THE WAR IN THE AIR

ShortDescription:This thick book, which contains such an amount of photographs, is a pictorial history of air forces in combat during the Second World War.

Airpower was still largely a matter of theory at the end of the First World War. While the airplane had been used in that conflict for reconnaissance, bombing and support to armies on the battlefield, the thousands of words written about it dealt largely with the aerial duels that took place in the skies over France. Even though airpower had minor effect on the course of World War I, there were men of vision in every country who recognized its vast potential as a decisive element in military action.

All through the 1920's and 1930's these men worked for better planes and larger air forces because they believed that airpower would play the key role in any future war. And they were right. From the moment the first Stuka dive bombers appeared over Poland in September, 1939, a new dimension had been added to modern war.

The years ahead would call for desperate fighting by ground and sea forces in all theaters of the global war, but in each campaign the air battle was a key factor in determining the outcome of the land and sea struggle.

THE WAR IN THE AIR, with vivid pictures and text, tells the story of the air actions which played a decisive role in World War II. Many of these actions were fought in conjunction with ground or naval forces. Others were independent air campaigns involving the strategic bombing of the war - making potential of the enemy. In Europe, Allied air power prepared the way for invasions. In the Pacific, it made invasion unnecessary.

Curtis E. LeMay