This little known campaign against the Italian invasion of British Somalia was bravely fought by a small force of elderly RAF and Commonwealth aircraft against almost overwhelming odds. This, against a backdrop of Britains meager assets being in demand in the much more prominent and important theatres such as Egypt and, of course, at home during the height of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.The history starts with the Italians use of airpower and gas against the spear-armed Abbysinnians in 1936. In August 1940 the Italians attacked and overwhelmed British Somalia and under air cover the British evacuated to Aden. The Allies fought many air battles with the better equipped invaders and flew dangerous reconnaissance missions in preparation for the major offensives in 1941.On the Northern Front, the first phases see aggressive air patrols and Allied reinforcements arriving from Egypt. They attacked towards Agordat pushing deep into Eritrea from the Sudan. Meanwhile to the south the South African Air Force and ground forces attacked into Italian Somalia during January and February 1941. In March the allies attacked Keren and the Italians finally surrendered. The final allied air strikes against Asmara and Massawa led to the final collapse of Italian resistance in May 1941. The campaign in Ethiopia saw General Cunningham's force advances 1,725 miles from Kenya in 53 days to reach the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and liberating it on April 6 1941. However, the conflict was still not over there was continued resistance from 7,000 Italian troops and air operations continued against them until their surrender in September 1943.The book includes the experiences of the men who flew the outdated aircraft of the RAF and the SAAF in the campaign and includes many quotes and incidents from both Allied and Italian pilots.

This book is the first ever transnational theatre study of an African region. Covering nine nations in two volumes, the project covers a hundred years of theatre making across Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda. This volume focuses on the theatre of the Horn of Africa. The book shows how the theatres of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, little known in the outside world, have been among the continent's most politically important, commercially successful, and widely popular; making work almost exclusively in local languages and utilizing hybrid forms that have privileged local cultural modes of production. A History of African Theatre is relevant to all who have interests in African cultures and their relationship to the history and politics of the East African region.

The Italian Army’s participation in Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union has remained unrecognized and understudied. Bastian Matteo Scianna offers a wide-ranging, in-depth corrective. Mining Italian, German and Russian sources, he examines the history of the Italian campaign in the East between 1941 and 1943, as well as how the campaign was remembered and memorialized in the domestic and international arena during the Cold War. Linking operational military history with memory studies, this book revises our understanding of the Italian Army in the Second World War.

This eight-chapter volume, African Military Geosciences: Military History and the Physical Environment, is a tour-de-force covering nearly 500 years of African military geosciences. It is a truly global book that reveals keen insights into regional, national and international military-forces activities centered in Africa and how the understanding of geosciences plays important roles. It is written for the specialist, but also attractive to the general military buff - well referenced and illustrated with figures from primary sources, historical catalogues and compendia. The publication explores the "e;age of sail"e;, harbour defenses, the trafficability of desert environments and marshes, as well as climate controls on sailing or land battles. There is even insight into an elite artillery unit staffed by women during Second World War - essentially covering the whole gamut. Ultimately, the reader explores a nearly 500-year journey around the African continent and beyond.

By examining Mauritius and the Indian Ocean, this unique synthesis of imperial and naval/military history, reveals the depths of colonial involvement in the Second World War and the role of colonies in British strategic planning from the eighteenth century. In the century of total war, the British Empire was fully mobilized. The Mauritian home front became regimented, troops were recruited for service overseas, the Eastern fleet guarded the Indian Ocean, and Mauritius became a base for SOE operations and intelligence-gathering for Bletchley.