Jim's Reviews > RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force

As short as this book is, it's packed with a lot of information. Unfortunately, that means very little background on the players, especially the politics. That made it tough going for me, since I'm not a Brit. The other issue was understanding the figures, such as number of planes, tonnage of bombs dropped, & such. Without anything to compare them to, they didn't mean much.

Still, there was a lot I did understand. The air war of WWI was one of an emerging technology in desperate times. Zeppelins could carry a lot, but were highly subject to winds. Planes were little more than cloth stretched over wood hauled along by bulky, low powered engines, so they were limited, but it became obvious early on that they were the future of aviation. Getting there, with hundreds of designs, custom parts, & limited fuel capacity was a battle in itself. The lack of radar or any decent navigation system was tough & flying the damn things was practically suicide even if pilots knew what they were doing & few did. Training was practically nonexistent.

On top of all that, the air force started out as part of the Army & Navy who had completely different needs & tactical objectives for the planes. Trying to create centralized control, which was needed to train the men & bring the dozens of models into line, meant fighting established bureaucracies & politics. There was no overall strategic use for planes, only dreams of what could be when the tech matured enough, so that made centralization a tougher sell than it should have been. The formation of the RFC during the war was a miracle. Evolving that into the RAF after the war went beyond miraculous, especially given the attitudes of those involved.

All in all, well narrated & interesting. The lack of background might not be a problem for those who are taught British history better than I was. As it is, I'm giving it 3.5 stars & I'm rounding it down since most of my friends live in the US.