Without what the Allies learned in the Mediterranean air war in
1942-1944, the Normandy landing-and so, perhaps, World War II-would
have ended differently. This is one of many lessons of The
Mediterranean Air War, the first one-volume history of the vital
role of airpower during the three-year struggle for control of the
Mediterranean Basin in World War II-and of its significance for
Allied successes in the war's last two years. Airpower historian
Robert S. Ehlers opens his account with an assessment of the
pre-war Mediterranean theater, highlighting the ways in which the
players' strategic choices, strengths, and shortcomings set the
stage for and ultimately shaped the air campaigns over the Middle
Sea. Beginning with the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Ehlers
reprises the developing international crisis-initially between
Britain and Italy, and finally encompassing France, Germany, the
US, other members of the British Commonwealth, and the Balkan
countries. He then explores the Mediterranean air war in detail,
with close attention to turning points, joint and combined
operations, and the campaign's contribution to the larger Allied
effort. In particular, his analysis shows how and why the success
of Allied airpower in the Mediterranean laid the groundwork for
combined-arms victories in the Middle East, the Indian Ocean area,
North Africa, and northwest Europe, and how victory in the Middle
Sea benefitted Allied efforts in the Battle of the Atlantic and the
China-Burma-India campaigns. Of grand-strategic importance from the
days of Ancient Rome to the Great-Power rivalries of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, the Middle Sea was no less crucial to the
Allied forces and their foes. Here, in the successful offensives in
North Africa in 1942 and 1943, the US and the British learned to
conduct a coalition air and combined-arms war. Here, in Sicily and
Italy in 1943 and 1944, the Allies mastered the logistics of
providing air support for huge naval landings and opened a vital
second aerial front against the Third Reich, bombing critical oil
and transportation targets with great effectiveness. The first full
examination of the Mediterranean theater in these critical roles-as
a strategic and tactical testing ground for the Allies and as a
vital theater of operations in its own right-The Mediterranean Air
War fills in a long-missing but vital dimension of the history of
World War II.
General
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