66 AH JULY 2018
REvIEWS
CROWN COPYRIGHTRAF EMISSARIES The Red
Arrows display team flies their
BAe Hawk T1 trainers in 2014
during their 50th season.> The RAF grew out of a
proposal in August 1917
from Jan Christiaan Smuts,
a South African member
of the British Imperial War
Cabinet, to combine the
Royal Flying Corps and
Royal Naval Air Service.
These were merged into the
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military air arm on April
1, 1918, amid the last great/MZUIVWٺMV[Q^MWN?WZTL
War I.
Familiar and unfamiliar
aircraft dominate the pages.
For example, the ubiqui-
tous Airco DH.4 two-seat
bomber shares pages with
the lesser-known Blackburn
Kangaroo, one of the world’s
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bombers. Postwar coverage
highlights the RAF’s roleQVÅOP\QVOIOIQV[\:][[QIV
revolutionaries in 1919 and
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empire’s long-held colonies
in Asia and Africa.
For World War II, the
familiar battles of Britain and
Malta, as well as the strategic
bombing campaign against
the Third Reich and all-out
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Afrika Korps, naturally takecenter stage. But the author
also discusses lesser-known
RAF air operations and
British use of American
imports such as the Brewster
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C-47 (known in the RAF as
the Dakota), again bolstered
by rare photos.
The chronology continues
through the Cold War and
ensuing decades to the turn
of the century and the unex-
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stan and Iraq. The 100-year
history beautifully chronicled
in The Royal Air ForceLMÅM[
the scope of this review. I
highly recommend it.
Peter MerskyTHE ROYAL AIR FORCE
A Centenary of Operations
by Michael Napier, Osprey Publishing, 2018, $40.7[XZMaQ[ÅZ[\W]\WN\PMKPWKS[\WKMTMJZI\M
the Royal Air Force centennial with this
ÅVMKWTTMK\QWVWNQUIOM[IVLKWUUMV\IZa
A large, well-designed book with excellent
black-and-white and period color photogra-
phy, it is one of the best values I have seen in
today’s aviation publishing marketplace. >