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
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
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'
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