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Aviation History
1949
1949 - 1278.PDF
FLIGHT JULY 14TH, 1949 BOOKS REVIEWED "IKE" on AIR POWER " Crusade in Europe," by Dwight D. Eisenhower. WilliamHeinemann, Ltd.; 582 pp.; price 25s. IN the last four years we have had a succession of books byair marshals explaining how air power won the last war, and books by admirals claiming that air bombardment wasjust so much wasted effort. Other books by Americans, English- men and Russians have told how America, Britain and Russiarespectively won the war more or less by themselves. Now at last, we have a book which tells how the sea, landand air forces of all the Allies combined to achieve victory in the major campaigns in North Africa and Western Europe.Crusade in Europe is a notable book, written by the man who did the combining—Dwight Eisenhower. Supreme Commander in both campaigns, General Eisen-hower leaves no doubt_of his views on the importance of air power in modern warfare. In Chapter II he writes: "Already(by May. 1942) we had learned the lesson that, while air power alone might not win a victory, no great victory is possiblewithout air superiority." The rest of the story shows that he never forgot that lesson. There are sources of references to the work of the AlliedAir Forces, for, as General Eisenhower remarks in Chapter XXIII: "The European campaign almost daily developednew and valuable uses for air power." We can read how, many times, aircraft played a major part in winning important landbattles, how they occasionally made mistakes, and how the enemy took advantage of their grounding by bad weather tolaunch his final offensive in the Ardennes in December, 1944. Crusade in Europe is far more than just a chronicle of battlesfought and won. It is a readable and human story, studded with intimate pen-portraits of Allied soldiers and statesmen.It is worth reading if only because it sets the importance of air power in correct perspective against the background of thecampaigns as a whole. J. \V. R. T. BOMBS v. INERTIA " Vision Ahead," by Air Commodore P. Huskinson, C.B.E.,M.C., with forewords by Lord Beaverbrook, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder and General of the ArmyH. H. Arnold, U.S.A.A.F. Werner Laurie, London; price us 6<2. '"THERE have been plenty of Second World War books•*• written by fighter pilots, rather fewer by those who fought with Bomber and Coastal Commands, and a goodly selectionby escapees, Intelligence Officers and various others. Too few have been produced by the specialists—the Engineer Officers,scientists and so forth concerned with the development and use of particular offensive or defensive weapons. To a certainextent this is a natural result of the security measures which even now cloak some aspects of wartime scientific development;but enough has been revealed at odd times and places to fill several good books, and A. Cdre. Huskinson has written oneof them. From the end of the 1914-18 war, in which he served withdistinction in No. 2 Squadron, the author was an armament specialist, with bombs as his particular metier. His story ofthe inter-war years is a record of the painfully slow develop- ment of R.A.F. armament in the face of Treasury tight-fisted-ness and military orthodoxy, for the air arm was treated as a sort of poor relative; though the Ordnance Board, which super-vised the production of explosives and the things to contain them, was theoretically an inter-Service body, in practice ithad an Army officer at the head of every department. It was only through the enfant terrible tactics of Huskinson and a fewothers (they did things first and asked permission afterwards), backed by senior officers such as Air Commodore (now Lord)Dowding and Sir Philip Game, that R.A.F. armament, and armament training, reached the level which it did when warbroke out in 1939; and even so that level, as many will remember, was a pitiably low one. In 1918, our bombs were filled with a mediocre explosiveknown as amatol. In 1942, says A. Cdre. Huskinson, we were still using it, in spite of the fact that the immensely morepowerful R.D.X. had been successfully produced by the research department at Woolwich three years before the out-break of war. An accident had occurred in the building in which the experiments were conducted, destroying the appara-tus and killing several workers; R.D.X. development was immediately suspended for eighteen months. R.A.F. bombswere greatly inferior to those being used by the Germans, and Huskinson, as vice-president of the Ordnance Board, resolvedthat the lost ground must be recovered, and recovered quickly. One of his moves was the formation of the Static DetonationCommittee, a board of distinguished scientists who, "arguing in their own language with the scientific experts in the ResearchDepartment," were soon able to speed up every aspect of bomb development. There is a sinister fascination about the Air Commodore'saccounts of some of the Committee's experiments—for instance, the ultra-slow-motion films which show a statically detonatedbomb to swell to nearly twice its size, the casing stretching like rubber, before fragmentation takes place. Bomb disposal, the development of R.P. armament, thepreparation of the Mohne Dam weapons, anti-submarine measures; all these varied aspects of scientific developmentfind a place in A. Cdre. Huskinson's book. Reading this modest account of completely selfless efforts, one is not, some-how, surprised to find a horrible tragedy—the loss of his eye- sight in the bombing of London—treated by him as little morethan a minor irritant which caused him some inconvenience in his office work. Major irritants, to him, were inertia and in-competence at all official levels. R. E. C. BOOKS RECEIVED Take off! By Robert Duce. Independent Press, Ltd:, 6s.Model Glow Plug Engines, by C. E. Bowden. Percival Marshall, 3s 6d. Wireless for Beginners, by C. L. Boltz. Harrap, 7s 6d. Le Cabotage Aerien, by Dr. Alex Meyer. Les Editions Inter-nationales, Paris. Electricity, by C. L Boltz. George G. Harrap, 8s 6d.Streamline Flow, by H. F. P. Purday. Constable, 18s. "The Aeroplane" Directory of British Aviation. Publishedby the English Universities Press, Ltd., for Temple Press, Ltd., 10s 6d. The Technology of Aluminium and its Light Alloys (ThirdEdition), by Dr. Ing. Alfred von Zeerleder. High Duty Alloys, Ltd., £1 is.Guide to Europe (prepared by New York Herald-Tribune). Seymour Press, Ltd., London, 4s.British Standards Institution—1949 Yearbook. B.S.I., London. Price 5s. Wireless and Electrical Trader Year Book, 1949. TraderPublishing Co., Ltd., London. Price 10s 6d. Aluminium in Service. Aluminium Development Association,London. R.Ae.G. AVIATORS' CERTIFICATES IN pre-war days Flight periodically published the official listsof Aviators' Certificates issued by the Royal Aero Club. It is now possible to resume this feature, and below are detailsof Certificates issued (up to June 6th) since the new licensing regulations came into force on April 1st: — No. 25.983 25,989 25,990 25,991 25.992 25.993 25,994 25,995 25,996 25,997 25,998 25,999 26,000 26.001 26,002 26,003 26,004 26,005 26,006 26,007 26,003 26.009 26,010 26,01126,012 26,01326,014 26,015 26,01626,017 26,018 26,019 26,020 26,021 26.022 Name Richard William Hewett David Nursaw Andre Bercuc Jean Pierre Facquier Gordon Banner Frank Gordon Doswell ... Anthony Gerald Lawrence Hug- ginsEdward Harold Orchard Edward Samuel Kirvan ... Dennis Cash Robert Stanley Eyre Trevor Nelmes Silk Maurice Clarke Roy George Archer Leslie Ronald Gerald Swain Honore Louis Creuscr Pierre Paul Larrayadieu... Andre Heligoin ... William Arthur Bower Frederick Kenneth Mitchell Duncan Brown Ireland Vlassis Pylarinos Joseph Leonard Shield Geoffrey John HillDenis Sydney Corser Stanley J. HubbardTheodore Rajfeld John Rowling Eric Driscoll Brian Simpson A r mi cageHugo Torben Grut Peter Charles Nesbitt Poolman... Ronald Gant Justo Ricardo B. del Carril Edward James Moloney ... Pierre Marcel Gallay Club or School 21 E.F.T.S Luton Flying Club Current French Licence Qualified Service pilot... ,, ... '. t. »» . •» • •» ,,Current " A " Licence. French Licence ,, Current " A " Licence. Qualified Service pilot. >> • Air Service Training, Lt< Qaulified Service pilot. ,, ,, Denham Aero Club Qualified Service pilot. ,»Exeter Aero Club Qualified Service pilot. N. of Ireland Aero Clu Denham Aero Club Cardiff Aero Club BE.A. Helicopter Unit. r. b Date 26.4.49 26.4.49 2.5.49 2.5.49 2.5.49 2.5.49 5 5 495.5.49 5.5.49 5.5.49 9.5.49 9.5.49 9.5.49 9.5.49 12.5.49 14 5 49 13.5.49 13.5.49 13.5.49 25.5.49 25.5.49 25.5.49 26.5.49 26.5.4926.5.49 26.5.4930.5.49 30.5.49 2.6.492.6.49 2.6.49 3.6.49 7.6.49 7.6.49 7.6.49
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