This is a book that everyone with an interest in World War II and the air war associated with it should read.  In the jacket cover, it reads: 

            This is the first general history of the air war, 1939-1945, to appear in English.           

            This is not a “blood and guts” book:  it is a general history in the sense that it

            covers the whole war period and all the warring powers, and that it covers not

            just the military campaigns and oft-recounted battles, but the grand strategy,

            economic mobilization, the recruitment of science, production, and the nature

            and training of leadership.

 This pretty well sums it up.  Although written twenty five years ago, the author, a  professor at Cambridge University and the University of London, gives a detailed and very informative account of the backgrounds of the air war. Dr. Overy, who had written a number of books on related subjects, also published a book on the reasons why the Allies won the war, appropriately entitled Why The Allies Won, and this is also very interesting reading for anyone who wants a broader perspective on the entire war.

 The author compares and contrasts the makeup or leadership in the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, France, Italy and Japan, and how basic decisions and strategies were adopted.  He even answers the question of why totalitarian states tended to make poor decisions, although he also explains why the Soviets differed from the Germans, Japanese, and Italians in their overall approach to aerial warfare.

 I have had this book on my bookshelf for many years, and even though its 1980 publication date precludes any mention of Ultra and Magic, the decoding of German and Japanese messages by Allied cryptographers,  information  still secret at the time of publication,  I reread it recently, and felt that it is an important enough work to review it for those modelers and enthusiasts who want an overall explanation of why things happened the way they did, and why the outcome was inevitable. 

After reading the book, you will be able to answer questions like “If the Germans had all of that high-technology stuff publicized in Luft 46, why didn’t they win the war?” or “How effective was Allied strategic bombing on Germany and Japan?  These questions are examined in depth and answered in a most readable way. 

 The bibliography in the book is very complete, and lists over 19 pages of sources. The endnotes are very  extensive, and make interesting reading by themselves. Most of his references are source materials, from the papers of those who were directly involved.

 Most modelers tend to read technical histories of aircraft development and the lives of particular individuals whose contributions were certainly significant, but this type of work seems to be relatively unknown outside of academic circles.  This book solves that problem, and it should be read by anyone interested in the World War II air war.  I recommend it highly, not only for modelers, but for any student of aviation history.

I wish this man had been teaching history when I went to the university.

November 2005

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