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In next year’s Air Campaign list, the World War II European theatre is well represented with new books on the 1944 Transportation Plan, the 1940 battle for France, and Operation Steinbock, while Pacific War titles include studies of Seventh Air Force’s island-hopping campaign and the first of two books on the New Guinea air war. William Hiestand’s tour of Eastern Front air campaigns takes us to Kursk, and modern airpower is not left out, with a new book on the carrier campaign in the Falklands.
However, my favourite this year is The Hump 1942–45, which promises to be a fascinating look at the tough, pioneering airlift over the Himalayas.
ACM 51 South Atlantic 1982: The carrier campaign in the Falklands War
By Angus Konstam
Illustrated by Edouard A. Groult
16/01/2025
A detailed account of the war-winning role that a handful of Harrier squadrons played in the Falklands War.
On 5 April 1982, the British aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible sailed for the South Atlantic at the heart of the task force to retake the Falkland Islands. With just 42 Harriers available, they were outnumbered three-to-one by Argentina’s fighters. For both Britain and Argentina, victory in the war would hinge on the survival or destruction of Hermes and Invincible. The stage was set for the only carrier battle of the jet era.
In this book, Angus Konstam offers a focused history of naval aviation in the Falklands War, exploring the capabilities, technology, and roles performed by the aircraft on both sides, and how the campaign was fought. As well as the air battle over the British fleet, he looks at the ground-attack, close air support, and other missions performed by the Harriers, and the actions of the handful of Argentinian aircraft based on the Falklands.
Illustrated throughout with spectacular new artwork, 3D diagrams and maps, this book presents a new history of how air power lay at the heart of the Falklands campaign.
ACM 52 Operation Steinbock 1944: The Luftwaffe's disastrous last Blitz over England
By Chris Goss
Illustrated by Adam Tooby
27/03/2025
The story of Germany's disastrous last cross-Channel Blitz in early 1944, which left the Luftwaffe devastated and barely able to oppose the D-Day landings.
Operation Steinbock, or as it became known, the ‘Baby Blitz’ was the Luftwaffe’s last sustained night bomber offensive against the United Kingdom. In this book, renowned Luftwaffe historian Chris Goss explains how and why the Luftwaffe's last cross-Channel campaign was such a contrast to the Battle of Britain and subsequent Blitz of 1940–41. In 1944, the Luftwaffe’s under-trained, hard-pressed, and inexperienced bomber crews were out-thought and out-fought by their opponents, who combined the latest ground-controlled radar with powerful new night fighters and advanced anti-aircraft defences, including radar-assisted guns and even anti-aircraft rockets.
This book tells the story of Operation Steinbock and its crucial consequences. The Germans' last air campaign over England ended in late May 1944, with the Luftwaffe having lost hundreds of much-needed aircraft and crews. Just days later, the Allies stormed ashore across the beaches of Normandy, and the Luftwaffe could do little to stop them.
ACM 53 France 1940: The first great clash of World War II airpower
By James S. Corum
Illustrated by Graham Turner
24/04/2025
A renowned airpower expert's history of the air campaign in France 1940, offering a rigorous new analysis of why the Luftwaffe was so effective against the French and British.
The battle for France and Belgium was one of the most significant moments in modern warfare: the first great clash of major powers where both sides possessed large and capable air forces, and modern combined-arms doctrine. It was in the air that the Germans had a notable advantage in both numbers and quality. But this does not fully explain the victory of the Luftwaffe over the RAF and the French Air Force in 1940.
In this book, renowned airpower scholar James S. Corum offers an operational-level history of the air campaign, and explains comprehensively and concisely how the campaign was fought, and why the Luftwaffe made such superior use of their airpower. He overturns myths – such as that the Luftwaffe served merely as ‘flying artillery’ – and explores aspects of the campaign often overlooked, such as the British use of mobile radar and the effectiveness of Fighter Command, the Luftwaffe’s surprising use of strategic bombing; and how impressively the Germans used their flak forces.
Researched from French, British, and German primary sources, this book distils the author’s decades of scholarship into an essential guide to airpower in the fall of France.
ACM 54 Normandy 1944: The 'Transportation Plan' to cut D-Day communications
By Julian Hale
Illustrated by Graham Turner
19/06/2025
Packed with illustrations, this is the first book to focus on the ‘Transportation Plan’, the air campaign to isolate the D-Day beaches from German reinforcements.
As the invasion of Europe grew closer, thought was given to how to use the Allies' substantial forces of heavy bombers in preparation. After much controversy, the plan eventually adopted was the ‘Transportation Plan’, in which the railway and road networks of France (and hence the German logistical chain) were targeted in order to slow German reinforcements to the Normandy beachhead both before and during the Allied invasion.
In this book, the first to focus on the Transportation Plan, aviation researcher Julian Hale draws on new archive research to explain how this crucial, dangerous and often spectacular campaign was fought. Running from April to July 1944, it would eventually involve heavy and medium bombers of both the RAF and USAAF, with a starring role for the fighter-bombers of the Ninth Air Force. Early attacks by strategic bombers on the French rail nodes were at best only partially successful. In mid-May, the decision was taken to attack bridges and road and rail traffic intensively using fighter-bombers, mainly drawn from the US Ninth.
Packed with carefully chosen photos, spectacular battlescene artwork and explanatory maps and 3D diagrams, this is the story of how Allied airpower paved the way for D-Day.
ACM 55 Kursk 1943: Airpower in the Eastern Front's most pivotal battle
By William E. Hiestand
Illustrated by Graham Turner
28/08/2025
A history and analysis of the fierce air war over the Kursk battlefield, where the Soviet air forces for the first time fought the all-conquering Luftwaffe to a standstill.
The battle of Kursk was the last opportunity for the Luftwaffe to fully support a large-scale offensive, and was the Soviet air forces’ first success in battling their opponents to a standstill during summer months. Aiming to gain a success to stabilize the Eastern Front for the summer, Hitler ordered a concerted attack intended to cut off and destroy Red Army forces holding the Kursk salient. The Axis and Soviets deployed thousands of armoured fighting vehicles, and huge clashes took place among the minefields and trenches to the north and south of the salient.
In this book William E. Hiestand explains how the complex air war over Kursk played out. Massive engagements took place above the clashes of armor, with both sides deploying for the first time masses of aircraft specifically designed for destroying tanks and other ground targets. It was a struggle to attain air superiority, while bringing their Stukas, Hs 129s, and Il-2 Shturmoviks down for repeated low-level attack runs in the face of enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire. But the campaign also involved strategic bombing behind the front lines, attacking airfields and rail junctions.
Offering a day-by-day examination of the air forces’ actions, this book reveals the scale and intensity of the combat over the Kursk salient, the great turning point on the Eastern Front.
ACM 56 New Guinea 1942–43: Halting the last Japanese advance
By Mark Stille & John Rogers
Illustrated by Jim Laurier
25/09/2025
Airpower played a major role in the New Guinea campaign. Lavishly illustrated, this book is a study of the first half of the campaign, as the Allies checked and halted Japan's last significant offensives.
In this book, Mark Stille and John Rogers offer a new history of a previously neglected part of the South Pacific air war – the battles over New Guinea and the waters around it. The first of two books on the subject, drawing on Japanese, American and Australian sources, it details operations from March 1942 until May 1943, which saw the Allies check the last Japanese efforts to expand their faltering empire.
Allied air operations focused on denying the Japanese the use of the sea to send reinforcements to New Guinea, during the battles for Buna and Gona, the unsuccessful and little-known Japanese invasion at Milne Bay, and the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in which a major Japanese effort to move troops to New Guinea was crushed by air power. While the Japanese had over-extended and lost operational focus, the Allies were successful in interdicting sea movement of Japanese forces to New Guinea. However, immature tactics meant air power was largely ineffective in supporting their ground campaign.
Packed with photos, superb original battlescenes, 3D diagrams and maps, this book explains the roles of Japanese and Allied air power in the crucial battle of New Guinea.
ACM 57 Central Pacific 1943–45: Seventh Air Force's island-hopping war
By Brian Lane Herder
Illustrated by Gareth Hector
23/10/2025
The little-known history of the Hawaii-based Seventh Air Force's role in the Pacific War, as it fought in all the major island campaigns from the Gilbert and Marshall islands to the Marianas, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
The US Seventh Air Force was originally known as the Hawaiian Air Force (aka “Pineapple Air Force”). Rebuilt after being shattered at Pearl Harbor, the USAAF assigned it responsibility for the new Central Pacific Area, which (except for Midway) was then very quiet. But when the US Navy began its Central Pacific counteroffensive in late 1943, the Seventh Air Force automatically became the USAAF's contribution to the theatre.
In this book, US military historian Brian Lane Herder details Seventh Air Force’s role in the Pacific, an air war long overshadowed by the US Navy’s carrier campaign and Twentieth Air Force’s B-29s Superfortresses. He explains how Seventh Air Force participated heavily in all the major 1943–45 Central Pacific island campaigns: as each island fell, and sometimes with the newly captured airfield still under Japanese fire, a Seventh Air Force detachment flew ashore to provide organic air defense and to start bombing the surrounding Japanese-held islands. Seventh Air Force provided a major part of the air support and fighter defence during the Iwo Jima and Okinawa battles, and as the end of the war approached, its P-51s and P-47s then flew ultra-long-range escort duties for B-29s bombing Japan. They finished the war flying low-level raids against the Home Islands.
Researched almost entirely from primary sources such as mission reports, the official US Air Force history, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, and oral histories, this is a long-overdue account of Seventh Air Force's unjustly overlooked Pacific War campaign.
ACM 58 The Hump 1942–45: America's first massive military airlift
By Mark Lardas
Illustrated by Graham Turner
18/12/2025
A comprehensively illustrated history and analysis of “The Hump” campaign, the huge and treacherous airlift to keep China fighting in World War II.
In World War II, the war in China tied down much of the Japanese Army, and it was crucial to keep China fighting and supplied. But when the Burma Road fell, the only way left was by air, in piston-engined transports, over the Himalayas from India. As Japan captured new bases and stationed fighters to intercept, the possible routes over “The Hump” became increasingly treacherous.
In this book, aviation historian Mark Lardas explains how the campaign was fought. The effort started with only 25 transports and its original organization was ad hoc, made up of CNAC DC-2 and DC-3 airliners and a handful of Army Air Force C-53s (the civilian version of the DC-3, drafted into AAF service). Over the next 40 months it grew into a vast air armada. New airfields were built in India and China. Navigation aids were added. Ground crew and aircraft multiplied. By July 1945 it had grown to a force of 640 aircraft, including over 200 four-engined transports. By war’s end it had lugged nearly 700,000 tons of cargo into China. The India-China Wing of the Air Traffic Command earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its efforts, the first ever awarded to a non-combat unit.
The cost was high. 594 aircraft were lost, with over 1,300 airmen killed, 345 missing in action, and 1,200 downed, but able to walk out of the jungle and mountains to safety. Yet the rewards were almost as high. China remained in the war, despite several Japanese efforts to negotiate a separate peace. Perhaps even more importantly, the campaign taught the US military how to conduct strategic airlifts, lessons which were soon applied to the Berlin Airlift of 1948–49, and which would be vital to Cold War operations and planning.
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