. 454 Squadron Operations Record Book, 6 June 1944.

[20] NAA, A9186, 145, No. 459 Squadron Operations Record Book, 6 June 1944.

[21] Herington, Air Power Over Europe, 1944–1945, p. 323.

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

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

By Dr Ross Mahoney

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum between 2013 and 2017. His other research interests are military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reviewed by Dr Ross Mahoney

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has 20 years of experience in the education, museum, heritage and government sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum from 2013 to 2017. His other research interests are military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents.

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

#ResearchNote – The Royal Australian Air Force Goes to War over Korea

#ResearchNote – The Royal Australian Air Force Goes to War over Korea

By Dr Ross Mahoney

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

On 25 June 1950 local time, forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Launching Operation Pokpung, North Korea quickly moved south and by 28 June had occupied the capital of South Korea, Seoul. In response to this act of aggression, on 25 June 1950, in New York, the United Nations passed Resolution 82, which condemned the invasion, called for a cessation of hostilities, and demanded the withdrawal of forces beyond the 38th Parallel. Failure to comply with the resolution led to the adoption of Resolution 83, which recommended that UN members provide military forces to support South Korea and restore peace.

Korea, after 35 years of occupation by the Japanese, was split into two zones of occupation in 1945. The Soviet Union occupied the north, while the United States occupied the south. While the intention had been to unify the Korean Peninsula, problems arose between the communist North and the nationalist South. The failure of the Communist Party (the Workers’ Party of North Korea) to participate in the 1948 elections, combined with the abstention of several South Korean politicians, led to the eventual development of two distinct systems of government.[1] After the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and after receiving tacit support from Joseph Stalin, North Korea prepared to invade South Korea.

Australia’s response to Resolution 83 was to support the UN. At this time, the Australian military was providing forces to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) in Japan. Shortly after the passage of Resolution 83, the Department of External Affairs received communications from the Americans regarding the support Australia was willing to provide.[2] Initially, the Royal Australian Navy vessels (RAN) HMAS Shoalhaven and Bataan (the latter en route to Japanese waters to relieve the former) were tasked with supporting the withdrawal of nationals from South Korea; however, by 29 June, they were tasked with assisting American operations.[3] In cabling this news to the Australian Ambassador to the United States, Norman Makin, the Minister for External Affairs, Percy Spender, noted the presence of No. 77 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), in Japan. However, he stressed it represented ‘practically the whole of our effective operational fighter strength in Australia or elsewhere.’[4]

Group portrait of No. 77 Fighter Squadron, RAAF, 26 September 1948. Identified, left to right, back row: Warrant Officer (WO) Jim Flemming; WO W. Michelson; Flying Officer (FO) W. Horsman; WO M. Garroway; WO W. Rivers; Flight Lieutenant (Flt Lt) C.R. Noble; WO Fairweather; Flt Lt J. Grey; FO K. McLeod; WO B. Nichols; Flt Lt T. Murphy. Front row: FO W.O.K. Hewett; Flt Lt R. Hill; Flt Lt W. Ives; Flt Lt C. Butcher; Flt Lt S. Bradford; Squadron Leader F. Lawrenson; Flt J.I. Adams; Flt Lt G. Strout; Flt Lt K. Godfrey. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

No. 77 Squadron had deployed to Japan as part of BCOF in 1946 as part of No. 81 Wing. In 1948, it was transferred to Iwakuni Air Base in Yamaguchi Prefecture, on the island of Honshu. The squadron had been re-equipped after the end of the Second World War with the North American P-51D Mustang. By June 1950, No. 77 Squadron was amid preparations to return to Australia, it having been announced in April that the remaining Australian forces in Japan would be repatriated. However, events overtook these preparations. 

On 29 June, the same day the Australian Government contributed the RAN to the war in Korea, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, General Douglas MacArthur, requested No. 77 Squadron for operations over the Korean Peninsula. He had been informed by his principal air commander, Commander of the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), Lieutenant General George Stratemeyer, that he was in desperate need of long-range ground attack aircraft. As the Australian Official Historian of the Korean War, Robert O’Neill related, MacArthur had cabled the Commander of BCOF, Lieutenant General Sir Horace Robertson, to request the use of No. 77 Squadron. However, he had sent the message uncoded and not kept it from the entourage of reporters that he had taken with him on his tour of South Korea.[5] Stratemeyer embellished MacArthur’s position by heaping praise on No. 77 Squadron. While the praise was not unwarranted, it was clearly designed for effect. Indeed, Stratemeyer and his planners at FEAF had, in the words of the United States Air Force’s official history of air operations over Korea, ‘cast covetous glances’ at No 77 Squadron and its P-51 Mustangs.[6] MacArthur’s request for the deployment of No. 77 Squadron was widely reported in the Australian media alongside Stratemeyer’s praise for the unit before the Australian Government had a chance to respond.[7]

MacArthur’s request put the Australian Government in a challenging position. They still hoped to send No. 77 Squadron back to Australia, but alliance politics took centre stage, and by 30 June it was announced that the squadron would be committed to operations.[8] MacArthur had got his way. However, while No. 77 Squadron was committed to action, it operated from Iwakuni and would operate over Korea, but not be deployed to the peninsula. Moreover, due to poor weather, it would take several days for No. 77 Squadron to undertake its first sorties.

The North American P-51D Mustang aircraft A68-809, flown by Wing Commander Lou Spence DFC, when commanding No. 77 Squadron, RAAF, in Korea. Spence flew this aeroplane on 2 July when leading the second mission of the day. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

On 2 July, No. 77 Squadron undertook three sorties. The first was an ‘armed escort’ of four P-51s led by Squadron Leader Graham Strout for US Douglas C-47 Dakotas evacuating wounded soldiers from ‘Taijon’ (Daejeon) in Korea to Japan. One P-51 (A68-799) had to return to Iwakuni due to being unserviceable after take-off. The second sortie was a ‘close-armed escort’ mission led by the squadron commander, Wing Commander Lou Spence. The mission was to escort a group of US Douglas B-26 Invaders who attacked two bridges south of Seoul. One P-51 (A68-757) had to return due to unserviceability. The final mission saw six P-51s provide ‘armed escort’ to US Boeing B-29 Superfortresses who were attacking Yonpo airfield at Hamhung.[9] Despite the return of two aeroplanes to Iwakuni due to unserviceability, the sorties were relatively uneventful, despite several newspapers reporting that No. 77 Squadron downed one or two Yakovlev Yak-9 fighters.[10] No enemy aeroplanes were recorded as being encountered, and only in the two final sorties was any form of anti-aircraft fire encountered, though they caused no problem for the squadron. After a relatively inauspicious start, No. 77 Squadron would soon turn its attention to offensive operations, launching its first ‘armed attack’ with eight P-51s armed with rockets, attacking a convoy on a stretch of road between Heitaku and Suwon on 3 July. The attack claimed two locomotives, one truck, two staff cars, four other vehicles, and a bridge.[11]

The significance of No. 77 Squadron’s deployment over Korea came not in what the squadron physically achieved but in what its presence represented to alliance politics. The squadron’s first operations were widely reported both in Australia and abroad. In Australia, No. 77 Squadron’s first operation was reported in a typically functional manner, with many newspapers simply reporting on the character of the sorties. Nevertheless, some newspapers reported on the significance of the sorties in terms of Australian strategic policy, both foreign and domestic. For example, on 3 July, the Brisbane Telegraph noted that while the deployment of small-scale RAAF and RAN forces to support the effort in Korea was warranted to ‘honour Australian commitments to the United Nations’, any larger-scale deployment would need parliamentary agreement.[12] However, as an editorial in The Canberra Times reported, the rapid deployment highlighted ‘[t]wo extremes in the making of major decisions on policy have been illustrated by the reactions of the Government and of the Labour Party to the outbreak of hostilities in Korea.’[13] In short, the Australian Government acted quickly. At the same time, the Labor Party could ‘even comment on the situation until a meeting is held in Sydney next Wednesday [5 July], at which the policy will be decided.’[14] Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was reported that the Australian Communist Party had condemned the use of the RAAF, describing their deployment as a ‘scandal and a disgrace’ and demanding ‘the withdrawal of the R.A.A.F, from Korea.’[15]

More significantly, in the US, the rapid response of the Australian Government was noted. On 2 September, the Washington Evening Star reported on that ‘[t]he first combat mission of the Australians […] had a political significance. It made the air war a United Nations show […] No longer was the United States conducting any part of the Korean “police action” alone.’[16] That the term ‘political significance’ was used would not have been lost on readers, and a copy of this article was provided to the Department of External Affairs, as it aligned with Australian views on alliance politics.[17] Indeed, on 27 June, Makin had cabled Canberra to note that ‘the war had created a useful opportunity for putting to the State Department’ the creation of a ‘regional arrangement […] might help meet further crises.’[18] Thus, the failure to deploy No. 77 Squadron would have been inopportune and also demonstrated that, while a small contribution to the war effort, it had a significant political impact.

Thus ended the first day of operations for No. 77 Squadron over Korea. The squadron would deploy to Korea in October 1950 and eventually be re-equipped with the Gloster Meteor F.8. It would serve in Korea until October 1954, when it would transfer back to Japan and subsequently to Australia.

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum between 2013 and 2017. His other research interests are military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here.

Header image: North American P-51D Mustangs of 77 Squadron RAAF, lined up on the tarmac at Iwakuni air base, Japan, c. 1950. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] This is an overly simplified description of the development of the two Koreas in the period after the Second World War. For more detail, see: Allan Millett, The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005).

[2] Robert O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1: Strategy and Diplomacy (Canberra, ACT: The Australian War Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service, 1981), p. 49.

[3] National Archives of Australia (NAA), A1838, 3123/7/3/4 PART 1, Statement by the Prime Minister, 29 June 1950; ‘Australia Backs U.N.,’ The Herald, 29 June 1950, p. 1; ‘Australian Units for Korea, Ships and Planes,’ Lithgow Mercury, 29 June 1950, 2.

[4] O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1, p. 51.

[5] O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1, pp. 51-2. On the repercussions, or lack thereof, of MacArthur’s ‘leak,’ see: O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1, p. 54. Cameron Forbes claimed MacArthur told Australian Roy Macartney, who was Chief of the AAP-Reuters office in Tokyo. See: Cameron Forbes, ‘Fighting in the Giants’ Playground: Australians in the Korean War’ in John Blaxland, Micheal Kelly and Liam Brewin Higgins (eds.), In from the Cold: Reflections on Australia’s Korean War (Canberra, ACT, ANU Press, 2020), p. 89. Macartney certainly filed a story that was picked up by several newspapers. For example, see: ‘Australian Fighters Sought by MacArthur,’ The Canberra Times, 30 June 1950, p. 1; ‘MacArthur Seeks Use of Australian Fighters in Korea,’ Border Morning Mail, 30 June 1950, p. 1; ‘MacArthur Wants Australian Fighter Planes,’ Daily Advertiser, 30 June 1950, p. 1. O’Neill noted the presence of Macartney of MacArthur’s aeroplane but does not explicitly note that the latter told the former that he wanted No. 77 Squadron. O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1, p. 51.

[6] Robert Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (New York, NY: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1961), p. 64.

[7] “R.A.A.F. Fighters Sought for South Korea,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June 1950, p. 1; ‘RAAF asked to Fight with U.S.,’ Daily Mirror, 30 June 1950, p. 1; ‘MacArthur Back; Wants to Use R.A.A.F.,’ Illawarra Daily Mercury, 30 June 1950, p. 1; ‘Mac Arthur asks for the R.A.A.F.,’ The Courier-Mail, 30 June 1950, p. 1; “Wants R.A.A.F. for Korea,’ The Mercury, 30 June 1950, p. 1.

[8] NAA, A1838, 3123/7/3/4 PART 1, Statement by the Prime Minister, 30 June 1950.

[9] NAA, A9186, 103, Detail of Operations, No. 77 Squadron, Operations Record Book, 2 July 1950.

[10] ‘RAAF Mustangs Escort Bombers,’ The Herald, 3 July 1950, p. 3; ‘RAAF Mustangs in a Mission which downs a Red,’ The Daily News, 3 July 1950, p. 1.

[11] NAA, A9186, 103, Detail of Operations, No. 77 Squadron, Operations Record Book, 3 July 1950.

[12] ‘Emergency Call to Parlt.,’ Brisbane Telegraph, 3 July 1950, p. 2

[13] ‘Policies on Korea,’ The Canberra Times, 3 July 1950, p. 4.

[14] ‘Policies on Korea,’ The Canberra Times, 3 July 1950, p. 4.

[15] ‘Communists in Stoney Attack Prime Minister,’ The Canberra Times, 3 July 1950, p. 1.

[16] NAA, A1838, 3123/7/3/4 PART 1, Brooks McClure, ‘Aussies Make Quick Contribution to War,’ Washington Evening Star, 2 September 1950. McClure’s article also noted the importance of the deployment of RAN ships.

[17] NAA, A1838, 3123/7/3/4 PART 1, Memorandum to the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 5 September 1950.

[18] O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War, 1950-53 – Volume 1, p. 53.

#ResearchNote – The Forgotten Few: The Royal Australian Air Force and the Korean Air War – A Historiographical Note

#ResearchNote – The Forgotten Few: The Royal Australian Air Force and the Korean Air War – A Historiographical Note

By Dr Ross Mahoney

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

The Korean War is often described as the ‘Forgotten War’ due to it being sandwiched between the more commonly known Second World War and the Vietnam War. Furthermore, a debate persists over its character, with some referring to it as ‘police action.’ Despite this, the Korean War has received its fair share of examination by historians since the conflict ended. Arguably, the most comprehensive history in the English language is Allan Millett’s history of the conflict. So far, two volumes of The War for Korea (2005 and 2010) out of a projected three have been published, covering the period up to 1951. From an Australian perspective, the late Jeffrey Grey’s work on the role of British Commonwealth armies, The Commonwealth Armies and the Korean War (1988), remains a key work.

In addition to Grey’s work, the key source on Australia’s involvement in the Korean War remains the two-volume official history written by Robert O’Neill. Starting research in 1970, O’Neill’s two-volume history dealt with strategy and diplomacy in its first volume, while the second volume covered the combat operations of the military forces deployed, including the experience of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). While the first volume has generally been praised, the second volume has been described by at least one critic as a ‘regimental history.[1] Indeed, with specific reference to the RAAF’s contribution, Glen St John Barclay questioned the validity of volume two, arguing ‘if one is not going to make even a passing reference to the aviators of the US Air Force and Navy who achieved total command of the skies for the United Nations Forces in Korea. This is Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, indeed.’[2]

O’Neill’s appointment nevertheless marked a significant departure from previous official historians, who were journalists by background. Here, the Australian Government made a conscious decision to appoint an academic – O’Neill also served as the Head of the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the time he researched and wrote the official history. Since O’Neill’s appointment, the subsequent official histories published in Australia have adopted a significantly more academic tone. Moreover, as Peter Edwards, the Official Historian of Australia’s involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975 has written, O’Neill ‘pioneered the coverage in official histories of the strategic and diplomatic policy-making that led Australian forces to be involved in conflicts, with the same precision and authority as had always been given to the experience of those forces.’ [3]

A South African Air Force North American F-86F Sabre from No. 2 Squadron at Tsuiki air base, Japan, in 1953. No. 2 Squadron SAAF was attached to the US Air Force 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing during the Korean War. (Source: Wikimedia)

Returning to air power, the historiography is generally dominated by accounts detailing the role of primarily the United States Air Force, with some attention paid to US naval air power and the role of US Marine Corps aviation. Key amongst these is Conrad Crane’s American Airpower Strategy in Korea (2000). Crane is critical of the USAF’s official history published by Robert Futrell in the 1960s, noting that The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (1961) ‘emphasizes the success of air power in Korea and not the air force’s failure to learn enough from that ordeal.’[4] The role of naval aviation is dealt with in Richard Hallion’s 1986 work, The Naval Air War in Korea. Xiaoming Zhang’s 1998 article in The Journal of Military History and his 2002 book Red Wings over the Yalu remain the key works in the English language that examine the Chinese and Soviet use of air power over Korea.[5] Of interest is John Sherwood’s 1996 cultural history of US pilots during the Korean War, Officers in Flight Suits: The Story of American Air Force Fighter Pilots in the Korean War. In addition to these works, a useful general introduction to the subject can be found in Michael Napier’s 2021 history, Korean Air War.

Dealing with Australian air power, writing on the experience of the RAAF began even before the war had ended when George Odgers published Across the Parallel in 1952. Odgers had served as a public relations officer for the RAAF in Korea and had access to No. 77 Squadron that would have been hitherto unheard of for other writers of the time. The work was generally well received at the time of its publication, although it is now somewhat dated. Odgers would later write a biography of Wing Commander Richard Cresswell, Mr Double Seven (2008), who commanded No. 77 Squadron during 1951. Few personnel accounts of the RAAF’s involvement in the air war over Korea have been published. A notable exception is Colin King’s Luck is No Accident (2001).  

Little was published on the RAAF’s operations in Korea until the arrival in 1994 of David Wilson’s Lion Over Korea. The RAAF’s role in Korea was discussed by Alan Stephens in the second volume of the Air Force’s official history, Going Solo, in 1995. Stephens’ work is arguably the most comprehensive treatment of the campaign, despite the experience in Korea warranting only a single chapter. The volume, however, situates the deployment in context and links it to other ongoing issues in the history of the RAAF at the time. Then, at the turn of the 21st Century, Doug Hurst published The Forgotten Few (2000) while more recently Owen Zupp has published an account of Australia’s contribution to the air war (2024).

Despite the lack of personal accounts and Hurst’s contention that the No. 77 Squadron represented a ‘forgotten few,’ there has been a surprising amount published for what was ostensibly a small contribution to the war effort. Nevertheless, there are problems. While it might be argued that much has been written about the RAAF’s contribution to the air war, their contribution can still be overlooked. For example, In from the Cold, a 2020 edited collection reflecting on Australia’s contribution to the Korean War, did not include a chapter on the RAAF. Based on a 2011 conference at the Australian War Memorial, the event featured chapters on the Australian Army and the Battle of Maryang San, as well as the four-month deployment of the Royal Australian Navy’s aircraft carrier, HMAS Sydney. However, the closest we see the RAAF discussed is in a chapter on coalition air operations by Richard Hallion.[6]

Additionally, apart from Stephens’ work, the cited works above primarily focus on the experience of No. 77 Squadron. Little attempt is made to link expertise back to the development and operations of the RAAF in Australia and other places such as Malaya. Indeed, any consideration of Australian air power strategy in this period cannot separate Korea from Malaya, as the two campaigns were clearly linked in the mind of the Australian government.[7]

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with a particular focus on the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum between 2013 and 2017. His other research interests are military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here.

Header image: A United States Air Force North American F-86 Sabre parked alongside Gloster Meteor Mk8s on No. 77 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force at Iwakuni in Japan, June 195. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] Glen St John Barcley, ‘Australian Historians and the Study of War, 1975-88,’ Australian Journal of Politics & History 41, no. 1 (1995), p. 241.

[2] Barclay, ‘Australian Historians and the Study of War,’ p. 241.

[3] Peter Edwards, ‘Robert O’Neill and the Australian Official War Histories: Policy and Diplomacy’ in Daniel Marston and Tamara Leahy (eds.), War, Strategy and History: Essays in Honour of Professor Robert O’Neill (Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, 2016), p. 71.

[4] Wayne Thompson, ‘Book Review – American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950-1953 by Conrad Crane,’ Journal of American History 87, no. 4 (2001), p. 1565.

[5] Xiaoming Zhang, ‘China and the Air War in Korea, 1950-1953,’ The Journal of Military History 62, no. 2, (1998), pp. 335–70.

[6] Richard Hallion, ‘The Air War in Korea: Coalition Air Power in the Context of Limited War’ in John Blaxland, Michael Kelly and Brewin Higgins (eds.), In from the Cold: Reflections of Australia’s Korean War (Canberra, ACT: ANU Press, 2020), p. 129, 141.

[7] Mark Lax, Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation, 1950 to 1966 (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2021), p. 75.

#ResearchNote – Orders of Precedence Matters…

#ResearchNote – Orders of Precedence Matters…

By Dr Ross Mahoney

Editorial note: This post originally appeared on the author’s website and is cross-posted here with permission.

In 1922, an interesting episode in the history of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) began. In October 1922, the Secretary to the Department of Defence, Thomas Trumble, wrote to the Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, noting that as the RAAF constituted an independent service, Air Board and Air Force members should be afforded representation at official functions.[1] Its precedence was to come after the Australian Army. The Prime Minister’s Department’s reply was straightforward, noting that:

[a]rrangements will be made for the inclusion of representatives of the Air Force in connection with any general function to be held by the Commonwealth Government.[2]

Such a straightforward administrative request should have ended, but it did not. In 1924, the Governor-General sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, that ‘no precedence was accorded’ to the First Air Member at the inaugural dinner of the Lord Mayor of Melbourne that he recently attended.[3] It was suggested that to solve this issue, changes should be made to the Commonwealth Table of Precedence, namely paragraph 10.

While the changes suggested were eventually made, this episode highlights several issues related to the status of the RAAF and its emerging place in Australia’s defence establishment. First, the RAAF appeared to have a clear ally in the form of the Governor-General, Lord Forster. While Forster had not served in the military, he saw air power as important to Australia’s defence. In his memorandum to the Prime Minister, he wrote:

In view of the great and growing importance of the Air Service […] it would be desirable that the head of the Air Force should in future receive definite recognition on such occasions.[4]

Given the status of the Air Board in Australian defence planning, this is an interesting comment.[5]

Second, the issue that happened and had to be raised by Lord Forster illustrates the place of the RAAF in Australian thinking more broadly. Despite this issue being raised more than two years previously, nothing appears to have been enacted. Thus, it can be suggested that despite gaining its independence in 1921, Australian thinking had yet to adjust to the idea of an independent air force.[6] Thus, while orders of precedence may seem a curious relic to the modern audience, such things matter to the military cultures, especially to new organisations such as air forces. They are a status issue and illustrate to the broader public where an organisation might fit within the government’s thinking. By not giving the proper order of precedence to the RAAF, it could be argued that a clear message was being presented to the Australian body politic – independent air power did not matter. But was that so?

Dr Ross Mahoney is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones and an independent scholar specialising in the history of war with particular reference to the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is currently the Senior Historian within the Heritage Policy team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum in the UK. In Australia, he has worked as a Historian for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and taught at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University based at the Australian War College. His research interests are focused on the history of war, specifically on the history of air power and air warfare, military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents.

Header image: Port view of a RAAF De Havilland DH-9. This aeroplane was one of 128 gift aeroplanes presented by the British government to the newly formed RAAF, including thirty DH.9a (Source: Australian War Memorial)

[1] National Archives of Australia (NAA), A705, 4/1/35, Secretary, Department of Defence to the Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, 14 October 1922.

[2] NAA, A705, 4/1/35, Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department to the Secretary, Department of Defence, 17 October 1922.

[3] NAA, A705, 4/1/35, Memorandum by the Governor-General to the Prime Minister, 11 November 1924.

[4] NAA, A705, 4/1/35, Memorandum by the Governor-General to the Prime Minister, 11 November 1924.

[5] John MacCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence, 1918-39: A Study in Air and Sea Power (St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 1976), p. 27.

[6] MacCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence, pp. 34-43.

#ResearchNote – The Royal Australian Air Force and the historiography of the ‘air wars’ over Vietnam

#ResearchNote – The Royal Australian Air Force and the historiography of the ‘air wars’ over Vietnam

By Dr Ross Mahoney

In 1970, the United States Air Force’s (USAF) Contemporary Historical Examination of Current Operations (CHECO) project, which produced around 250 volumes on various subjects, published a volume on the RAAF’s air operations over Vietnam.[1] The volume on the RAAF was one of several that examined non-US air forces; others analysed included the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, the Royal Thai Air Force, and the Republic of Korea Air Force. Notably, the report on the RAAF, authored by James T. Bear, described the Australian effort over Southeast Asia as producing a ‘fruitful association’ with the USAF.[2] However, while the Americans, through the extensive distribution of this report to various commands, were aware of the views espoused by Project CHECO, the RAAF was not, as they were not included on the distribution list. As a result, this issue is often ignored by those using this source when writing on Australian air operations over Vietnam. For example, in a recent 2019 article in Sabretache, the journal of the Military Historical Society of Australia, Justin Chadwick made much of Bear’s report by describing its contents. However, Chadwick failed to address the distribution issue or whether the RAAF was aware of the report’s contents.[3] Nonetheless, Bear’s report, and others covering subjects pertinent to Australian air operations over Vietnam, were used by Chris Coulthard-Clark when researching and writing his volume on the RAAF in Vietnam as part of ‘The Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975.’ Moreover, the report is a valuable starting point for any discussion about Australia’s place in the air wars over Vietnam and the impact of the conflict on the RAAF.

More recently, however, air power historians have begun to discuss the air war over Vietnam in a more nuanced way. For example, in his 2021 history of the air war over Vietnam, Air Power’s Lost Cause, Brian Laslie, building on the work of scholars such as Mark Clodfelter, argued that the US fought six separate air wars during the conflict.[4] These campaigns included the strategic air campaign against North Vietnam; the battle for air superiority over North Vietnam; the USAF’s air war over South Vietnam; the US Navy’s air war over North and South Vietnam; air operations over Laos and Cambodia; and the US Army’s air mobility operations. However, while this classification helps describe US air operations over Vietnam, in excluding the experience of other nations involved in these ‘air wars,’ historians fail to tell a cohesive story about the use of air power over Vietnam.

Australian_soldiers_unloading_rations_from_a_9_Squadron_helicopter_in_1967
Rations and supplies are unloaded from a UH-1B Iroquois helicopter of No. 9 Squadron RAAF, by troops of 7th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, near the village of Long Dien during Operation Ulmarra, August 1967. (Source: Wikimedia)

Two reasons explain why historians fail to tell a cohesive story of air operations over Vietnam. First, from an American perspective, Vietnam is viewed as an inherently US war, especially regarding military operations. As Andrew Weist has remarked, ‘[r]emainders of the Vietnam War litter the cultural landscape of the United States.’[5] These reminders and the associated issues of ownership over the experience of the Vietnam War are often reinforced by popular accounts of the war, such as Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s 2017 documentary The Vietnam War and debates related to America supposedly repeating the mistakes of Vietnam in its recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.[6] This has led historians to focus solely on the American experience and not to fully incorporate the story of those other nations that fought in the Vietnam War. Where they are included, their experience is often viewed as a sideshow to the main American effort. Indeed, as Bear’s CHECO report on the Australians noted, in the view of the USAF, ‘only Australia played a significant role in the air war.’[7]

The second reason concerns how the history of the RAAF in Vietnam has been written. This relates to the state of Australian military historiography and, from the perspective of the RAAF, how the Air Force’s narrative has shaped the latter’s account.[8] Apart from Coulthard-Clark’s 1995 official history, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War 1962-1975, the literature on the RAAF’s service in Vietnam has primarily been the preserve of either the Air Force’s official histories or popular accounts, including veterans’ memoirs.[9] This situation mirrors concerns highlighted by John Ferris in 1998 when he reflected that most writers on air power history more broadly tend to be:

[t]he children of airmen, have been military personnel themselves, and have been employed at a historical office or service school in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the United States.[10]

This is undoubtedly the case with the history of the RAAF over Vietnam. Indeed, the RAAF has shaped the narrative surrounding the Air Force’s operations over Vietnam in two ways. First, the RAAF has published two official histories that span the Vietnam War period. The first, Going Solo, covered the period from 1945 to 1972 and was written by Alan Stephens, the former RAAF Historian. The second volume, Taking the Lead, written by Mark Lax, a RAAF Air Commodore, covers the period from 1972 to 1996. Neither book focuses singularly on Australian air operations over Vietnam. However, given the importance of the conflict to the RAAF, the war is integral to their analysis, particularly in Stephens’ volume. While both Stephens and Lax served in the RAAF and were academically trained historians, they were well placed to write these histories, thereby enhancing the value of these books. Nonetheless, as official histories, these works are often regarded as providing a definitive account of their subject. However, official histories are often the first rather than the last word on their topic.

The second way the RAAF has influenced the narrative of its operation over Vietnam is that the first book on Australian air operations during the conflict, Mission Vietnam, was commissioned by the Air Force. Research for Mission Vietnam, written by George Odgers, the Director of Public Relations in the Department of Air, began in 1971 before Australian air operations in Vietnam ended in 1972.[11] The book appeared in 1974, the year before the RAAF deployed Detachment ‘S’. As such, it does not comprehensively capture all RAAF operations associated with the Vietnam War. On publication, the RAAF News was convinced that Odgers’ volume would have ‘widespread appeal’ while one 1974 review in The Canberra Times described it as ‘essential reading.’[12] Illustrative of its importance in shaping the narrative, Mission Vietnam will be republished by the RAAF’s History and Heritage branch.

Beyond these volumes, discussions of RAAF operations over Vietnam have typically been left to popular accounts or memoirs, including those published under the auspices of the Air Force’s Air and Space Power Centre and the History and Heritage Branch.[13] For example, Jeff Pedrina’s account Wallaby Airlines was initially published in 2006 by the Air Power Development Centre (as ASPC was then known). It was recently reissued in 2023 as part of the Australian Air Campaign Series (AACS) produced by the History and Heritage Branch.[14] Similarly, as part of the AACS, the History and Heritage Branch published an abridged version of Air Vice-Marshal Reed’s autobiography, Invited to a War, in 2022.[15] Reed had served in Vietnam, flying Phantoms on exchange with the USAF. Many of these works represent what has invariably been described as Australia’s ‘democratic’ approach to military history, which focuses on the experiences of veterans.[16] In this sense, every participant’s views and recollections are equal and should be heard. There are, however, exceptions to this democratic approach. For example, Steven Paget’s recent examination of the operations of No. 2 Squadron over Vietnam usefully places the challenges the RAAF faced in achieving interoperability with the USAF into context.[17]

Aircraft_revetments_at_Phan_Rang_Air_Base_with_No._2_Squadrons_Canberras
Aerial view of the aircraft revetments at Phan Rang airbase in July 1967. No. 2 Squadron RAAF Canberra bombers are parked in the bays located in the immediate foreground. (Source: Australian War Memorial)

Given much of the above, how would a more integrated and cohesive account of Vietnam’s air wars look? First, from an Australian perspective, we need to move away from focusing solely on the Australian experience of the Vietnam War. As Thomas Richardson argued, such perspectives distort our view of Australia’s ‘success or failure’ in Vietnam.[18] This applies equally to the RAAF and the Australian Army. Second, regarding the broader picture of air operations over Vietnam, incorporating the experience of non-US units would help inform wider discussions on the character and challenges of coalition air operations in this period by examining issues such as cooperation and friction. While official and authorised accounts address some of these challenges, their aim of foregrounding the Australian experience through a functional approach to history, based on the RAAF’s roles, limits how far they can analyse these issues.[19]

Some indication of how to produce such a history can be gleaned from Paget’s work on No. 2 Squadron operations. Paget rightly noted that the experience of No. 2 Squadron highlighted issues in command and control, standardisation, tactics, training and procedures, and the sustainment of operations. However, these themes can be further analysed through additional examples of Australia’s experience in Vietnam. For example, the experience of RAAF officers on secondment as airborne Forward Air Controllers offers a valuable opportunity to understand how lessons are learnt and shared between air forces. Similarly, before the deployment of No. 2 Squadron, No. 35 Squadron was already fully integrated into the USAF command-and-control apparatus. Moreover, unlike No. 2 Squadron, No. 35 Squadron operated an aircraft type that the US would not deploy to South Vietnam until later in the war. However, it appears that the USAF did not take the opportunity to study the RAAF’s use of the Caribou, which raises questions about why this might have been the case.[20] As such, understanding the experience of No. 35 Squadron would further enrich our understanding of the air wars over Vietnam by exploring cultural issues that either help or retard the lessons learned process. Finally, we must consider what the deployment of RAAF air assets to Vietnam contributed to the overall war effort, given that, for example, during February 1968, at the height of the Tet Offensive, the Air Force accounted for only around one per cent of all attack sorties flown.[21] This was undoubtedly a significant effort for the RAAF. Still, it highlights the problem of deploying only single unit types rather than a cohesive operational package comprising several squadrons of the same type. As such, within the context of wider coalition operations, we must further question why the RAAF deployed the force it did and how it sought to influence and shape ongoing operations.

Dr Ross Mahoney is the Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones. He is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war with particular reference to the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is currently the Senior Historian within the City Architecture and Heritage Team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the education, museum and heritage sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum in the UK. In Australia, he has worked as a Historian for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and taught at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University based at the Australian War College. His research interests focus on the history of war, specifically air power and air warfare, military leadership and command, military culture, and the history and development of professional military education. He also maintains an interest in transport history. He has published numerous articles, chapters and encyclopedia entries, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. His website is here, and he can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.

Header image: DHC-4 Caribous of the RAAF Transport Flight arrived in South Vietnam in 1964 to work with the South Vietnamese and U.S. Air Forces to transport soldiers and supplies to combat areas in South Vietnam. (Source: Wikimedia)

[1] James T. Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA’ (CHECO Division, 1970); Warren A. Trest, ‘Projects CHECO and Corona Harvest: Keys to the Air Force’s Southeast Asia Memory Bank,’ Aerospace Historian 33, no. 2 (1986), pp. 114-20; Major Daniel Hoadley, ‘What Just Happened? A Historical Evaluation of Project CHECO’ (MA Thesis, USAF School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, 2013).

[2] Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA,’ p. 1. During the Vietnam War, the RAAF contributed significantly to the Australian effort in the conflict. While some flights had taken place in South Vietnam by a Dakota of No. 2 Squadron’s transport flight in 1963, the first significant deployment of RAAF assets took place in 1964 when six DHC-4 Caribous of the recently formed RAAF Transport Flight Vietnam – later renumbered as No. 35 Squadron in 1966 – were deployed as part of Australia’s early efforts in supporting the war. After the deployment of No. 35 Squadron, the RAAF’s primary involvement took the form of No. 9 Squadron equipped with Bell UH-1B Iroquois helicopters and No. 2 Squadron with GAF Canberra bombers. Notably, 36 fighter pilots served as airborne Forward Air Controllers with the USAF’s 19th and 20th Tactical Air Support Squadrons flying Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs, Cessna O-2 Skymasters, and Rockwell OV-10 Broncos. Additionally, six RAAF pilots flew USAF McDonnell F-4 Phantoms during the war as part of the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing. There were also those units – Nos. 36 and 37 Squadron – who maintained a strategic air bridge between Australia and Vietnam, including aeromedical evacuation. Lockheed Neptune maritime patrol aircraft regularly patrolled the sea lines of communication between Australia and Vietnam, such as during Operation Trimdon in 1965.  In addition to the deployed squadrons, various elements of the RAAF provided valuable ground support, including airfield construction, air defence guards, and medical personnel. Officially, RAAF operations over Vietnam ended in February 1972 when the last Caribous of No. 35 Squadron left the country. However, in 1975, as South Vietnam finally fell, the RAAF deployed Detachment ‘S’ to Vietnam to withdraw Australian national and embassy staff and distribute Red Cross aid.

[3] Justin Chadwick, “Nothing to diminish their glamour’: Project CHECO and the RAAF,’ Sabretache 60, no. 4 (2019), pp. 23-34.

[4] Brian Laslie, Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield, 2021), p. 2; Mark Clodfelter, ‘The Limits of Airpower or the Limits of Strategy: The Air Wars in Vietnam and Their Legacies,’ Joint Forces Quarterly 78 (2015), pp. 111-24.

[5] Andrew Weist, ‘Introduction’ in Andrew Weist (ed.), Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land: The Vietnam War Revisited (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 200), p. 16.

[6]  Andrew Gawthorpe, ‘Ken Burns, the Vietnam War, and the Purpose of History,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 43, no. 1 (2020), pp. 154-69.

[7] Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA,’ p. 1.

[8] Jeffrey Grey, ‘Cuckoo in the Nest? Australian Military Historiography: The State of the Field,’ History Compass 6, no. 2 (2008), pp. 455-68.

[9] Chris Coulthard-Clark, The RAAF in Vietnam: Australian Air Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1962-1975 (Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1995). For the RAAF’s official histories, see: Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal Australian Air Force, 1946-1971 (Canberra, ACT: AGPS Press, 1995); Lax, Taking the Lead. For memoirs and autobiographies, for example, see: Gary Cooper and Robert Hillier, Sock it to ‘em Baby: Forward Air Controller in Vietnam (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2006); David Evans, Down to Earth: The Autobiography of Air Marshal David Evans, AC, DSO, AFC (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2011).

[10] John R. Ferris, ‘Review Article – The Air Force Brats’ View of History: Recent Writing and the Royal Air Force, 1918–1960,’ The International History Review 20, no. 1 (1998), p. 119.

[11] George Odgers, Mission Vietnam: Royal Australian Air Force Operations, 1964-1972 (Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1974); ‘History of War,’ The Canberra Times, 18 June 1971, p. 1.

[12] ‘“Mission Vietnam” sure to have widespread appeal,’ RAAF News, 1 August 1974, p. 3; “Written the Way it Was in Vietnam Air War,’ The Canberra Times, 16 August 1974, p. 9.

[13] Examples of books published under the auspicious of the RAAF’s Air and Space Power Centre that discuss Vietnam include: John Bennett, Highest Traditions: The History of No. 2 Squadron RAAF (Canberra, ACT:  Australian Government Publishing Service, 1995); Graham O’Brien, Always There: A History of Air Force Combat Support (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2009); Chris Clark, The RAAF at Long Tan (Canberra, ACT: 2010); Evans, Down to Earth; Bob Howe, Dreadful Lady over the Mekong Delta: An Analysis of RAAF Canberra Operations in the Vietnam War (Canberra, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2016). For an example of a book produced in conjunction with the History and Heritage Branch, see: Bob Grandin, Answering the Call: Life of a Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam and Beyond (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2019).

[14] Jeff Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve Months Caribou Flying in Vietnam (Tuggeranong, ACT: Air Power Development Centre, 2006). Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve Months flying the Caribou in Vietnam (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2022).

[15] Air Vice Marshal Alan Reed, Invited to a War (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2002).

[16]  Thomas Richardson, Destroy and Build: Pacification in Phuc Tuy, 1966-72 (Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 5.

[17] Steven Paget, ‘Magpies and Eagles: Number 2 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, and the Experience of Coalition Warfare in Vietnam’ in Steven Paget (ed.), Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations (Lexington, KT: The University Press of Kentucky, 2021), pp. 142-67.

[18] Richardson, Destroy and Build, p. 6.

[19] Coulthard-Clark, The RAAF in Vietnam, pp. xii.

[20] Bear, ‘The RAAF in SEA,’ p. 30.

[21] Bernard Nalty, Air War over South Vietnam, 1968-1975 (Washington DC: United States Air Force History and Museum Program, 2000), p. 19.

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (February 2023)

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books (February 2023)

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

Books

Krzysztof Dabrowski, Defending Rodinu – Volume 2: Build-up and Operational History of the Soviet Air Defence Force, 1960-1989 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2023).

In the 1950s, the Soviets had managed to grow a major Air Defence Force (PVO) capable of covering the entire airspace of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The PVO was able to field interceptors and surface-to-air missiles to intercept even high-flying foreign reconnaissance aircraft. By the early 1960s, the Soviets managed to theoretically, seal their airspace to unwanted visitors. Nevertheless, multiple foreign intelligence agencies and air forces continued seeking to penetrate the airspace of the USSR by means ranging from non-steerable ‘spy blimps’, via strategic bombers, to high-speed tactical reconnaissance aircraft. This activity kept the PVO on constant alert so that time and again it reacted mercilessly, even to entirely innocent passenger airliners, causing several major international incidents.

Defending Rodinu Volume 2 provides the operational history of the Soviet PVO from the early 1960s until the late 1980s – a period of continuously escalating tensions of the Cold War. Using documentation and publications never before released in the English language and richly illustrated, it provides a comprehensive, single-source point of reference for historians and enthusiasts alike.

Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan, 1979–88: Soviet Air Power against the Mujahideen (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2023).

The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan was fought as much in the air as on the ground. From the high-level bombing raids that blasted rebel-held mountain valleys, to the Mi-24 helicopter gunships and Su-25 jets that accompanied every substantial army operation, Soviet control of the air was a crucial battlefield asset. Vital to every aspect of its operations, Mi-8 helicopters ferried supplies to remote mountain-top observation points and took the bodies of fallen soldiers on their last journey home in An12 ‘Black Tulips’.

But this was not a wholly one-sided conflict. Even before the Afghan rebels began to acquire man-portable surface-to-air missiles such as the controversial US ‘Stinger,’ they aggressively and imaginatively adapted. They learnt new techniques of camouflage and deception, set up ambushes against low-level attacks, and even launched daring raids on airbases to destroy aircraft on the ground.

Featuring information previously unknown in the West, such as the Soviets’ combat-testing of Yak-38 ‘Forger’ naval jump jets, Soviet-expert Mark Galeotti examines the rebel, Kabul government and the Soviet operation in Afghanistan, drawing deeply on Western and Russian sources, and including after-action analyses from the Soviet military. Using maps, battlescenes and detailed ‘Bird’s Eye Views’, he paints a comprehensive picture of the air war and describes how, arguably, it was Soviet air power that made the difference between defeat for Moscow and the subsequent stalemate that they decided to disengage from.

Daniel Haulman, Misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen: Refuting Myths about America’s First Black Military Pilots (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2023).

Once an obscure piece of World War II history, the Tuskegee Airmen are now among the most celebrated and documented aviators in military history. With this growth in popularity, however, have come a number of inaccurate stories and assumptions. Misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen refutes fifty-five of these myths, correcting the historical record while preserving the Airmen’s rightful reputation as excellent servicemen.

The myths examined include: the Tuskegee Airmen never losing a bomber to an enemy aircraft; that Lee Archer was an ace; that Roscoe Brown was the first American pilot to shoot down a German jet; that Charles McGee has the highest total combat missions flown; and that Daniel “Chappie” James was the leader of the “Freeman Field Mutiny.” Historian Daniel Haulman, an expert on the Airmen with many published books on the subject, conclusively disproves these misconceptions through primary documents like monthly histories, daily narrative mission reports, honor-awarding orders, and reports on missing crews, thereby proving that the Airmen were without equal, even without embellishments to their story.

Jeff Pedrina, Wallaby Airlines: Twelve months flying the Caribou in Vietnam (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2023).

Jeff Pedrina’s book provides a very personal and thoughtful account of his twelve month’s service in Vietnam with No 35 Squadron – ‘Wallaby Airlines’. While the story is primarily about the people, and the personalities, he encountered during his tour of duty in Vietnam, it is also the story of a remarkable aircraft, the de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou – the first mass-produced short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft of its size. For seven and a half years it was the backbone of the airlift effort in the highlands of Vietnam, and was operated by the Royal Australian Air Force until November 2009, forty-five years after it first entered RAAF service.

First into the theatre in 1964 and last out in 1972, the Caribou aircraft and its air and ground crews were the RAAF’s quiet achievers in Vietnam. In the course of seven and a half years, Wallaby Airlines achieved an excellent operational record and reputation as a tactical transport squadron. This book in its original format was first published in 2006, having been awarded Special Mention in the 2005 RAAF Heritage Awards. This new edition is intended to bring the experiences of Jeff Pedrina, and the exploits of the Wallaby Airlines and its venerable Caribou aircraft to life for a new generation of reader.

Usman Shabbir and Yawar Mazhar, Eagles of Destiny – Volume 1: Growth and Wars of the Pakistan Air Force, 1956-1971 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2023).

Eagles of Destiny Volume 2 is a detailed account of the transformation of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) with the help of the first US assistance program, and how its leadership utilised this opportunity to create a modern air force. It provides detailed coverage of the PAF’s participation in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, based on official documentation and material from private collections that were previously not available to the public. The story of the Pakistan Air Force during this period is concluded by the coverage of the first build-up with the Chinese support, against the backdrop of US sanctions, highlighting and discussing the challenges and response.

Finally, the book provides detailed coverage of PAF operations during the 1971 War with India, including several first-hand accounts by key officers. Between 1956 and 1971, the PAF inducted a number of new weapon systems, including US-made F-86 Sabres, French-made Mirages, and Chinese-made F-6s. These developments and PAF’s strategy are all discussed in great detail.

Richly illustrated, and almost entirely based on accounts never published before, Eagles of Destiny Volume 2 provides a unique insight from professionals who were either directly involved, or witnessed the affairs in question.

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

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

Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Our latest podcast discusses our favourite books of the year with Dr Ross Mahoney, Editor-in-Chief of From Balloons to Drones. Each of us discusses our top three reads of 2022, and we take a look forward at some topics we would really like to hear more about in the future.

The books discussed:

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

Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, particularly concerning the use of air power and the history of air warfare. He is currently the Senior Historian within the City Architecture and Heritage Team at Brisbane City Council in Australia. He has over 15 years of experience in the heritage and education sectors in Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum in the UK. In Australia, he has worked as a Historian for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and taught at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University based at the Australian War College. His research interests are focused on the history of war, specifically the history of air warfare, transport history, and urban history. To date, he has published several chapters and articles, edited two books, and delivered papers on three continents. He has a book review website here and can be found on Twitter at @airpowerhistory.

Header image: One of six FMA IA 58 Pucará’s destroyed on 15 May 1982 after a raid by the Special Air Service on Pebble Island during the Falklands War. (Source: Wikimedia) 

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books

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

Kristen Alexander and Kate Ariotti, ‘Mourning the Dead of the Great Escape: POWs, Grief, and the Memorial Vault of Stalag Luft III,’ Journal of War & Culture Studies (2022), DOI: 10.1080/17526272.2022.2097774.

In March 1944 seventy-six Allied prisoners of war escaped from Stalag Luft III. Nearly all were recaptured; fifty were later shot. This article examines what happened in the period between recapture and the interment of the dead prisoners’ cremated remains at Stalag Luft III. It positions what came to be known as ‘the Great Escape’ as an event of deep emotional resonance for those who grieved and reveals the dual narrative they constructed to make sense of their comrades’ deaths. In discussing the iconography of the vault constructed by the camp community to house the dead POWs’ ashes, this article also suggests a dissonance in meaning between that arising from personal, familial grief and the Imperial War Graves Commission’s standardised memorial practice. Focusing on the Great Escape’s immediate aftermath from the perspective of the POWs themselves provides a more nuanced understanding of the emotional impact of this infamous event.

Susan Allen, Sam Bell and Carla Machain, ‘Air Power, International Organizations, and Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan,’ Armed Forces & Society (2022), doi:10.1177/0095327X221100780.

Can the presence of international organizations reduce civilian deaths caused by aerial bombing? This commentary examines this question in the specific context of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. We evaluate this based on interviews conducted with members of international organizations that were present in Afghanistan during the conflict, existing intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and government reports, and with quantitative data on civilian casualties between 2008 and 2013. We conclude that there is tentative evidence from Afghanistan that international organizations can in fact reduce the severity of civilian killings that result from the use of air power. However, there is much need for greater data sharing to more fully answer this important question.

Derek Lutterbeck, ‘Airpower and Migration Control,’ Geopolitics (2022), DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2022.2094776.

Migration scholarship has thus far largely neglected the role of aircraft in both (irregular) migration and state policies aimed at controlling migration. Drawing inspiration from the field of strategic studies, where ‘airpower’ has been a key theoretical concept, this article explores the role of aerial assets in states’ migration control efforts. The article discusses three main dimensions of the use of airpower in controlling migration: the increasing resort to aircraft for border enforcement purposes – or what can be referred to as ‘vertical border policing’ –, states’ tight monitoring of the aerial migration infrastructure, and the use of aircraft in migrant return operations. As a core element of state power, it is airpower’s key features of reach, speed and height which have made it a particularly useful migration control instrument.

Priya Mirza “Sovereignty of the air’: The Indian princely states, the British Empire and carving out of air-space (1911–1933),’ History and Technology (2022), DOI: 10.1080/07341512.2022.2079370.

Who owns the skies? Under British colonialism, the ownership of the skies of India was a contested matter. The onset of aviation presented a challenge to the territorial understanding between the British and semi-sovereign Indian princes, Paramountcy (1858–1947). Technology itself was a tricky area: roadways, railways, telegraphs, and the wireless were nibbling away at the sovereign spheres which Paramountcy had put in place. This paper looks at the history of aviation in princely India, from aviation enthusiasts such as the rulers of Kapurthala, Jodhpur and Bikaner to subversive princes like the Maharaja of Patiala who worked towards a military air force. The paper tracks the three stages of the journey of aviation in princely India, from individual consumption, to the historical context of World War One which aided its access and usage, and finally, the collective princely legal assertion over the vertical air above them in the position, ‘sovereignty of air’. The government’s civil aviation policy in India remained ambiguous about the princes’ rights over the air till 1931 when their sovereignty of the sky was finally recognised. The paper focuses on the Indian princes varied engagement with aviation, modernity and their space in the world.

Ayodeji Olukoju ‘Creating ‘an air sense:’ Governor Hugh Clifford and the beginnings of civil aviation in Nigeria, 1919-1920,’ African Identities (2022), DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2022.2096566.

This paper focuses on the neglected subject of the beginnings of civil aviation in Nigeria in the aftermath of World War I. Until now, the literature on civil aviation in British colonial Africa had focused largely on Kenya, Central and South Africa and on post-World War II West Africa. This paper, relying on previously unexploited archival material, examines policy debates and options considered by the Colonial Office, the Air Ministry and the Nigerian colonial government. The unique, pioneering aviation drive of Nigeria’s Governor Hugh Clifford took place in the context of immediate post-World War I dynamics: economic vicissitudes, Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa and the policy interface between London and the colonies. This paper demonstrates that aviation development in Nigeria had roots in the early 1920s, and that the initiative was not a metropolitan monopoly, thereby illustrating the extent of colonial gubernatorial autonomy vis-à-vis London.

S. Seyer, ‘An Industry Worth Protecting? The Manufacturers Aircraft Association’s Struggle against the British Surplus, 1919–1922,’ Journal of Policy History 34, no. 3 (2022), pp. 403-39.

The American aircraft industry’s important role in the economic, military, and cultural expansion of the United States over the past one hundred years has been well documented by historians. But America’s twentieth century aerial dominance was not preordained. After World War I, the nascent American aircraft industry faced a concerted British effort to dump thousands of war surplus machines on the U.S. market. With aircraft outside of the nation’s tariff regime, members of the Manufacturers Aircraft Association turned to Congress for emergency protections in the face of what they considered an existential threat. Despite efforts to equate a strong industrial base for aviation with the national defense, aircraft antidumping legislation became mired in partisan debates over tariff policy and accusations of wartime corruption. In the absence of relief from Congress, the Wright patent served as a barrier against the importation of foreign surplus machines.

Ameya Tripathi, ‘Bombing Cultural Heritage: Nancy Cunard, Art Humanitarianism, and Primitivist Wars in Morocco, Ethiopia, and Spain,’ Modernist Cultures 17, no. 2 (2022), pp. 191-220.

This article examines Nancy Cunard’s later writing on Spain as a direct legacy of her previous projects as a modernist poet, publisher and black rights activist. Cunard was a rare analyst of the links between total war, colonial counter-insurgency, and cultural destruction. Noting the desire of both the air power theorist and art collector to stereotype peoples, from Morocco to Ethiopia to Spain, as ‘primitive’, the article brings original archival materials from Cunard’s notes into dialogue with her journalism, and published and unpublished poetry, to examine how she reclaimed and repurposed primitivism. Her poems devise a metonymic and palimpsestic literary geopolitics, juxtaposing fragments from ancient cultures atop one another to argue, simultaneously, for Spain’s essential dignity as both a primitive and a civilised nation. Cunard reconciles Spain’s liminal status, between Africa and Europe, to argue for Spain’s art, and people, as part of a syncretic, universal human cultural heritage, anticipating the art humanitarianism of organisations such as UNESCO.

Books

Stephen Bourque, D-Day 1944: The Deadly Failure of Allied Heavy Bombing on June 6 (Osprey: Osprey Publishing, 2022).

D-Day is one of the most written-about events in military history. One aspect of the invasion, however, continues to be ignored: the massive pre-assault bombardment by the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF), reinforced by RAF Bomber Command and the US Eighth Air Force on June 6 which sought to neutralize the German defenses along the Atlantic Wall. Unfortunately, this failed series of attacks resulted in death or injury to hundreds of soldiers, and killed many French civilians.

Despite an initial successful attack performed by the Allied forces, the most crucial phase of the operation, which was the assault from the Eighth Air Force against the defenses along the Calvados coast, was disastrous. The bombers missed almost all of their targets, inflicting little damage to the German defenses, which resulted in a high number of casualties among the Allied infantry. The primary cause of this failure was that planners at Eighth Air Force Headquarters had changed aircraft drop times at the last moment, to prevent casualties amongst the landing forces, without notifying either Eisenhower or Doolittle.

This book examines this generally overlooked event in detail, answering several fundamental questions: What was the AEAF supposed to accomplish along the Atlantic Wall on D-Day and why did it not achieve its bombardment objectives? Offering a new perspective on a little-known air campaign, it is packed with illustrations, maps and diagrams exploring in detail the features and ramifications of this mission.

Laurence Burke II, At the Dawn of Airpower: The U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps’ Approach to the Airplane 1907–1917 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022).

At the Dawn of Airpower: The U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps’ Approach to the Airplane, 1907-1917 examines the development of aviation in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps from their first official steps into aviation up to the United States’ declaration of war against Germany in April, 1917. Burke explains why each of the services wanted airplanes and show how they developed their respective air arms and the doctrine that guided them.   His narrative follows aviation developments closely, delving deep into the official and personal papers of those involved and teasing out the ideas and intents of the early pioneers who drove military aviation   Burke also closely examines the consequences of both accidental and conscious decisions on the development of the nascent aviation arms.  

Certainly, the slow advancement of the technology of the airplane itself in the United States (compared to Europe) in this period affected the creation of doctrine in this period.  Likewise, notions that the war that broke out in 1914 was strictly a European concern, reinforced by President Woodrow Wilson’s intentions to keep the United States out of that war, meant that the U.S. military had no incentive to “keep up” with European military aviation.  Ultimately, however, he concludes that it was the respective services’ inability to create a strong, durable network connecting those flying the airplanes regularly (technology advocates) with the senior officers exercising control over their budget and organization (technology patrons) that hindered military aviation during this period.

Jim Leeke, Turtle and the Dreamboat: The Cold War Flights That Forever Changed the Course of Global Aviation (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2022).

The Turtle and the Dreamboat is the first detailed account of the race for long-distance flight records between the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy less than fourteen months after World War II. The flights were risky and unprecedented. Each service intended to demonstrate its offensive capabilities during the new nuclear age, a time when America was realigning its military structure and preparing to create a new armed service – the United States Air Force.

The first week of October 1946 saw the conclusion of both record-breaking, nonstop flights by the military fliers. The first aircraft, a two-engine U.S. Navy P2V Neptune patrol plane nicknamed the Truculent Turtle, flew more than eleven thousand miles from Perth, Western Australia, to Columbus, Ohio. The Turtle carried four war-honed pilots and a young kangaroo as a passenger. The second plane, a four-engine U.S. Army B-29 Superfortress bomber dubbed the Pacusan Dreamboat, flew nearly ten thousand miles from Honolulu to Cairo via the Arctic. Although presented as a friendly rivalry, the two flights were anything but collegial. These military missions were meant to capture public opinion and establish aviation leadership within the coming Department of Defense.

Both audacious flights above oceans, deserts, mountains, and icecaps helped to shape the future of worldwide commercial aviation, greatly reducing the length and costs of international routes. Jim Leeke provides an account of the remarkable and record-breaking flights that forever changed aviation.

Micheal Napier, Flashpoints: Air Warfare in the Cold War (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2022).

The Cold War years were a period of unprecedented peace in Europe, yet they also saw a number of localised but nonetheless very intense wars throughout the wider world in which air power played a vital role. Flashpoints describes eight of these Cold War conflicts: the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Congo Crisis of 1960-65, the Indo-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971, the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973, the Falklands War of 1982 and the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. In all of them both sides had a credible air force equipped with modern types, and air power shaped the final outcome.

Acclaimed aviation historian Michael Napier details the wide range of aircraft types used and the development of tactics over the period. The postwar years saw a revolution in aviation technology and design, particularly in the fields of missile development and electronic warfare, and these conflicts saw some of the most modern technology that the NATO and Warsaw Pact forces deployed, alongside some relatively obscure aircraft types such as the Westland Wyvern and the Folland Gnat.

Highly illustrated, with over 240 images and maps, Flashpoints is an authoritative account of the most important air wars of the Cold War.

David Nicolle and Gabr Ali Gabr, Air Power and the Arab World – Volume 6: World in Crisis, 1936-March 1941 (Warwick: Helion and Company, 2022).

Volume 6 of the Air Power and the Arab World mini-series continues the story of the men and machines of the first half century of military aviation in the Arab world. These years saw the Arab countries and their military forces caught up in the events of the Second World War.

For those Arab nations which had some degree of independence, the resulting political, cultural and economic strains had a profound impact upon their military forces. In Egypt the Army generally remained quiet, continuing with its often unglamorous and little appreciated duties. Within the Royal Egyptian Air Force (REAF), however, there were a significant number of men who wanted to take action in expectation of what they, and many around the world, expected to be the defeat of the British Empire.

The result was division, widespread mistrust, humiliation, and for a while the grounding of the entire REAF. In Iraq the strains of the early war years sowed the seeds of a yet to come direct armed confrontation with the British.

Volume 6 of Air Power and the Arab World then looks at the first efforts to revive both the REAF and the Royal Iraqi Air Force (RIrAF), along with events in the air and on the ground elsewhere in the Arab world from 1939 until March 1941.

This volume is illustrated throughout with photographs of the REAF, RIrAF and RAF and a selection of specially commissioned colour artworks.

Adrian Phillips, Rearming the RAF for the Second World War: Poor Strategy and Miscalculation (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2022).

When the RAF rearmed to meet the growing threat from Nazi Germany’s remorseless expansion in the late 1930s, it faced immense challenges. It had to manage a huge increase in size as well as mastering rapid advances in aviation technology. To protect Britain from attack, the RAF’s commanders had to choose the right strategy and the right balance in its forces. The choices had to be made in peacetime with no guidance from combat experience. These visions then had to be translated into practical reality. A shifting cast of government ministers, civil servants and industrialists with their own financial, political and military agendas brought further dynamics into play. The RAF’s readiness for war was crucial to Britain’s ability to respond to Nazi aggression before war broke out and when it did, the RAF’s rearmament was put to the acid test of battle. Adrian Phillips uses the penetrating grasp of how top level decisions are made that he honed in his inside accounts of the abdication crisis and appeasement, to dissect the process which shaped the RAF of 1940. He looks beyond the familiar legends of the Battle of Britain and explores in depth the successes and failures of a vital element in British preparations for war.

John Quaife, Battle of the Atlantic: Royal Australian Air Force in Coastal Command 1939-1945 (Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2022).

At the outbreak of World War II, somewhat by accident — and just as the first shots of the war were fired — young Australian airmen from the Royal Australian Air Force were engaged in operations that would become known collectively as the Battle of the Atlantic. Arguably lesser-known than air campaigns in other theatres, large numbers of Australians who volunteered for service with Royal Australian Air Force, found themselves fighting in this battle. Australians were there at the outbreak and many would go on to fly some of the final missions of the war in Europe.

This book captures some of the experiences of the Royal Australian Air Force members who served with Coastal Command and, through the weight of numbers alone, stories of the Sunderland squadrons and the Battle of the Atlantic dominate the narrative. Being critical to Britain’s survival, the battle also dominated Coastal Command throughout the war but Australians served in a surprising variety of other roles. The nature of many of those tasks demanded persistence that could only be achieved by large numbers of young men and women being prepared to ‘do what it took’ to get a tedious and unrewarding job done. Over 400 did not come home.

Steven Zaloga, The Oil Campaign 1944–45: Draining the Wehrmacht’s Lifeblood (Oxford: OIsprey Publishing, 2022).

With retreating German forces losing their oilfields on the Eastern Front, Germany was reliant on its own facilities, particularly for producing synthetic oil from coal. However, these were within range of the increasingly mighty Allied air forces. In 1944 the head of the US Strategic Air Forces, General Carl Spaatz was intent on a new campaign that aimed to cripple the German war machine by depriving it of fuel.

The USAAF’s Oil Campaign built up momentum during the summer of 1944 and targeted these refineries and plants with its daylight heavy bombers. Decrypted German communications made it clear that the Oil Campaign was having an effect against the Wehrmacht. Fuel shortages in the autumn of 1944 forced the Luftwaffe to ground most of its combat units except for fighters involved in the defense of the Reich. Fuel shortages also forced the Kriegsmarine to place most of its warships in harbor except for the U-boats and greatly hampered German army campaigns such as the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944-45.

This fascinating book packed with key photos and illustrations examines the controversies and debates over the focus of the US bombing campaign in the final year of the war, and the impact it had on the war effort overall.