About the Author

Robert S. Ehlers, Jr., professor of security studies at Angelo State University (San Angelo, Texas, USA), is a retired colonel in the United States Air Force. He is the author of Targeting the Third Reich: Air Intelligence and the Allied Bombing Campaigns, also from Kansas, winner of the Air Force Historical Foundation’s “Best Airpower History Book” award.

Reviews

"A major contribution to the historiography of the Second World War. The book showcases how 'the devil is in the details.' Highly recommended."--Global War Studies"[Ehlers] gives the reader a good mix of the strategic, operational, and at times even tactical aspects of the campaign, taking pains to include the often complex logistical side and fitting the vents within the framework of a global coalition war."--New York Military Affairs Symposium"An innovative and important book that adds considerably to our understanding of the role of the Mediterranean theater to Allied victory in Europe and World War II."--U.S. Military History Review"The analysis is not limited to the strategic level; it also examines the operational and tactical levels and how the successes and failures of Allied airpower in the Mediterranean theater were critical in establishing the foundation for combined-arms tactics."--Military Review"Ehlers wields a sharp pen, sparing neither side from criticism. . . . A well-documented, detailed study of a heretofore neglected topic in a neglected theater."--Journal of Military History"This book is a very valuable addition to the history of the war in the Mediterranean and, more generally, to the overall history of World War II. One of Ehlers's great strengths is his ability to write not just about the Mediterranean, but also about the innumerable connections between the Mediterranean and other theaters of the war."--H-Net Reviews"Robert S. Ehlers Jr., is a rising star in the field of airpower history. . . . Most of the Axis' difficulties resulted from poor strategic choices, a primary focus for Ehlers and a fine analytical structure around which to organize each chapter."--Military History Quarterly

"Robert S. Ehlers has given us another important study of an underappreciated topic. His examination of air power in the Mediterranean theater in the Second World War is far more than a study of aviation in war: it is an analysis of the development and implementation of combined arms warfare, and the leverage it affords when done properly. The book is brimming with insights about command, control, leadership--indeed all the challenges posed by inter-operating military instruments in a theater of war. These insights are just as useful for contemporary practitioners and defense analysts as they are for students of history."--Tami Davis Biddle, author of Rhetoric and Reality in the Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 and Chair of Aerospace Studies, U.S. Army War College"Robert Ehlers has assembled a perceptive, skillful, and comprehensive account of the air dimension of World War II's pivotal Mediterranean campaign."--Douglas Porch, author of The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II