Keywords
Citation
(2002), "The Fleet Air Arm Handbook 1939-45", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 74 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2002.12774bae.006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited
The Fleet Air Arm Handbook 1939-45
David Wragg
Keywords: Aircraft, War
This book is thought to be the only complete review available of the Royal Navy's air power during the war years. Extensively illustrated with 150 photographs and drawings. Detailed appendices of aircraft, ships, squadrons and shore stations of the expanded wartime Fleet Air Arm during the war. This exhaustive study of the Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War is said to be the only single- source reference currently available on 'The Navy's Air Force'. Starting with a brief history of British naval aviation before the Second World War, the Fleet Air Arm Handbook 1939–1945 includes a full war diary of all of the major operations, the carriers and aircraft, and the amazing crews involved. Personal accounts give an insight into what it was like to work as part of the Fleet Air Arm during the war, and a glimpse of their characters.
Many airmen were trained by the US Navy to accelerate the Fleet Air Arm's expansion; other costs were cut by building the much-needed carriers to merchant shipping standards so that additional shipyards could be used. But these light carriers were to become a success; and the rapid expansion of the Fleet Air Arm was one of the major achievements of the war. During this time the aircraft carrier eclipsed the battleship, and sea power came to mean little without the support of effective organic air power.
David Wragg provides answers to all the questions that wartime naval enthusiasts will want to ask. How did the carrier force fit in with the rest of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines? What was the relationship really like between aircrew and their shipmates aboard the RN carriers? The book ends with a review of the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovil.
David Wragg is the author of fourteen books on aviation history, including Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory, Carrier Combat and Bombers. A former journalist specialising in transport and defence, he has written for The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator.
Details available from: Sutton Publishing Ltd. Tel: +44 (0) 1453 731114; Fax: +44 (0) 731117.