In the First World War many battles on the Western Front had lasted weeks or months. All too often they degenerated into glacial and indecisive campaigns of attrition. By the 1930s, however, military science had recreated the possibility of a decisive battle. An unprecedented rate of technological change meant that a stream of new inventions were readily at hand for military innovators to exploit. Aircraft, armoured vehicles and new forms of motorised transport became available to make possible a fresh style of offensive warfare when the next European war began in 1939. A belief in the importance of effective war fighting was vital to the Nazi vision of Germany's future. Nazi Germany's political and military leaders aimed for rapid and decisive victory in battle. From 1939-45 new ideologies and new machines of war carried destruction across the globe. Alan Warren chronicles the sixteen most decisive battles of the Second World War, from the Blitzkrieg of Poland to the fall of Berlin.

This book examines and analyses the relationship between the RAF, the Free French Movement and the French fighter pilots in WWII. A highly significant subject, this has been ignored by academics on both sides of the Channel. This ground-breaking study will fill a significant gap in the historiography of the War. Bennett's painstaking research has unearthed primary source material in both Britain and France including Squadron records, diaries, oral histories and memoirs. In the post-war period the idea of French pilots serving with the RAF seemed anachronistic to both sides. For the French nation the desire to draw a veil over the war years helped to obscure many aspects of the past, and for the British the idea of French pilots did not accord with the myths of "the Few" to whom so much was owed. Those French pilots who served had to make daring escapes. Classed as deserters they risked court martial and execution if caught. They would play a vital role on D-Day and the battle for control of the skies which followed.

Ian Gooderson presents a study of close air support in World War II, with the analysis focusing on the use of tactical air power by British and American forces during the campaigns in Italy and northwestern Europe between 1943 and 1945.

Official history is a misunderstood genre of historical writing, which attracts much negative comment from (non-official) historians but about which very little detail is actually known. This book examines the development of official history programs in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand over the course of the twentieth century, looking at the ways in which they developed and the contributions each made to their respective national historiography. The second part of the work develops some themes from the first and takes the official histories of the Second World War as case studies. Drawing on programs in Australia, Britain, and the United States, these essays examine the relationship between the histories, the historians, and their sponsoring institutions. They assess the impact of the histories on historical understanding of the Second World War. They also consider the impact that contemporary events during the Cold War had on the writing of the official history.

The consolidated PBY Catalina was probably the most versatile and successful flying boat/amphibian ever built, serving not just with the US Army, Navy and Coast Guard during the Second World War, but also with the air forces of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with the Danes, Free French and Norwegians as well as in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia and elsewhere. With a remarkable lifting capacity and endurance, this long-range twin-engine aircraft could absorb a great deal of punishment and still return home after flights lasting an entire day and covering thousands of miles. It was employed as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft, as a bomber and torpedo-bomber, as an anti submarine weapon, as a mine layer, as a special operations machine and as a search-and-rescue craft by day and night. It ferried stores, mail and people - many of them sick and injured - across the world's oceans. In this book Andrew Hendrie tells the story of the "Flying Cats", of their achievements and exploits, of the heroism of many of the crews and the problems they had to endure.