A History of Air Warfare Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a must have for all with an interest in air power. With contributions from the world's leading experts on air power history and strategy, the book is unique in the breadth and depth of its examination of the development of air power.
The book's structure is excellent. The chapters are concise (nominally 20 pages) and provide insight into air power's role in the conflict being considered. What is very useful is the positioning, in most chapters anyway, of air power's role in a particular conflict with how it was used on other conflicts past and present. This provides a bit of cohesion to the book which is sometimes difficult in a collected work. This is particular important in this work as the authors generally examine different aspects of air power (the chapter on the Israel-Arab Wars focused on air superiority while that on the Falklands had a distinctly logistical feel about it). This is not a criticism of the book as it is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of every aspect of air power in every conflict.
Perhaps the most positive aspect of the book is that it wasn't written by or for air power zealots. The perspectives offered were balanced (in the main) and different viewpoints were raised. This was most notable in the final part of the book (Part V - Perspectives) in the two concluding chapters by Van Creveld and Hallion. Both provide an overview of the evolution of air power and its potential future, each arriving at well argued and supported (but different) conclusions.
In summary: as you read through the book you gain an understanding of how certain aspects of air power (technical, logistical, strategy or tactical) developed over a number of conflicts. At the end, you are presented with two essentially opposing views on what this history means for the future. Concluding the book in such a way makes you challenge your own interpretation of where we have been and where we are going. That is what makes this book a must read for all with an interest or viewpoint on the past, present or future of air power.

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***Selected for the 2010 Chief of the United States Air Force's Reading List***This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising sixteen essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from the First World War to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign. Each essay lays out the objectives, events, and key players of the conflict in question, reviews the role of air power in the strategic and operational contexts, and explores the interplay between the political framework and military operations proper. The concluding section offers wider perspectives by focusing on air and space power in both unconventional and conventional warfare from 1913 to the present. More than a simple homage to air power, A History of Air Warfare exposes air power's strengths and weaknesses and, where relevant, illuminates the challenges of joint operations and coalition warfare. Because of its critical approach, even treatment, and historical background, the book will appeal to modern warfare scholars, air power specialists, and general readers interested in military history alike.

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The Age of Airpower Review

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BOOK REVIEW: 'The Age of Airpower' Explores Advantages -- and Limitations -- of Aerial Warfare

REVIEWED BY DAVID M. KINCHEN
Perhaps more than any other branch of any nation's armed forces, air forces seem to get all the glory and publicity. And the other fighting forces -- Army, Navy and Marines -- are so blinded by the glamour of airpower that they've managed to create their own aerial branches.
It doesn't make any sense, except perhaps in the case of the Coast Guard and the Navy, but, with the exception of a few unified military forces -- like the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) -- there is no arguing with those afflicted with aircraft envy. Renowned military historian Martin van Creveld examines in readable detail the rise and fall of airpower in "The Age of Airpower" (PublicAffairs Books, 512 pages, 16 pages of glossy black and white photos, index, notes, $35.00). It's particularly important in this deja vu all over again era to discover that the first use of airpower in warfare occurred in a familiar place, Libya, where the deputy commander of NATO's operations in the Libyan civil war last week said that NATO planes may have "mistakenly" hit rebel forces near Brega. He offers no apology, although NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: "
This is a very unfortunate incident. I strongly regret the loss of life. I can assure you that we do our utmost to avoid civilian casualties."
Yes, a century ago, in 1911 and 1912, Italian military airplanes were dropping grenades on the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire, which then controlled the huge nation of Libya. The occupying Ottomans -- Turks -- were soon joined by the country's indigenous people, including Arabs, and they put up a stiff resistance to the Italians who were flying planes of "the French type." Only after the Ottomans were diverted to the Balkans in 1912 did the Italians gain ground and began their occupation of Libya, which lasted until they were driven out during World War II. Van Creveld notes that guerilla warfare continued at least until the mid 1930s, when the Italians attacked Ethiopia in another one of Mussolini's misguided attempts to secure African colonies and re-create a new Roman Empire. Van Creveld, whose books are required reading for officers attending the U.S. Naval War College and other strategic institutes, tells us in this very accessible book (for example, he cites Stanley Kubrick's 1964 black comedy film "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" in his section on the threat nuclear warfare) how airpower, more than any other factor, has shaped war in the twentieth century. He shows the rise of the plane as a tool of war and the evolution of both technology and strategy. He documents seminal battles and turning points, and relates stories of individual daring and collective mastery of the skies. Van Creveld writes that the end of airpower's glorious age is drawing near, a message the flyboys don't want to hear. While van Creveld is squarely on the side of the modernizers and economists who say we can no longer afford the absurdly expensive aircraft of today, they are opposed by those who say you can't win a war without airpower. Conventional wisdom to the contrary, modern precision guided munitions have not made fighter bombers more effective against many kinds of targets than their predecessors in World War II. U.S. ground troops calling for air support in Iraq in 2003 did not receive it any faster than Allied forces did in France in 1944. And from its origins to the present, airpower has never been very effective against terrorists, guerrillas, and insurgents. As the warfare waged by these kinds of people grow in importance, and as ballistic missiles, satellites, cruise missiles and drones -- UAV or unmanned aerial vehicles -- increasingly take the place of quarter-billion-dollar manned combat aircraft and their multi-million-dollar pilots, airpower is losing utility almost day by day.Not long after the first Wright Brothers flight on Dec. 17, 1903, the entrepreneurial high-school dropouts were traveling the world looking for countries that wanted to buy planes made in their Ohio factory. Van Creveld writes that Orville and Wilbur Wright at first saw no other use for their flying machines than warfare. Initially they met with little success, but in 1909, the British established the Aerial Navigation Committee, the first ever government body specifically charged with military-aeronautical research. By 1910, the author says, "Germany had five military aircraft, England four, and Russia three." Italy, Austria, Japan, Belgium and the U.S. had two each. By the time of the 1914-18 war, aerial warfare developed to a remarkable degree, along with Zeppelins that the Germans used to bomb London. One of the advantages of aircraft, including airships, was their literal "eye in the sky" intelligence gathering capabilities. Aviators provided strategic information to ground forces and soon wireless communication made this capability a vital part of warfare. Van Creveld discusses aeronautical warfare from the beginnings to the present day, by all the major players, including the tiny nation of Israel which demonstrated its aerial prowess for all the world to see in June 1967 when it destroyed the aerial power of its Arab neighbors. Still, the author notes, as he does throughout the book, aerial warfare was not then and is not now a replacement for boots on the ground fighting.
About the Author
Martin Levi van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and theorist.
Van Creveld was born in the Netherlands in 1946 in the city of Rotterdam, and has lived in Israel since shortly after his birth. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He is the author of 22 books translated into 20 laguages on military history and strategy, of which Command in War (1985), Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (1977, 2nd edition 2004), The Transformation of War (1991), The Sword and the Olive (1998) and The Rise and Decline of the State (1999) are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at many strategic institutes in the Western world, including the U.S. Naval War College.

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A Sense of Duty: Our Journey from Vietnam to America Review

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(More customer reviews)Quang X. Pham has penned a marvelous book that should be read by every Vietnam veteran, everyone who lived during those tumultuous times, and every young student wanting to understand the times and the tremendous sacrifice made by so many.
Pham's book is a powerful account of one Vietnamese family's experience during the war, the end of the war, and their survival in the years that followed. Pham's mother struggled with establishing a new life in the U.S and his father struggled to stay alive during years of hard labor and `reeductation" by the North Vietnamese.
Through it all, the author grew to manhood, joined the Marines and served honorably as a pilot. Over the years, a sometimes bitter, sometimes thankful, and often confused young man grew to know the strength of his family and especially the strength of a father who sacrificed so much.
Quang Pham signed my book during a reading in Portland, Oregon but I didn't see what he had written until I had left. It says: "Thank you for your service in Vietnam."
Well, thank you, Quang, for your years of service in the Marines and for your father's tremendous work and courage during the war.
Loren W. Christensen, author of ON COMBAT and WARRIORS.


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Secret War Review

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(More customer reviews)As a former "Air Commando"... USAF Special Ops and one that did SERVE WITH PRIDE in these operations from OUR HOME base of N.K.P. Thailand (AKA NAKED FANNY), I can say this book is well written and goes into the most detail that has been done,, so far. WELL DONE Billy WEB!

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"From 1961-1975, the United States found itself embroiled in two wars in Southeast Asia'but for most of that time, the citizens of our country were aware of only one. While scenes from Vietnam made the national news, few Americans knew that their countrymen were also fighting a Secret War in the tiny neighboring kingdom of Laos. Billy G. Webb's new book breaks that secret wide open, revealing the truth about a conflict waged below the radar against the relentless forces of Communism. His story celebrates the near-forgotten sacrifices of not just U.S. and allied soldiers, but courageous civilians as well."--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this good book, here in Brazil. This book has many great things:
1-Page 10 > Military research is mainly American.
2-Page 19 > Boeing depends of Pentagon.
3-Page 75 > Civil aviation came from military research.
4-Page 77 > Computers came from military money and will.
5-Page 152 > Atoms for peace was mainly a failure.
6-Page 211 > Articial inteligence is military.
7-Page 376 > USA is leader in military affairs, experience and reasearch.
In many places of this book, we can see many amazing things. The chapter 9 of this book is the best thing that I ever read, about non-lethal weapons. Anyone can understand this book.
This book has some failures:
1-Page 7. This book claims that United States Army Aviation Branch doesn't operates airplanes. In fact it uses airplanes, such as Beechcraft C-12 Huron(airplane), General Atomics MQ-1C Grey Eagle (UAV),etc.
2-Page 69. This book claims that wristwatches came from 1917 in the United States. In fact, the Brazilian Alberto Santos Dumont(1873-1932) really made a wristwatch in 1907 and it became fashion in this year. Even before, the Queen Victoria (1819-1901) used a crude wristwatch sometimes.
3-Page 73. This book claims that Boeing 707 was the first successful jet airliner. In fact the Soviet or Russian Tupolev Tu-104 was the first successful jet airliner, in the world. In fact the Tu-104 was the sole jetliner operating in the world between 1956 and 1958.
4-Page 84. This book claims that Enigma Machine used ten gears. In fact, any Enigma Machine had more than five rotors or gears.
5-Page 226. This book claims that in 1991, Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) was the mayor of Moscow. In fact, in 1991, he was the the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999 rulling Russia. In fact, Boris Yeltsin never was the mayor of Moscow.
These few failures are small mistakes in a mainly very good book. Four stars for it. Please, I read the paperback ediction of this good book. Perhaps this ediction has another number for each part of the text. Please, this book is for anyone.


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David Hambling tells the fascinating story of human ingenuity and the complex world it has created—a world at once safer and yet more perilous than ever. Throughout history, war and the threat of war have driven innovation and accelerated the uptake of new technology—from the nomadic warriors who introduced the stirrup and the kebab to the world, to the British Navy's funding of Marconi's newfangled radio. Since 1945 the relationship between military needs and modern business has grown ever closer, especially in the United States.With the skills of a master storyteller, Hambling traces the history of this relationship in the modern era and shows how precision eye surgery emerged out of the military quest for a "death ray," how transistors and silicon chips initially helped build better bombs, and exactly why the 747 has such a distinctive shape. Hambling explores the current cutting edge of modern military research as he seeks to identify the technologies that will transform our lives in the decades to come. If history does repeat itself, Weapons Grade is much more than the story of how we got to where we are; it is the story of where we are going, for better or worse.

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Where They Lay: Searching for America's Lost Soldiers Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an excellent, essential account of Americas missing POWS. For more then a generation the black flag of POW/MIS has flown over many a house and VFW post in America. Many hundreds if not thousands of men went missing in Vietnam and never returned. It is believed that many were never released from POW camps in Cambodia and Laos. This book chronicles the investigation and sightings of Americans POWs who were left behind. Like rumors of the holocaust, rumors of POW sightings in Laos have been commonplace but many investigations have turned up little.
This is a wonderful book. It goes into great detail surrounding the mystery of the lost men of Vietnam. An essential read, interesting, informative and tragic. It reminds us why we must never leave a man behind. Anyone interested in the military, Vietnam, east Asia, or in need of good winter reading will enjoy this book. It would make a great gift as well for an avid military buff.

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Lost Over Laos: A True Story of Tragedy, Mystery, and Friendship Review

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(More customer reviews)For those of us born too late to be part of the generation that was, in the words of Richard Pyle, "educated, molded, and aged by the Vietnam experience," our second-hand knowledge of this war has been limited largely to the negative: the horrors of the battlefield, the mental anguish of the young soldiers being asked to sacrifice their lives for goals that were far from clear, and the deeply divisive debates over the agony of continued warfare vs. the humiliation of abandoning the cause. Yet this book is about journalists who VOLUNTEERED to go into the jungle. What would make an otherwise sane person want to do this? As Pyle explores the lives and deaths of the four killed photojournalists, various answers to this question surface, making the journalist's motives comprehensible even to outsiders such as myself--the lure of the exotic setting, the sense of regret that one might have felt if excluded from the most important event of the decade, and the sense of obligation to "compel the world to see Vietnam," to see it "through a camera lens that illuminated, explained, told truths of what the war looked like and how it felt to be there." As for coping with the drawbacks of death and dismemberment, there was always denial. As Richard writes: "It was part of the war correspondent psyche to recognize the possibility of the worst, but to worry or even think much about that was to invite oneself to look for work in another field"; and "there was a sense among members of the Saigon media that journalists who reached celebrity status through repeated stellar performance could become exempt from ordinary danger, passing into a realm of immunity where the worst simply could not happen to them--as if North Vietnamese gunners tracking a helicopter would receive a last-second order: 'Don't shoot. That's Larry Burrows up there.'"
As summarized in the reviews of others, the primary focus of this book is on (1) the lives of Larry Burrows, Henri Huet, Kent Potter, and Keisaburo Shimamoto; and (2) the difficult search for the details of a crash that took place behind enemy lines (details which, for almost thirty years, were limited to little more than "helicopter shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, apparently killing all aboard"). Yet it's the tangent themes that I found the most affecting, perhaps none more than Pyle's search for meaning in the tragic loss of his colleagues and friends. These four civilian photographers went to Vietnam to share the images of war with the rest of the world, and it seems to double the tragedy "that the only monument to their commitment, their skill, and their courage should be a few bone shards and bits of metal, left out in the rain on a nameless, forgotten hillside." Five stars.

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Enemy Mine Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been eagerly awaiting the story of Kathy Trayhern. This is a great story. The chemistry between Kathy and Mac is great. The trust established between the two is well crafted. Both are heroic. Ms. McKenna's use of the symbol of the butterfly at the beginning of the book is continued throughout the book in the way that everything Kathy thinks changes. While Garcia is a drug lord and the scum of the earth, his saving grace is his love for his daughter. She realizes that two wrongs don't make a right. His father kidnapped her family so she would kidnap his daughter. She decides by the end of the book that she cannot inflict that kind of pain to the little girl. Kathy's relationship with all the minor characters is well written and often humorous.
This book contains romance, adventure, and great characters. All of the characters, heroes and villians are well developed and the technical knowledge is well stated. We also are treated to a viist from the Ladies of the Black Jaguar Squadron. One of the BJS scenes is hilarious. Lindsay McKenna has a real winner in Enemy Mine. It is a must have for her fans.

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A New York Times Bestselling AuthorMarine Black-Ops helicopter pilot Kathy Trayhern wanted one thing from the Garcia Drug Cartel. . . . Garcia had kidnapped and tortured her family. Now she would do the same to his - and wipe out his whole illegal jungle operation as well. But to get the job done, she'd have to enlist the help of a man she didn't even trust - and undercover agent Mac Coulter was no fool.Available only in Romance 8 & 12.

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The First Cav in Vietnam: Anatomy of a Division Review

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(More customer reviews)Stanton, who has been under an increasing cloud of late, is no rookie when it comes to military history in general or the history of the Vietnam War in particular. He begins by laying out his purpose for writing this work in his preface. He makes it clear that this will not be the ordinary divisional history where the author merely discusses every combat action of the division in the Vietnam War. Rather, Stanton intends this book as, ". . . a critical analysis of the mechanism and composition of the airmobile cavalry division." (ix) In order to accomplish his established goals, he devotes 5 chapters of this 12 chapter book to the conceptual and divisional evolution (Chapters 1-2), a study of the divisional structure (Chapter 10), an evaluation of the division's performance in Vietnam (Chapter 11), and the division's restructuring as an armor division in the early 1970s (Chapter 12). Stanton does not neglect to provide an overview of the division's operations, as the middle chapters (Chapters 3-9) are structured as a chronological examination of the division's operations in Vietnam.
Stanton is a solid writer who manages to both hold the reader's attention and make his points clearly and succinctly. 1st Cav in Vietnam is also well illustrated with both photographs (many of which are from the author's own collection) and, perhaps more importantly, maps. In addition, the author includes two useful appendices at the end of the book. The first appendix includes a list of the units which were assigned and attached to the division during its time in Vietnam. The second appendix details the divisional structure during the formation of the division. The author also includes a short bibliography of both the primary and secondary sources (which are of both a published and an unpublished nature) which were used in the writing of the work.

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They were the First Team, the most innovative development in warfare since the introduction of massed tank formations in World War II.

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The World At My Feet: The True And Sometimes Hilarious Adventures Of A Lady Airline Captain Review

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(More customer reviews)Having an relative involved in aviation, I thought this book might be interesting. However, even with my limited personal aviation experience, I found much of what the author writes unbelievable. The stories were simplistic and seemed to be based on the public's perception of flying instead of reality.

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High Flying Adventures!Not long ago, young women with mile-high dreams were limited to flying the skies only as passengers or flight attendants. But aviation has always progressed because of the dreams of its pioneers.Meryl Getline is one of those pioneers. She dreamed of being a pilot. She was never content to merely ride the plane—she wanted to fly it, too.Certain that she had the "right stuff," Meryl decided—at a time when there was little or no opportunity for women—that she was going to be a captain for a major airline.Facing monumental challenges and against near-impossible odds, Meryl succeeded at her goal. Now, you can join Meryl on her true life (and often hilarious) adventures, through exciting take-offs and smooth landings, to become one of the world's first female airline captains!Meryl's message: "Never, never, never, never give up!"

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Who Shot the Water Buffalo?: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Since its first public mention in the pages of Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (a type-written manuscript in a cardboard box "lying there amid all the general debris and madness" in the garage where the Merry Pranksters and Ken Kesey were working on the Furthur bus), the world has been waiting for Ken Babbs' debut novel.
Set in the early days of the Vietnam War - when the United States was there simply to, uh, "provide support" - "Who Shot The Water Buffalo?" combines humor, drama, and the sort of wordplay you'd expect from the Intrepid Traveler himself. Babbs knows of what he writes - he piloted choppers in Vietnam before he got on the bus - and it shows. The narration morphs and shifts as the weirdness of the situation increases for Majors Mike Huckelbee and Tom Cochran; Babbs navigates sweat-soaked stream-of-consciousness raps as easily as he does passages of gonzo slapstick.
It's been close to 50 years since Babbs starting typing "Who Shot The Water Buffalo?" out in the jungles of Vietnam. It was well worth the wait.

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Ken Babbs, famously a Merry Prankster and the best friend and working partner of Ken Kesey, has at last finished his first novel - and the wait was worth it. Lieutenant Tom Huckelbee, leathery as any Texican come crawling out of the sage, and Lieutenant Mike Cochran, loquacious son of an Ohio gangster, make an unlikely pair training to be Marine chopper pilots on their way to Vietnam. The dynamic takes the reader from a couple of know-nothing young men straight out of flight school, to Marine aviators caught in the middle of a disorienting war. Tough and comical, quiet and boisterous, and always vivid and poetic, Babbs is a writer at the top of his craft. Who Shot the Water Buffalo? manages to capture the world in all its guts and glory through the eyes of a young man discovering what it means to be beholden to another. A book not to be missed.

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