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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 2161.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER AND AIRSHIPS FIRST AERONAUTICAFWEEKLY IN THE^WORLD .• FOUND, ED 1909 Editor C M POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegrams: Traditar, Sedist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (50 lines). HERTFORD ST., COVENTRY. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2971. 260, DEAN8GATE, MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams: Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. 26B, RENFIELD ST., GLASGOW,_C.B. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION BATES: Home and Canada: Other Coon tries: Year,« Year, £1 13 0. 10 0. 0 months, 16s. 6d. 6 months, 18s. Od. 3 months, 8s. 6d. 3 months, 9s. od. No. 1493. Vol. XXXII. AUGUST 5, 1937. ,' Thursdays, Price 6d. M Work Well Done R. H. A. JONES, once an observer in No. 47 Squadron, and one who was seriously wounded in air combat on the Macedonian front, has now completed his great work The War m the Air. The sixth and last volume was published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, on July 15 at a net price of £1 5s. The first volume was written by the late Sir Walter Raleigh in 1922, and after his death the work was handed over to Mr. Jones. He produced Volume II in 1928, Vol. Ill in 1931, Vol. IV in 1934, Vol. V in 1935, and the final volume last month. It has been a tremendous task, for the author has had to examine official documents, not only in this country but in those of all the countries who were in arms against the Allies in the Great War; he has had to deal with the Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Air Force and the Independent Air Force. He has had to describe operations in Flanders, the North Sea, the Channel, the Mediterranean, Italy, Macedonia, Egypt and the Sudan, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, India, East Africa and South-West Africa. He has had to give accounts of the doings of aeroplanes of all sorts—land- planes, seaplanes, flying boats—as well as airships and carriers. He has had to study the biographies of well- known pilots, and to decide disputed points such as who killed Baron Manfred von Richthofen. In addition to all this, his work has been complicated by.the fact that he was not dealing with a fighting Service which was waging an independent war, but was always an arm of either the Navy or the Army. For this reason he had to study the naval and military situa tions and explain them in some detail before he could pake clear the part, and the value of the part, played m the operations by the air arm concerned. When all this is taken into account, one can only marvel that Mr. Jones has completed his work so quickly as he has, and oifer unstinted praise for the complete and exhaustive way m which he has treated every aspect of this great and diversified subject. An official historian must naturally be cautious in expressing views on -the facts which it is his main duty to record. Only, when the lessons to be drawn from those facts are very clear/or almost universally accepted by the authorities of the day, can he venture to point a moral. Mr. Jones has been exemplary in his restraint in this respect, and only occasionally has he allowed his own conclusions to appear, and then with much quoting of authorities. In the case of most writers such abstention would result in a dull and dry work, but it is not the least of the merits of Mr. Jones's five volumes that they are always readable and usually very interest ing. In his earlier volumes it would have been a good thing if he had given some more information about the performances and fighting qualities of the various types of aeroplane engaged, but in the later volumes he did give some very useful information about various types as they appeared, notably the Bristol Fighter. Ultimate Victory This last volume has the cheerful note of victory running all through it, after the dismal story of the supply and production of aero engines has once been left behind. In subsequent chapters we see the Turks driven out of Palestine and Iraq, the Bulgars quelled in Macedonia, Italy victorious over the Austrians, various wars in Iran and India, and finally Haig and Foch driving the Germans to sue for an armistice on the Western Front. It is a most catholic volume, and a great lesson in geography. It would be impossible to notice all the various stories, and only a few points can be selected foi special review. The account of the formation and work of the Inde pendent Air Force is of special interest, as it was the first occasion on which the newly formed Air Ministry attempted something resembling a war on its own, as apart from supplying mere co-operation for the other two Services. It may be said that the idea embodied in this Independent Air Force has since produced the present admirable system of air control 4n Iraq, and the elaborate schemes for the air defence of Great Britain.
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