Tag: University Press of Kansas

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books

#ResearchResources – Recent Articles and Books

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

Articles

Kwong Chi Man, “Debating ‘Douhetism’: Competing Airpower Theories in Republican China, 1928–1945,’ War in History 28, no. 1 (2021).

This article sheds lights on the difficulty faced by the minor powers when they were trying to build an effective air force during the interwar period (1919–1939) and the Second World War, using the experience of Chinese military aviation as an example. It argues that the Chinese were heavily influenced by the ideas of decisive action and strategic bombing, as well as similar ideas that were attributed (sometimes incorrectly) to the Italian General and air proponent Giulio Douhet. Only the harsh lessons of the war gradually persuaded the Chinese to adopt a more realistic approach to using air power.

Dan Ellin, ‘A ‘Lack of Moral Fibre’ in Royal Air Force Bomber Command and Popular Culture,’ British Journal for Military History 6, no. 3 (2020).

Royal Air Force aircrew endured mental and physical stresses during bombing operations. Their chances of completing a tour of operations unscathed were around one in four, and many were aware the chances were slim. Some who refused to fly were accused of ‘lacking moral fibre’ (LMF). Although this was not a medical diagnosis it is frequently viewed through the lens of mental health and reactions to trauma and it has become a powerful and important cultural phenomenon. This article re-examines LMF in the culture of the wartime Royal Air Force, before considering how and why LMF is remembered by veterans and in popular histories since the war.

James Halstead, ‘Air Power and Allenby’s Army: Arms in Palestine 1917–1918,’ War in History, (2020).

Historians have overlooked the important role played by airpower in combined arms during the Palestine Campaign, 1917–1918. This article argues the Egyptian Expeditionary Force adopted Western Front command structures, successfully integrating airpower within their command and control systems. Tactical and strategic airpower provided intelligence which allowed Corps and Army Headquarters to control the tempo of operations, while ground attack operations disrupted Ottoman command and control arrangements. This integration made a clear contribution to the success of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force at the crucial battles of Third Gaza and Megiddo.

William Head, ‘The Triangle of Iron and Rubber: Ground Actions and Airpower during Operation Attleboro,’ Air Power History 67, no. 4 (2020).

No abstract provided.

Christian Moldjord, Paal Frederiksen, and Larry Browning, ‘Fear and Pride Among Fighter Pilots: Combat Emotions During a Bombing Campaign,’ Armed Forces & Society, (2021), doi:10.1177/0095327X20986925.

This article analyzes the combat emotions of Royal Norwegian Air Force Fighter pilots (hereafter RNoAF) during their bombing campaign over Libya in 2011. Using grounded theory in our interviews with them, we identified 12 categories of their emotions and behaviors, with variations in pride and fear emerging as the two key themes. We show how those two emotions thread through the literature of emotions in combat, and show further how our data, and the resulting matrix from an analysis of it, both apply to and extend that literature. We also show how the high and low variations of pride and fear interact to both support and counter each other. Our findings thus make an important contribution to the combat emotions literature on the action and behavior of fighter pilots.

Samuel Oyewole, ‘Struck and killed in Nigerian Air Force’s campaigns: Assessment of airstrike locations, targets and impacts in internal security operations,’ African Security Review, (2021) DOI: 10.1080/10246029.2020.1859394

The involvement of the air force in a series of Joint Task Force (JTF) arrangements, which were initiated to neutralise various security threats, accounted for a growing record of air campaigns in Nigeria. Although there is growing public attention for airpower in Nigeria, its operational relevance and associated concerns have received inadequate academic attention. Accordingly, the understanding of recent developments in Nigeria’s air campaigns to neutralise targeted threats against security across the country remains largely limited and incoherent. This study, therefore, seeks to examine trends in air campaigns, with emphasis on cases, locations, targets and impacts of airstrike, in Nigeria. For this purpose, 241 cases of airstrike with 3,210 fatalities and 273 cases of air/land operations with 2,186 fatalities that were recorded across Nigeria in the last two decades were assessed. This is expected to contribute to a growing body of knowledge on air campaigns of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) as well as their relevance to neutralise targeted threats and associated human rights concerns in internal security operations.

Matthew Powell, ‘Debate, Discussion, and Disagreement: A Reassessment of the Development of British Tactical Air Power Doctrine, 1919–1940,’ War in History 28, no. 1 (2021).

This article investigates the work conducted by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the development of tactical air power in the interwar period. It analyses the RAF’s theoretical doctrinal thinking during the period along with exercises conducted on a joint Service basis to further develop these ideas in practice. It will argue that, rather than neglecting tactical air power during this period as is the accepted view, much good theoretical work was done that formed a theoretical and intellectual basis for the further development of tactical air power in the light of operational experience during the Second World War.

Theo Van Geffen, ‘The Air War against North Vietnam: the Thanh Hoa Railroad and Highway Bridge (Part 6, Conclusion),’ Air Power History 67, no. 4 (2020).

No abstract provided.

Darrel Whitcomb, ‘1972 – US Army Air Cavalry to the Rescue in Vietnam,’ Air Power History 67, no. 4 (2020).

No abstract provided.

James Young, ‘The U.S. Air Force’s Long Range Detection Program and Project MOGUL,’ Air Power History 67, no. 4 (2020).

No abstract provided.

Books

Frank Blazich, “An Honorable Place in American Air Power” Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1942–1943 (Maxwell, AL: Air University Press, 2020).

Author Frank Blazich has spent years researching and compiling disparate records of Civil Air Patrol’s short-lived–but influential–coastal patrol operations of World War II, which he synthesizes into the first scholarly monograph that cements the legacy of this unique and vital wartime civil-military cooperative effort.

Benjamin Lambeth, Airpower in the War against ISIS (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2020).

Airpower in the War against ISIS chronicles the planning and conduct of Operation Inherent Resolve by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) from August 2014 to mid-2018, with a principal focus on the contributions of U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT). Benjamin S. Lambeth contends that the war’s costly and excessive duration resulted from CENTCOM’s inaccurate assessment of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), determining it was simply a resurrected Iraqi insurgency rather than recognizing it as the emerging proto-state that it actually was. This erroneous decision, Lambeth argues, saw the application of an inappropriate counterinsurgency strategy and use of rules of engagement that imposed needless restrictions on the most effective use of the precision air assets at CENTCOM’s disposal. The author, through expert analysis of recent history, forcefully argues that CENTCOM erred badly by not using its ample air assets at the outset not merely for supporting Iraq’s initially noncombat-ready ground troops but also in an independent and uncompromising strategic interdiction campaign against ISIS’s most vital center-of-gravity targets in Syria from the effort’s first moments onward.

Richard Mead, Dambuster-in-chief: The Life of Air Chief Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2020).

Ralph Cochrane was born in 1895 into a distinguished naval family. After joining the Royal Navy, he volunteered in 1915 to serve with the RNAS in airships and was an early winner of the Air Force Cross. In 1918 he transferred to the fledgling RAF and learnt to fly, serving in Iraq as a flight commander under ‘Bomber’ Harris. His inter-war career saw him as a squadron commander in Aden before he became the first Chief of Air Staff of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. During the Second World War he served mainly in Bomber Command and commanded 5 Group from early 1943. He formed 617 Squadron and was instrumental in planning the legendary Dambuster Raid, the most spectacular of the War, as well as the sinking of the battleship Tirpitz. An inspirational leader, he trained 5 Group in low level target marking skills. Post war Cochrane held a string of senior appointments commanding Transport Command, Flying Training Command and finally as Vice Chief of Air Staff, retiring in 1952. He died in 1977.

Steven Paget (ed.), Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations (Lexington, KT: The University Press of Kentucky, 2020).

In the past century, multinational military operations have become the norm; but while contributions from different nations provide many benefits — from expanded capability to political credibility — they also present a number of challenges. Issues such as command and control, communications, equipment standardization, intelligence, logistics, planning, tactics, and training all require consideration. Cultural factors present challenges as well, particularly when language barriers are involved.

In Allies in Air Power, experts from around the world survey these operations from the birth of aviation to the present day. Chapters cover conflicts including World War I, multiple theaters of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Kosovo, the Iraq War, and various United Nations peacekeeping missions. Contributors also analyze the role of organizations such as the UN, NATO, and so-called “coalitions of the willing” in laying the groundwork for multinational air operations.

While multinational military action has become commonplace, there have been few detailed studies of air power cooperation over a prolonged period or across multiple conflicts. The case studies in this volume not only assess the effectiveness of multinational operations over time, but also provide vital insights into how they may be improved in the future.

Randall Wakelam, David Varey, and Emanuele Sica (eds.), Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning (Lexington, KT: The University Press of Kentucky, 2020).

Compared to armies and navies, which have existed as professional fighting services for centuries, the technology that makes air forces possible is much newer. As a result, these services have had to quickly develop methods of preparing aviators to operate in conditions ranging from peace or routine security to full-scale war. The first book to address the history and scope of air power professionalization through learning programs, Educating Air Forces offers valuable new insight into strategy and tactics worldwide.

Here, a group of international experts examine the philosophies, policies, and practices of air service educational efforts in the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the UK. The contributors discuss the founding, successes, and failures of European air force learning programs between the Great War and World War II and explore how the tense Cold War political climate influenced the creation, curriculum, and results of various programs. They also consider how educational programs are adapting to soldiers’ needs and the demands of modern warfare.

Featuring contributions from eminent scholars in the field, this volume surveys the learning approaches globally employed by air forces in the past century and evaluates their effectiveness. Educating Air Forces reveals how experiential learning and formal education are not only inextricably intertwined, but also necessary to cope with advances in modern warfare.

Darrel Whitcomb, Moral Imperative: 1972, Combat Rescue, and the End of America’s War in Vietnam (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2021).

In 1972, America was completing its withdrawal from the long and divisive war in Vietnam. Air power covered the departure of ground forces, and search and rescue teams from all services and Air America covered the airmen and soldiers still in the fight. Day and night these military and civilian aircrews stood alert to respond to “Mayday” calls. The rescue forces were the answer to every mans prayer, and those forces brought home airmen, sailors, marines, and soldiers downed or trapped across the breadth and depth of the entire Southeast Asia theater. Moral Imperative relies on a trove of declassified documents and unit histories to tell their tales.

Focusing on 1972, Darrel Whitcomb combines stories of soldiers cut off from their units, advisors trapped with allied forces, and airmen downed deep in enemy territory, with the narratives of the US Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, contract pilots, and special operations teams ready to conduct rescues in Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. All of these missions occur against the backdrop of our withdrawal from the war and our diplomatic efforts to achieve a lasting peace. In detail, Whitcomb shows how American rescue forces supported the military response to the North Vietnamese’s massive three-pronged invasion of South Vietnam, America’s subsequent interdiction operations against North Vietnam, and ultimately the strategic bombing of Linebacker II.

#BookReview – Flying Against Fate: Superstition and Allied Aircrews in World War II

#BookReview – Flying Against Fate: Superstition and Allied Aircrews in World War II

By Dr Brian Laslie

S.P. MacKenzie, Flying Against Fate: Superstition and Allied Aircrews in World War II. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2017. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Hbk. viii + 256 pp.

9780700624690

I do not consider myself superstitious. Being a Historian is not a career field where one feels the need to be ‘lucky.’ That being said, I will admit to having more than a few sports shirts and hats that I consider lucky. I also admit to wearing a ‘rally cap’ from time to time, you know when I need the baseball gods to allow a game-winning hit. These instances, in reality, do not matter. I do not (nor should I) consider them life and death issues. However, I can think of instances where being superstitious seems completely warranted. S.P. MacKenzie’s new work Flying Against Fate: Superstition and Allied Aircrews in World War II is a concise and laser-focused study that delves into the steps taken by allied aircrews (British and American) to ensure their survival using methods that MacKenzie calls ‘magical thinking,’ what is recognised universally as superstition.

MacKenzie breaks his examination of aircrew superstition into asking for miracles (religion), Talismans and Mascots, Incantations and rituals, Jinxes and Jonahs, and Numbers and symbols. MacKenzie’s work goes a step further than many other works that look at the motivations of soldiers, sailors, airmen or marines. It is often said, aircrews and soldiers on the ground fought for each other, but what motivated them as individuals? What made them capable of climbing into their aircraft despite the overwhelming sense of fear or dread and the knowledge that the chance of death was weighted heavily against their survival? MacKenzie points to the belief that a ritual, charm, or item protected them from harm.

MacKenzie shows that between training accidents, accidents in theatre, and actual combat the chances for survival among allied aircrews was low.

In practice this meant tours in which statistically speaking, the chances of being killed, wounded, or taken prisoner usually exceeded those of emerging unscathed. (p. 6)

Over the course of hours flown or combat missions completed, ‘only 25 percent of heavy-bomber crewmen were emerging unscathed from their twenty-five mission combat tours.’ (p. 7) Though the number of tours increased throughout the war and with death so nearby, it was no wonder these men turned towards a power beyond their control. The logical fallacy of Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) often played into the beginnings or creation of superstitious aspects of flying during the war. Perhaps a coin or photograph discovered in a pocket after a particularly harrowing mission or a gift of a lucky rabbit’s foot by a friend. It seems almost anything could take on special meaning to a flyer.

FRE_002761
Major J.A. Goodson, the so-called ‘King of the Strafers,’ never flew without a signet ring talisman. (Source: © IWM FRE 2761)

On the importance of religion, MacKenzie demonstrates that American crew members were more likely to attend either a service or speak with a religious figure than their British colleagues. Church attendance declined in England in the first half of the century (perhaps because of the impact of First World War) while it increased in America, but religious aspect aside both nation’s aircrews put plenty of stock in other aspects of ritual and talisman to ensure their safety. If not religion, then aircrews turned to items or rituals, anything they believed gave them against the death that was surely coming for them. Magical thinking was not limited to junior officers or line pilots. Towards the end of his work, MacKenzie also lists several very senior air commanders who each held their own superstitions. It seems rank or position provided no hindrance to the necessity of using magical thinking to protect one’s place on the Earth during the Second World War.

While MacKenzie adds that this magical thinking was not universal, it did play a role in many of the aircrew’s lives throughout the war. In the closing pages of Flying Against Fate, Mackenzie states:

The place of magical thinking in other professions where skill cannot fully substitute for luck – notably sports – continues to be subject to academic research and interpretation’ (p. 103).

Indeed, if there is a critique of this work, it is that the link between superstition and high-performance activities, war and sports should have been made earlier and with more emphasis. MacKenzie’s study partners well with Mark Wells’ Courage and Air Warfare.[1] MacKenzie also admits to looking only at British and American aircrews and a study that the role of magical thinking and superstition played in the Axis powers, or other allied nations would undoubtedly bring further clarity to the roles and actions of airmen during the Second World War writ large.

Although a relatively short work, MacKenzie has created an indispensable book for those interested in the motivations of allied aircrews who looked for any means necessary to ensure their survival. The author mastered telling his story in a concise and yet heavily researched material that prevents both sources and a heavy dose of first-person accounts. This appeals not only to those interested in aviation history or air power in the Second World War but those interested in the mechanisms used to cope through Total War. As such historians and those interested in the psychology of the military and professionalism in the force will find much to consider.

Dr Brian Laslie is an Assistant Editor at From Balloons to Drones. He is also a US Air Force Historian and currently the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.

Header Image: Squadron Leader T. Sweeney, the Roman Catholic chaplain of an RAF wing operating in Central Burma, conducting Mass in a wooden pagoda which has been made into a chapel. (Source: © IWM (CF 394))

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[1] Mark K. Wells, Courage and Air Warfare: The Allied Aircrew Experience in the Second World War (London: Frank Cass, 1995).

#BookReview – The Mediterranean Air War: Airpower and Allied Victory in World War II

#BookReview – The Mediterranean Air War: Airpower and Allied Victory in World War II

By Alexander Fitzgerald-Black

Robert S. Ehlers Jr., The Mediterranean Air War: Airpower and Allied Victory in World War II. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2015. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Hbk. 536 pp.

9780700620753

The Second World War’s Mediterranean Theatre of Operations was a sideshow, right? The road to defeating Nazi Germany where the Western Allies were concerned lay through Normandy, not North Africa. The Allies launched their great Combined Bomber Offensive from the United Kingdom as this incredible animation from the American Air Museum shows. Other efforts were relatively unimportant and sapped resources from where the real air battle took place. Alternatively, were they?

Robert S. Ehlers Jr.’s The Mediterranean Air War: Airpower and Allied Victory in World War II offers a valuable counter-narrative. The Mediterranean was not a sideshow. In fact, it was a critical theatre for Allied victory. Adolf Hitler committed the Wehrmacht to the Mediterranean in 1941 to support Benito Mussolini’s faltering armies in Greece and North Africa. Four years later the consequence of this simple plan was 400,000 Italian and 730,000 German casualties. However, human casualties only tell part of the tale. The European Axis lost 42 percent of its merchant shipping in the Mediterranean. The Allies all but destroyed the Regia Aeronautica by mid-1943 while the Luftwaffe lost 17,750 aircraft in the Mediterranean throughout the war. By comparison, the Germans lost 20,419 aircraft on the Western Front while losing only 11,000 on the Eastern Front.

This is just the strategic picture. Ehlers’s work also talks logistics. Historians have often highlighted the importance of tank strength in the Western Desert. The side that could field the most tanks had the advantage. Since both sides had to maintain their forces across long supply chains the ability to retrieve and repair damaged battlefield equipment was crucial. The same was true for aircraft. The Royal Air Force created an efficient system for repair and salvage early in the campaign. Air Vice-Marshal Graham Dawson, the RAF’s Chief Maintenance Officer in the Mediterranean, organized the effort. Dawson was a Battle of Britain veteran who received a Mention in Dispatches for superb engine repair efforts in 1940. He coordinated his crews’ efforts with local Egyptian shops that could repair and manufacturer parts. Dawson’s command was innovative. It created modifications that allowed Hurricane fighters to engage high-flying Junkers Ju 86P photo reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft’s service ceiling was 36,000 feet, yet the modified version achieved its first victory over the Nile at 49,000 feet.

large2
Air Vice-Marshal Graham Dawson, Director of Maintenance and Supply, Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, is presented with the American Legion of Merit in the degree of Commander, by Brigadier-General Harold A. Barton, Commanding General of the USAAF Service Command, Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, during a parade at Algiers. (Source: © IWM (CNA 2721))

The Mediterranean was ultimately a battle for sea lines of communication or SLOCs. Air superiority was essential to winning this and other battles. With the war in North Africa won, Ehlers argues that the Western Allies were right to take the war to Sicily and then on to mainland Italy. After securing air superiority, the Allied air forces were free to expand their cooperation with Allied armies. The Allies produced great results when the services coordinated their efforts. In the first half of 1944, Operations STRANGLE and DIADEM sought to defeat German forces barring the way to Rome. STRANGLE was an air campaign aimed at depriving the Germans of supplies while DIADEM was a large-scale ground offensive with air support. On its own, air power’s effectiveness was limited. The Germans lost 20 trucks per day during STRANGLE, but that number rose to 100 per day during DIADEM. Pressure from the army kept enemy transports on the road in large numbers, making them easier prey for prowling fighter-bombers. Together these operations cost the Germans Rome and 80,000 casualties.

Ehlers convincingly argues that the final air campaigns flown from bases in Italy shortened the war and saved lives. Targets included the Luftwaffe, the German oil industry, and German lines of communication to the Eastern Front. Instructors who seek to offer their students a fresh perspective on the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations will do well to include this book on their reading lists.

This post first appeared at Fighter-Bomber’s Blog.

Alexander Fitzgerald-Black completed his MA thesis, ‘Eagles over Husky: The Allied Air Forces and the Sicilian Campaign, 14 May to 17 August 1943,’ with The Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society, University of New Brunswick in 2014. He is in the process of turning this work into a manuscript for publication with Helion & Company. Alex lives with his wife in Moncton, Canada. He operates his own blog at alexfitzblack.wordpress.com and can be reached on Twitter @AlexFitzBlack.

Header Image: A formation of five Blenheim Mark IVs of No. 14 Squadron RAF in flight over the Western Desert. A Curtiss Kittyhawk, one of the escorting fighters, can be seen on the far right (Source: © IWM (CM 3108))