Architects of Air Power (Epic of Flight)

Architects of Air Power is a Time-Life aviation book included in the Epic of Flight series. By the late 1930s air power had dramatically altered the strategic balance in Europe. The seeds of this new order had been sown in WWI. A few farsighted men – notably British Chief of Air Staff Hugh Trenchard, “Billy” Mitchell of the U.S. Army’s Air Service and Italian Army colonel Giulio Douhet – insisted that an air force could undertake independent offensive action in war. The flying machines of their day were primitive and could carry only a handful of bombs but these architects of air power foresaw that in an era of total warfare, civilians as well a soldiers would become targets of aerial attacks aimed at crushing their will to resist.