Classic's Air War Over Spain

Not a lot has been written about the Spanish Civil War’s air forces and aerial battles, so I was happy to learn of this book’s release.

Anyone familiar with the ‘Luftwaffe Colours’ series from the same publisher will find the layout familiar.  The author begins with a 1-page summary of the events leading up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.   The book-proper then continues and is broken out into five chapters:  the first covers the pre-war aviation history of Spain, with next four each dedicated to one year of the conflict.  Finally, there are two appendices dealing with ranks, uniform insignia, medals, etc.

I would say the book is about 35% text, 65% photos.  The text provides a good background of the development of Spanish military aviation, as well as a good chronology of the aerial portion of the War.  Nice, clear photos (often ½ page) appear throughout the book.   There is a small selection of color profiles scattered among the photos.  Some, but not all, of the profiles are adjacent to a corresponding photo of the subject matter.

Like the ‘Luftwaffe Colours’ books, there are boxes of text with personal stories about pilots, which I always find a good read.  There are also some useful tables that list the aircraft supplied by foreign nations to both sides of the conflict.

Of particular interest (and critical to the entire conflict) is a decent explanation of the timing and orchestration of the various ‘outside parties’ supplying both men and machines to the respective air forces.  I was interested to find out, among other things, that the Republican (Spanish government) purchasing agents approached Berlin, as well as London and Paris, for equipment at the outbreak of hostilities!  The author does a pretty good job illustrating the see-sawing escalation of support for both sides as the war progressed.  Germany and Italy provided the Nationalists with aircraft and men well before the Russians supplied the other side, giving the Nationalists the upper hand.  Upon joining the conflict, the Russian aircraft proved superior to those fielded by the Germans and Italians.  At this point the Nationalists fighter pilots were flying He51s and CR32s, which were outclassed by the Republican I-15s and I-16s and even the SB bombers.  Italy addressed this issue by greatly increasing the number of aircraft it supplied, while Germany addressed it by sending more modern aircraft like the He111 and the Bf109.  Ultimately this pushed the air war back in favor of the Nationalists.

As far as other books on this topic,  I do know of a large, hard-bound book titled ‘Wings over Spain’, but unfortunately I do not have that in my library so cannot do any comparisons.  I do have Hikoki’s ‘Condor Legion’, one of the early Osprey book on Spanish Civil War Air Forces, and the Karl Ries (published in Germany in the 70s) book on Legion Condor.  This book makes a worth addition to any and all of these.  More seems to be written about the German involvement, so having a book cover all the participants is worthwhile. 

I found the book to be a quick, interesting read.  Many of the photos were new to me, and the profiles certainly have me inspired to model some subjects from this conflict.  Obviously, with the profiles in the book showing only one side, some additional research will be needed.  But this book certainly is a good starting point.  I would recommend this to those with an interest in the subject. 

  Paul Mahoney

June 2010