Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat

391 Pages·2006·1.68 MB·English

by  Robin Higham

Why Air Forces Fail
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Why
Air Forces
Fail
THE ANATOMY OF DEFEAT
Edited by Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Publication of this volume was made possible in part by
a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Copyright © 2006 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
10 09 08 07 06 5 4 3 2 1
All photographs, unless otherwise noted, are from the authors’ collections.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Why air forces fail : the anatomy of defeat / edited by Robin Higham and
Stephen J. Harris.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-2374-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8131-2374-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Air forces—History—20th century. 2. Aeronautics, Military—
History—20th century. 3. Military history, Modern—20th century.
I. Higham, Robin D. S. II. Harris, Stephen John.
UG625.W59 2006
359.4'8—dc22 2005030640
This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting
the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Member of the Association of
American University Presses
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Robin Higham
1. Poland’s Military Aviation, September 1939: It Never Had a
Chance 13
Michael Alfred Peszke
2. L’Armée de l’Air, 1933–1940: Drifting toward Defeat 41
Anthony Christopher Cain
3. The Arab Air Forces 71
Robin Higham
4. Defeat of the German and Austro-Hungarian Air Forces in the
Great War, 1909–1918 99
John H. Morrow Jr.
5. Downfall of the Regia Aeronautica, 1933–1943 135
Brian R. Sullivan
6. The Imperial Japanese Air Forces 177
Osamu Tagaya
7. Defeat of the Luftwaffe, 1935–1945 203
James S. Corum
8. The Argentine Air Force versus Britain in the Falkland Islands,
1982 227
René De La Pedraja
9. From Disaster to Recovery: Russia’s Air Forces in the Two World
Wars 261
David R. Jones
10. The United States in the Pacific 287
Mark Parillo
11. Defeats of the Royal Air Force: Norway, France, Greece, and
Malaya, 1940–1942 315
Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris
Conclusion 341
Stephen J. Harris and Robin Higham
List of Contributors 357
Index 361
Illustrations follow pages 70 and 226
Acknowledgments
The editors wish to thank Marolyn Caldwell for her role in
communicating with the authors and editors and in producing the
final manuscript and Dr. Michael Lambert for the computer graphics.
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Introduction
Robin Higham
Rather than being an exhaustive effort to examine the fall or defeat of
every air force, this is a limited study in which we asked experts in the
field to examine archetypal examples from which worthwhile conclu-
sions could be drawn. This means, of course, that we had some ideas
about what contributed to such failures before any of the authors put
pen to paper. Admittedly, the notions of “defeat” and “fall” are applied
very loosely here, and some might suggest that it would have been more
useful to address the reasons why air forces failed to accomplish what
their national command authorities asked them to do. Colleagues who
were not involved in the project proffered many of their own generic
causes for defeat (and victory) in air battles, campaigns, and wars. The
ease with which such a priori conclusions were drawn led us to doubt
the validity of our project more than once: if things were that clear,
what could this book add to anyone’s understanding? For example, given
the importance of technology, it is intuitive that, other things being
equal, the technically more advanced—more modern—air force should
beat the less advanced opponent almost every time, provided its per-
sonnel can sustain the effort. But it is the nuances of those qualifiers—
“other things being equal,” “should,” “almost every time,” “provided”
—that our authors address.
Defeats of air forces are both comparable and contrastable, and
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