The Development of British Tactical Air Power, 1940-1943

This book explores the development of tactical air power in Britain between 1940 and 1943 through a study of the Royal Air Force’s Army Co-operation Command. It charts the work done by the Command during its existence, and highlights the arguments between the RAF and Army on this contentious issue in Britain. Much is known about the RAF both in the years preceding and during the Second World War, particularly the exploits of Fighter, Bomber and Coastal Commands, yet the existence of the RAF’s Army Co-operation Command is little-known. Through extensive archival research, Matthew Powell maps the creation and work of the RAF’s Army Co-operation Command through an analysis of tactical air power developments during the First World War and inter-war periods, highlighting the debates and arguments that took place between the Air Ministry and the War Office.

• Second World War
• Royal Air Force
• History of conflict
• Air Ministry
• War Office

“The author’s astute handling of relevant primary sources and secondary scholarship makes his book a welcome resource for students and scholars of modern warfare, combined-arms operations, and air power. … The Development of British Tactical Air Power is a small brick in the wall of military history, but a solid one.” (Carl Cavanagh Hodge, Michigan War Studies Review, miwsr.com, June 19, 2020)

• Gwent, United Kingdom

  Matthew Powell

Matthew Powell is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has published on Army Co-operation Command in Canadian Military History, Air Power Review and the British Journal for Military History.

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