By now everyone would be familiar with the “Bloody Shambles” style of air war books authored by Chris Shore. The latest volume in the Mediterranean Air War Series, Volume 3 (1940-1945)is now currently on sale. The book has been co-authored with Giovanni Massimello.
The third volume in this series returns to November 1942 to explain the background to the first major Anglo-American venture Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. It deals with the fratricidal combats which followed the initial landings in Morocco and Algeria for several days. It then considers the efforts made unsuccessfully in the event to reach northern Tunisia before the Germans and Italians could get there to forestall the possibility of an attack from the west on the rear of the Afrika Korps forces, then beginning their retreat from El Alamein. The six months of hard fighting which followed as the Allies built up the strength of their joint air forces and gradually wrested control of the skies from the Axis, are covered in detail. Then from 1 April 1943 the continuing story of the Western Desert Air Force is told from the point at which Volume 2 ended, as it advanced from the east to join hands with the units in the west. Now also described are the arrivals over the front of American pilots and crew, the P-38 Lightning, the Spitfire IX and the B-17 Flying Fortress and of the much-feared Focke Wulf FW 190. The aerial activities over Tunisia became one of the focal turning points of World War II, yet this is frequently overlooked by historians.
- Hardcover: 736 pages
- Publisher: Grub Street Publishing (13 July 2016)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1910690007
- ISBN-13: 978-1910690000
- Product Dimensions: 15.9 x 24.1 x 24.1 cm