About the Author

Richard P. Hallion retired as Senior Advisor for Air and Space Issues, Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence and Special Programs Oversight at the Pentagon. Among other works he is also the author of The Naval Air War in Korea, Rise of the Fighter Aircraft, 1914-1918, and Legacy of Flight: The Guggenheim Contribution to American Aviation. Air Vice-Marshal R. A. Mason, RAF, CBE, was air secretary and director general of Personnel Management for the Royal Air Force Ministry of Defence and coauthor of Air Power in the Nuclear Age and The Soviet Air Forces.

Reviews

"Strike from the Sky chronicles the history of battlefield air attack from 1911, when the airplane was first used in war, to the end of World War II. . . . [Hallion's work} is a very useful study of the role of aircraft in battlefield support operations in major and limited wars in the first half of the 20th century. The author's discussion of the doctrine, command and control, operational circumstances, and aircraft technology of battlefield air operations traces the development of this crucial but often-neglected aspect of air power. The importance of these operations in the first and second world wars and in smaller conflicts of the interwar era, including the Russo-Polish War, British colonial operations, the American intervention in Nicaragua, the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, and the Spanish Civil War becomes evident in Hallion's fast-paced narrative." --Technology and Culture