Spain (1936-9), China (1937 onwards), Mongolia (1939), Finland (1939-40) and France (1939-40) were a testing ground for a new approach to air tactics with western democracies and totalitarian states analysing the resulting lessons. Attention in Air Wars 1920-1939: The Development and Evolution of Fighter Tactics is given to the means by which intelligence on aerial tactics was collected and why it was not always fully absorbed, resulting in many nations having to relearn the same lessons at the outset of the Second World War. Finland, during the Winter War, while not involved in Spain or any other air war of the time, better applied the lessons being learned than that of the Soviet Union, which had been directly involved in air wars fought over China, Mongolia and Spain. In the case of Britain, not only were the lessons of Spain ignored, but so too that of its own experimental fighter unit, the AFDE (Air Fighting Development Establishment) that had been formed in 1934 and which was reinforcing the intelligence received from those real air war conflicts.

Offers the first detailed review of Carl A. Spaatz as a commander. Examines how the highest ranking U.S. airman in the European Theater of Operations of World War II viewed the war, worked with the British, and wielded the formidable air power at his disposal. Identifies specifically those aspects of his leadership that proved indispensable to the Allied Victory over Nazi Germany. Chapters: Carrying the Flame: From West Point to London, 1891-1942; Tempering the Blade: The North African Campaign, 1942-1943; Mediterranean Interlude: From Pantelleria to London, 1943; The Point of the Blade: Strategic Bombing and the Cross-Channel Invasion, 1944; and The Mortal Blow: From Normandy to Berlin, 1944-1945. Maps, charts and b & w photos.

This book contains the proceedings of a conference held by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in Canberra in 1994. Since its publication by the RAAF's Air Power Studies Center in that year, the book has become a widely used reference at universities, military academies, and other educational institutions around the world. The application of aerospace power has seen significant developments since 1994, most notably through American-led operations in Central Europe and continuing technological advances with weapons, uninhabited vehicles, space-based systems, and information systems. But notwithstanding those developments and the passing of six years, the value of this anthology of airpower in the twentieth century seems undiminished.

In the 1930s, the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alabama, was the nurturing ground for American air doctrine. Those who studied and taught there were the same individuals who prepared America for war, and then led its airmen into combat.

The third volume in the epic military aviation series focuses on the Allied invasion of North Africa during World War II. This work of WWII history takes us to November 1942 to explain the background of the first major Anglo-American venture: Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. Describing the fratricidal combat that followed the initial landings in Morocco and Algeria, it then considers the unsuccessful efforts to reach northern Tunisia before the Germans and Italians could get there to forestall the possibility of an attack from the west on the rear of the Afrika Korps forces, then beginning their retreat from El Alamein. The six months of hard fighting that followed, as the Allies built up the strength of their joint air forces and gradually wrested control of the skies from the Axis, are recounted in detail. The continuing story of the Western Desert Air Force is told, as it advanced from the east to join hands with the units in the west. Also covered are the arrivals over the front of American pilots and crew, the P-38 Lightning, the Spitfire IX, and the B-17 Flying Fortress—and of the much-feared Focke-Wulf Fw 190. The aerial activities over Tunisia became one of the focal turning points of World War II, yet are frequently overlooked by historians. Here, the air-sea activities, the reconnaissance flights, and the growing day and night bomber offensives are examined in detail.