Title Graphic

ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939–1945

VOLUME I

 THE FIGHT AT ODDS

By Dennis Richards

LONDON 1953
HMSO


CONTENTS



Page
Preface
ix
Prologue: The Awakening 1
Chapter I The 'Dreadful Note of Preparation' 11
Chapter II La Drôle de Guerre: Bomber Command 38
Chapter III La Drôle de Guerre: Fighter and Coastal Commands. Training
55
Chapter IV Scandinavian Misadventure 75
Chapter V Collapse in the West 107
Chapter VI The Battle of Britain 151
Chapter VII 'The Blitz' 198
Chapter VIII German Blockade, British Bombing 219
Chapter IX 'Middle East': The Opening Rounds 241
Chapter X 'Middle East': The Loss of Cyrenaica and Greece 281
Chapter XI 'Middle East': Iraq, Crete and Syria 310
Chapter XII The Struggle at Sea: the First Battle of the Convoy Routes, the Anti-Shipping Offensive, and the Escape of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau 343
Chapter XIII Towards the Offensive 376

APPENDICES


page
I. Members of the Air Council, 1934–1941 401
II. Air Officers Commanding-in-Chief, 1936–1941 404
III. Royal Air Force Command Organization, September 1939 406
IV. Royal Air Force Command Organization, January 1941 408
V. First-Line Aircraft of the British, German and Italian Air Force, September 1938, September 1939 and August 1940 410
VI. Principal Operational Aircraft of the Royal Air Force, 1939–1941 411
VII. Principal Operational Aircraft of the German Air Force, 1939–1941 413
VIII. Principal Operational Aircraft of the Italian Air Force, 1939–1941 414
IX. Royal Air Force Middle East, Subordinate Commands, 1940–1941 415
X. Order of Battle, Fighter Command, August 1940 416
XI. Glossary of Code Names and Abbreviations 417
INDEX 421

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS


facing page
The Battle of the Atlantic (I), 3 September 1939–May 1940
60
The Norwegian Campaign, 1940 86
The German Assault in the West, May–June 1940 116
Radar Cover, September 1939 and September 1940 152
The Air Defences of England and Wales, August 1940 164
The Main German Attacks, 15 August 1940 168
Production and Wastage of Spitfires and Hurricanes, July–October 1940 190
The Battle of the Atlantic (II), June 1940–Mid-March 1941 220
Action of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, 20 May–1 June 1941 228
Principal Targets Attacked by Bomber Command, 3 September 1939–31 December 1941 236
The Mediterranean 245
Aircraft Reinforcement Routes to the Middle East, 1941 248
Cyrenaica and the Western Desert, December 1940–April 1941 283
The German Invasion of Greece, April 1941 297
The Capture of Italian East Africa, January–April 1941 309
Habbaniya and Felluja, 30 April–19 May 1941 324
Crete, May 1941 331
Syria and Iraq, May–July 1941 341
The Battle of the Atlantic (III), Mid-March–December 1941 348
Coastal Command Group Boundaries 357
The Escape of the Brest Group to Germany, 11–13 February 1942 372


PLATES


Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall
frontispiece
Bomber Airfield at Dusk between pages 76–7
Hurriances on Patrol
The Altmark Spotted
Seven Years Afterwards
Dunkirk between pages 156–7
Some of the Few
Aircraft Cemetry
Night Fighters—the Top-Scoring Team [a] [b] between pages 204–5
St. Clement Danes, 10th May 1941
Malta
Gladiators over the Western Desert between pages 268–9
Wellesley over Italian East Africa
Tobruk, January 1941
Wrecked Italian Aircraft at El Adem
The U-Boat which Surrendered to an Aircraft between pages 364–5
Shipping 'Strike'


Transcribed and formatted for HTML by David Newton, HyperWar Foundation

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