Peter Williams. The Kokoda Campaign 1942: Myth and Reality. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2012. This is one of those topics I should know more about, being a military historian and an Australian and all. Ordinarily I might be wary of a book with ‘myth and reality’ in the title, but it’s unlikely to be sensationalist […]
Peter Adey. Aerial Life: Spaces, Mobilities, Affects. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. The title isn’t very revealing of its contents. But here’s a partial list of the topics covered: airminded youth groups such as the Air Defence Cadet Corps and the Skybird League (chapter 2), air shows including Hendon (chapter 3), the birth of aerial surveying (chapter
Ronnie Scott, ed. The Real ‘Dad’s Army’: The War Diaries of Col. Rodney Foster. London: Virago, 2011. Foster was a retired Indian Army officer who commanded a Home Guard company in Kent in the Second World War. Looks interesting: takes a lively interest in the progress of the war, but is also engaged with his
Herbert A. Johnson. Wingless Eagle: U.S. Army Aviation through World War I. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Looks at not just the actual flying stuff (the first flights, the expedition against Pancho Villa, the expansion for war) but the media portrayal of such (e.g. chapter 2, ‘Army aviation in the
C. G. Burge, ed. The Air Annual of the British Empire 1939. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1939. A comprehensive overview of the state of the British aviation industry as of the start of 1939, from the big aircraft manufacturers down to (for example) Cellon Ltd., makers of cellulose dope since 1911. Also articles
David Crotty. A Flying Life: John Duigan and the First Australian Aeroplane. Melbourne: Museum Victoria, 2010. The first Australian-built aeroplane to fly, to be specific. Also covers Duigan’s career as an AFC RE8 pilot on the Western Front where he won his Military Cross. Malcolm Hall. From Balloon to Boxkite: The Royal Engineers and Early
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie; oi, oi, oi. Neville Meaney. A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy, 1901-23. Volume 1,The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901-14. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009 [1976]. Neville Meaney. A History of Australian Defence and Foreign Policy, 1901-23. Volume 2, Australia and World Crisis, 1914-1923. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009.
Martin Middlebrook. The Battle of Hamburg: Allied Bomber Forces Against a German City in 1943. London: Cassell & Co., 2000 [1980]. I picked this up partly because of the topic (obviously), partly because it has an account of the action for which Pilot Officer E. L. Pickles was awarded his first DFC (nursing his Lancaster
Eric Ash. Sir Frederick Sykes and the Air Revolution 1912-1918. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1999. An excellent study of a important figure in the early days of the RAF who has been overshadowed by his rival, predecessor and successor Trenchard: he was certainly a stauncher supporter of strategic bombing at this time. Sykes was
Brian Madison Jones. Abolishing the Taboo: Dwight D. Eisenhower and American Nuclear Doctrine 1945-1961 (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2011). Argues that Eisenhower worked to normalise nuclear weapons in both the American arsenal and the American consciousness. This early period of the Cold War, when the bomb took over from the bomber as the threat to
