A History of Air Power

This excellent book, which contains numerous photographs, traces the increasingly destructive history of the seventy years of air power, from the genesis to the spectacular and agonizing failures in Vietnam.

Wilbur and Orville Wright believed, when early in the present century* they produced the first practical man - carrying powered aircraft, that their invention would " make further wars practically impossible ".

It has not. ( … ) In the First World War, attemp by both sides to gain freedom for their aircraft to reconnoitre the enemy's lines gave rise to the concept of a struggle for air supremacy.

( ... ) The heart of the book comes with the Second World War when theory gave way to practice, which in turn caused changes both in the thinking behind their use and in the machines themselves. Even so, air power remains considerably less decisive than expected ( ... ) ... neither in Korea, nor later in Vietnam, did massive air power enable its possessors to impose their will.

Sober and factual rather than polemical, the author's account allows the facts to speak for themselves and does not gloss over the mistakes of airmen who, by claiming more for air power than it was capable of performing, have repeatedly and disastrously misled their governments.