RAF: The Birth of the World's First Air Force

“Packed with drama, both military and political.… It will surely prove definitive.” ―Lewis Jones, Daily Telegraph

This compact, masterful work by an outstanding historian marks a pivotal moment in military history: the birth of Britain’s Royal Air Force. Writing with great clarity, Richard Overy shows how the RAF emerged from the deadly stalemate of trench warfare during World War I. With German bombers attacking British cities by 1917, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his minister of munitions, Winston Churchill, navigated the organizational breakthrough that made the RAF an independent force in spring 1918. The RAF would prove highly influential in the development of air power around the world.

Richard Overy is the author of many outstanding histories of World War II, including Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan. His study of Hitler and Stalin, The Dictators, won the Wolfson History Prize. He lives in England and Italy.