Raf Operations 1918-38
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
In the two decades that separated the guns of the Great War from the gathering storm of the Second, the Royal Air Force fought, patrolled, and endured across some of the most remote and hostile territories on earth — and RAF Operations 1918-38 is the definitive chronicle of that forgotten era. Chaz Bowyer, one of Britain's foremost authorities on aviation history, reconstructs the ceaseless operational tempo of the interwar RAF, detailing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, the North-West Frontier, and beyond, where airpower was wielded not in the skies of Europe but over desert wadis and tribal mountain passes. Far from the popular image of a service resting between wars, Bowyer presents a force in perpetual action, shaping imperial policy through what became known as air policing — a doctrine that would permanently alter the relationship between military aviation and ground strategy. Written with the authority of a historian who spent decades immersed in RAF records and veteran testimonies, the narrative illuminates the institutional culture, the aircraft, and the remarkable men who kept Britain's air arm battle-ready through years of political neglect and financial austerity. Bowyer's prose is precise yet vivid, giving equal weight to operational analysis and the human stories of aircrew operating far from home with minimal support. For anyone seeking to understand how the RAF forged its professional identity in the crucible of imperial conflict, this volume raises a compelling and unsettling question: how much of modern airpower doctrine was written not over the fields of France, but over the forgotten frontiers of empire?
Author: Chaz Bowyer
Format: Hardback
Published: 1988, William Kimber, London
Genre: Military history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
In the two decades that separated the guns of the Great War from the gathering storm of the Second, the Royal Air Force fought, patrolled, and endured across some of the most remote and hostile territories on earth — and RAF Operations 1918-38 is the definitive chronicle of that forgotten era. Chaz Bowyer, one of Britain's foremost authorities on aviation history, reconstructs the ceaseless operational tempo of the interwar RAF, detailing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, the North-West Frontier, and beyond, where airpower was wielded not in the skies of Europe but over desert wadis and tribal mountain passes. Far from the popular image of a service resting between wars, Bowyer presents a force in perpetual action, shaping imperial policy through what became known as air policing — a doctrine that would permanently alter the relationship between military aviation and ground strategy. Written with the authority of a historian who spent decades immersed in RAF records and veteran testimonies, the narrative illuminates the institutional culture, the aircraft, and the remarkable men who kept Britain's air arm battle-ready through years of political neglect and financial austerity. Bowyer's prose is precise yet vivid, giving equal weight to operational analysis and the human stories of aircrew operating far from home with minimal support. For anyone seeking to understand how the RAF forged its professional identity in the crucible of imperial conflict, this volume raises a compelling and unsettling question: how much of modern airpower doctrine was written not over the fields of France, but over the forgotten frontiers of empire?