|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
In May 1940, the opposing German and Allied forces seemed
reasonably well matched. On the ground, the four allied nations had
more troops, artillery and tanks. Even in the air, the German
advantage in numbers was slight. Yet two months later, the Allied
armies had been crushed. The Netherlands, Belgium and France had
all surrendered and Britain stood on her own, facing imminent
defeat. Subsequent accounts of the campaign have tended to see this
outcome as predetermined, with the seeds of defeat sown long before
the fighting began. Was it so inevitable? Should the RAF have done
more to help the Allied armies? Why was such a small proportion of
the RAF's frontline strength committed to the crucial battle on the
ground? Could Fighter Command have done more to protect the British
and French troops being evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk? This
study looks at the operations flown and takes a fresh look at the
fatal decisions made behind the scenes, decisions that
unnecessarily condemned RAF aircrews to an unequal struggle and
ultimately ensured Allied defeat. What followed became the RAF's
finest hour with victory achieved by the narrowest of margins. Or
was it, as some now suggest, a victory that was always inevitable?
If so, how was the German military juggernaut that had conquered
most of Europe so suddenly halted? This study looks at the
decisions and mistakes made by both sides. It explains how the
British obsession with bomber attacks on cities had led to the
development of the wrong type of fighter force and how only a
fortuitous sequence of events enabled Fighter Command to prevail.
It also looks at how ready the RAF was to deal with an invasion.
How much air support could the British Army have expected? Why were
hundreds of American combat planes and experienced Polish and Czech
pilots left on the sidelines? And when the Blitz began, and Britain
finally got the war it was expecting, what did this campaign tell
us about the theories on air power that had so dominated pre-war
air policy? All these questions and more are answered in Greg
Baughen's third book. Baughen describes the furious battles between
the RAF and the Luftwaffe and the equally bitter struggle between
the Air Ministry and the War Office - and explains how close
Britain really came to defeat in the summer of 1940.
By the summer of 1943, the Third Reich’s fate seemed sealed. The
combined might of Britain and the Commonwealth nations, the United
States and the Soviet Union had made a Germany victory impossible.
All that remained to decide was how the Allies should complete
their victory. Would strategic bombing decide the outcome or would
ground and air forces working together play the more significant
role? Greg Baughen follows the air and land battles in Italy,
France and Germany between September 1943 and September 1944, as
well as the equally bitter battles behind the scenes as army and
air commanders debated and argued over how the war should be won.
He charts the trials, tribulations, and successes of the bomber
offensive and assesses whether, in the final analysis, it made any
contribution to the success of Normandy landings. He explains how
army air support went backwards after the successes of the Desert
Air Force, and how this led to a failure to support the troops
landing on the D-Day beaches in Normandy. He also describes the
subsequent revival of tactical air support and how it went on to
play a key role in the subsequent campaigns but questions whether
Eisenhower, Montgomery or Tedder ever fully understood how to make
best use of the massive aerial forces available to them. Drawing on
archive documents and accounts written at the time, the author
tackles some fundamental defence issues. Was RAF independence a
benefit or a hindrance to the Allied cause? To what extent was the
War Office to blame for shortcomings in army air support? Did
Britain understand the way the methods for waging war were evolving
in the twentieth century? He takes a look at how the Air Ministry
was interpreting the lessons being learned during the war. Were the
defence policies of the twenties and thirties still valid? Had they
ever been valid? This, then, is the story of the decisions and
actions that the RAF followed in the months leading up to D-Day and
how air operations evolved in the subsequent campaign.
On 10 May 1940, the French possessed one of the largest air forces
in the world. On paper, it was nearly as strong as the RAF. Six
weeks later, France had been defeated. For a struggling French Army
desperately looking for air support, the skies seemed empty of
friendly planes. In the decades that followed, the debate raged.
Were there unused stockpiles of planes? Were French aircraft really
so inferior? Baughen examines the myths that surround the French
defeat. He explains how at the end of the First World War, the
French had possessed the most effective air force in the world,
only for the lessons learned to be forgotten. Instead, air policy
was guided by radical theories that predicted air power alone would
decide future wars. Baughen traces some of the problems back to the
very earliest days of French aviation. He describes the mistakes
and bad luck that dogged the French efforts to modernise their air
force in the twenties and thirties. He examines how decisions made
just months before the German attack further weakened the air
force. Yet defeat was not inevitable. If better use had been made
of the planes that were available, the result might have been
different.
The Fairey Battle is best known for being one of the worst aircraft
ever to serve in the Royal Air Force. On operations, it suffered
the highest loss rate of any plane in the RAF's history, and the
missions flown by its brave crews became a byword for hopelessness
and futility. Born out of muddled thinking, condemned before it
even reached the squadrons, and abandoned after the briefest of
operational careers, the plane seems to thoroughly deserve its
reputation. But was the Battle so useless? Why did it suffer such
terrible losses? Was there nothing that could have been done to
prevent the disasters of 1940? A fresh look at the documents of the
time suggest there was. They reveal a very different story of
ignored recommendations and missed opportunities. It was the way
the plane was used rather than fundamental flaws in the design that
ensured its operational career was such a dismal failure. It might
even be argued that, in the desperate days of the summer of 1940,
the Fairey Battle was exactly what Britain needed.
The events of 1942 marked a pivotal year in the history of British
air power. For more than two decades the theory that long-range
bombing could win wars had dominated British defence policy. The
vast majority of warplanes ordered for the RAF were designed either
to bomb enemy cities or stop the enemy from bombing British cites.
Conventional armies and the air forces that supported them were
seen as an outmoded way of waging war. During 1941 evidence began
to mount that British policy was wrong. It had become clear the
RAF's bomber offensive against Germany had, until that point,
achieved very little. Meanwhile, the wars raging in Europe, Africa
and Asia were being decided not by heavy bombers, but by armies and
their supporting tactical air forces. Britain had never had the
resources to build a large army as well as a strategic bomber
fleet; it had always had to make a choice. Now it seemed the
country might have made the wrong choice. For the first time since
1918 Britain began thinking seriously about a different way of
fighting wars. Was it too late to change? Was a strategic bombing
campaign the only option open to Britain? Could the United Kingdom
help its Soviet ally more by invading France as Stalin so
vehemently demanded? Could this be done in 1942? Looking further
ahead, was it time to begin the development of an entirely new
generation of warplanes to support the Army? Should the RAF have
specialist ground attack aircraft and air superiority fighters? The
answers to these questions, which are all explored here by aviation
historian Greg Baughen, would help shape the development of British
air power for decades to come.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|