Aerial Warfare The Battle For The Skies Frank Ledwidge Full Chapter

Aerial Warfare: The Battle for the Skies
Frank Ledwidge
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AERIAL WARFARE
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P R A IS E F O R A E R I A L W A R F A R E
‘Arguments surrounding the role of air power alongside land and sea
power have raged for a century. The rise of digital networks and putative
cyber power adds a new and urgent dimension. Ledwidge writes with
compelling good judgment, a stylish energy, and panache.’
David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern
World, King’s College London
‘Frank Ledwidge’s short and concise Aerial Warfare ties strategy, tactics,
and technology neatly together. It is a first-rate survey of the evolution,
impact, and relevance of air power: past, present and future. Highly
recommended.’
Colonel John Andreas Olsen, PhD., Royal Norwegian Air Force
‘A concise and up-to-date account of the evolution of air power and its
various roles over time that is insightful and comprehensive. “Aerial Warfare”
will appeal to anybody interested in contemporary strategic studies.’
Bettina Renz, Associate Professor in
International Security, University of Nottingham
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3
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
List of Illustrations ix
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xi
 Foundations 
 Beginnings: The First World War – 
 Theory and Practice: The Interwar Years – 
 The Second World War: Air Operations in the West 
 The Second World War: The Air War in the Pacific 
 Cold War – 
 The Apotheosis of Air Power – 
 Aerostats to Algorithms – 
 Per Ardua ad Astra? 
References 
Further Reading 
Index 
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over the course of researching and writing this book many

people with great knowledge of air power and its history have
given vital help. It is always difficult to do justice to everyone, but
here goes.
My colleagues at RAF Cranwell have been superb, sharing their
academic and operational knowledge. Dr Andrew Conway, Wing
Commander (retd) Mal Craghill, Group Captain (retd) Chris Finn,
Carl Hartford, Dr Ben Jones, Dr Peter Lee, Sqn Ldr Aggi Morrison,
Dr Steven Paget, Dr Matthew Powell, and Maj. Rob Spalton were
good enough to read all or part of the text and make corrections
or suggestions, as was Dr Eitan Shamir of the Begin-Sadat Center
in Israel. I’d also like to thank the superb library staff at Cranwell
for their kindness, refuge, and good advice. Dr Ed Burke and
Dr Bettina Renz at Nottingham and Dr Vladimir Rauta at Stafford-
shire were extremely helpful and kind. Colonel John Andreas
Olsen, the doyen of air-power scholarship was characteristically
extremely helpful and encouraging.
Shashank Joshak and Justin Bronk, two of the Royal United
Services Institute’s leading commentators and experts looked over
a section each, something beyond the call of duty and I am very
grateful.
I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for Oxford
University Press and also the book’s patient editor Jenny Nugee,
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viii Acknowledgements
the production team led by Clement Raj, copy-editor Brian North,

and proofreader Rebecca Bryant. Everything they suggested was
constructive and helpful and has made this a far better book.
Where there are errors, they are mine.
I must also mention the RAF officers and officer cadets at
Cranwell, the home of the Royal Air Force. I have learned a very
great deal from them over the years and I have tried to incorpor-
ate some of that in this book. Their expertise has ranged from the
complexities of layered air defences during the Cold War to how
hand-held drones assist in contemporary combat.
The help and advice of all these remarkable people was invalu-
able; where mistakes have been made it is because I have ignored
that advice.
Finally, my family—Nevi and James—have endured many
evenings when I grumpily told them ‘don’t you know I’ve a
book to write?’ Enough of that for now!
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
 ‘L’Entreprenant’ at the Battle of Fleurus  

Wikimedia Commons
 An Italian aircraft dives on Turkish troops 
© Alfredo Dagli Orti/REX/Shutterstock
 Reconnaissance photograph of the village of Allaines 
Chronicle/Alamy Stock Photo
 Gotha VII Bomber 
Imperial War Museums (Q )
 Giulio Douhet 
© Tallandier/Bridgeman Images
 ‘Young people, take to the air!’ 
Courtesy of sovietart.me
 Supermarine Spitfire Mark II and Hawker Hurricane Mark I 
Ministry of Defence (Open Government Licence v.)
 ‘Guernica’ by Picasso 
© Succession Picasso/DACS, London . Photo © Fine Art
Images/age fotostock
 The Luftwaffe’s ‘Operational Air War’ in action 
Bundesarchiv, Bild I---. Photo: Richard Opitz
 Flight of P- Mustang fighters 
© PhotoQuest/Getty Images
 WW in the Pacific took place over vast distances 
Frank Ledwidge
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x List of Illustrations
 The USS Essex 

National Archives photo no. -G-
 The world’s first nuclear attack 
National Archives photo no. 
 The Russian Tupolev Tu strategic bomber 
© Sebastian Sowa
 Algeria  
© Reporters Associés/Getty Images
 Soviet-supplied SA- anti-aircraft missile 
© Hulton Archive/Getty Images
 Royal Navy Sea Harrier 
© Trustees of the National Museum of the Royal Navy
 The OODA Loop 
 Warden’s Rings 
Adapted from J. Warden, , The Air Campaign: Planning
for Combat
 The F- Stealth fighter 
US Air Force
 A Norwegian C- 
© Antoine Gyori/Corbis/Getty Images
 Back to the future 
US Army Photo
 A Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter next to a BAE
Taranis drone 
Courtesy of BAE Systems
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
As with most military topics, air power is replete with acronyms

and abbreviations. The following are used in this book:
AAR air-to-air refuelling
ABM Aerospace Battle Management
ACTS Air Corps Tactical School
AEW airborne early warning
AWACS airborne [early] warning and control system
C command and control
C command, control, and communications
CAS close air support
ECM electronic countermeasures
FAA Fuerza Aerea Argentina, the Argentine Air Force
GBAD ground-based air defences
GPS global positioning system
IADS integrated air defence system
IAF Israeli Air Force
IDF Israeli Defence Forces
JSTARS joint surveillance target attack radar system
MEDEVAC medical evacuation
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NLF National Liberation Front
NVA North Vietnamese Army
OCA offensive counter-air
OODA Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act
PGMs precision-guided munitions
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xii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
RAF Royal Air Force

RAP recognized air picture
RDF radio direction finding (after  better known as radio
direction and ranging: radar)
RFC Royal Flying Corps
RPAS remotely piloted aircraft system (also known as UAV
or drone)
SAM surface-to-air missile
SEAD suppression of enemy air defences
UAV unmanned aerial vehicle (also known as RPAS or drone)
USAAC United States Army Air Corps (which became the USAAF
in )
USAAF United States Army Air Force (which became the USAF
after )
USAF United States Air Force
USSBS US Strategic Bombing Survey
WW First World War
WW Second World War
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
Foundations
‘Air power is the use of air capabilities to influence the behaviour

of actors and the course of events’; this Royal Air Force definition
is as good as any. For decades air power has been the primary tool
used by major powers to coerce recalcitrant opponents. Those ‘air
capabilities’ are almost as likely to be wielded today by unmanned
aircraft or a guided missile as they are by an aeroplane with a crew
dropping bombs. The principles of the deployment, the grammar
as it were of air power, have changed little over the last one hundred
years or so. Only the technology, the vocabulary, has altered. In
, oil-streaked aircrew in open cockpits flew fabric-covered
biplanes over shell-pocked First World War battlefields. In 
their great-grandchildren, gazing at computer screens in cabins
humming with technology, pilot drones over dusty villages thou-
sands of miles away. The roles they carry out are broadly the same.
As a dominant, if not the dominant military technology over
the last century, air power has developed extraordinarily quickly.
In one sense, of course, aircraft are simply another military tech-
nology like firearms or submarines, both of which have greatly
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 Foundations
influenced military conflict. However, air power has several unique

qualities. First, it has the potential of ubiquity. Giulio Douhet
(–), one of the early ‘prophets’ of air power, wrote in
 that ‘the airplane has complete freedom of action and direc-
tion; it can fly to and from any point of the compass in the shortest
time—in a straight line—by any route deemed expedient’.
Secondly, it may do so at great height permitting extensive
observation. Third, it has reach which applies over both land and
sea; geographical obstacles are not relevant. Finally, aircraft may
operate at great speed acting generally far more quickly than
ground- or sea-based vehicles. Aircraft also operate with limita-
tions, notably impermanence. Even today, with the advantages
of air-to-air refuelling and very long endurance, no aircraft can
remain indefinitely over its objective. An aircraft cannot hold
territory nor can it substitute for ‘boots on the ground’, although
that has not stopped military planners from trying to make them
do exactly that.
At the tactical level, which is to say in support of armies and
navies, there is no question that aircraft have fundamentally
changed the conduct of war on land and at sea. However, since
aircraft achieved the range to cross enemy lines and strike at an
enemy’s cities and bases, there has been a strong current of
thinking that air power can be more than just another military
capability, and that it can have strategic effect and achieve political
goals alone. It is this hope that drives contemporary politicians
in many countries to see air power as one possible solution to
extremely difficult political or security problems. The argument
as to whether aircraft can indeed achieve strategic results runs
throughout this book.
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Foundations 
Vast resources have been and are spent on the development

and production of military aircraft. This continues, now as much
as ever. The most expensive military procurement project in
history, indeed possibly the most expensive public procurement
project of any kind, is the current F- Lightning II, a multi-role
fighter-bomber aircraft designed for service into the s. This
will cost taxpayers in the countries it is designed to equip, particu-
larly the USA, well in excess of $ trillion. Questions concerning
the development, deployment, and potential of air power, whether
they like it or not, are everyone’s concern; aside from any other
consideration, everyone is paying for it.
Since the very beginning it was clear that the new technology
would have military applications. The Wright brothers, who
made the first powered flight in , were not the homespun
bicycle-makers of legend, or rather were not only that. They were
very familiar with complex aeronautical mathematics and engin-
eering theory, just as today’s aircraft engineers must be. It was
clear from the start that aircraft would have a military dimension,
and the Wright brothers were explicit that they were looking for
military contracts to continue their work, which they eventually
received. In , Lord Northcliffe, a British newspaper magnate
sent a telegram: ‘aeroplane primarily intended war machine stop’.
The First World War (WW), which we will examine in Chapter ,
demonstrated that aeroplanes would indeed be war machines,
and very formidable ones. Whilst it was never a decisive arm on
any WW front, all the elements of its future deployment were
present with the exception of its potential for mobility. By the
end of the war, the combatant nations had thousands of aircraft
in their inventories with their attendant administrative and
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 Foundations
logistical structures. The world’s first independent air arm, the

Royal Air Force, had been formed. The years after WW, exam-
ined in Chapter , saw theorists looking at how this promising
new military dimension might be deployed most effectively.
These theorists argued that the nature of war itself had now
changed, that all elements of a nation might now be in the front
line. Air power could win wars alone, they said, either by terroriz-
ing citizens to the extent that they would force their governments
to capitulate or through demolishing a state’s industrial capability
to sustain a war. This was and is termed ‘strategic bombing’,
although there is rarely anything ‘strategic’ about it. Most import-
antly, air power offered the possibility that future conflict might be
cheaper than the ‘old’ wars, both in lives and money.
Not all air forces bought into these ideas; the pre-Second World
War (WW) German and Soviet Air Forces saw their roles pri-
marily as supporting the army by attacking the enemy’s deployed
forces. All of these ideas and many more were put to the test in
WW and will be dealt with in Chapters  and . Whole cities
were devastated by bombing: Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, and Tokyo being only the most well-known amongst
dozens of others. Whilst arguments still rage as to the strategic
effectiveness and indeed the morality of these operations, there
is no dispute that aircraft were vital to battlefield success in both
the war in Europe and North Africa. In the Pacific, US industrial
power created a vast and highly efficient aircraft carrier fleet, with
the aircraft and trained crews to man them.
Chapters  and  deal with the Cold War period after WW by
examining the ‘small wars of peace’, many of which were any-
thing but small or peaceful. More bombs were dropped during the
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Foundations 
Vietnam War than all of WW, causing great damage but having
questionable effect, to say the least, on its political outcome.
Other conflicts from South Asia to the Middle East, from Africa
to the South Atlantic saw aircraft as decisive on the battlefield.
The end of the Cold War was marked by what appeared to be
something of a shift. Some new thinking brought air power once
again into play as a possible ‘war-winner’ in the First Gulf War of
 and the Balkan Wars. Even here the truth is more nuanced
than air power enthusiasts might wish to believe.
Chapters  and  bring us into today’s world of the wars on
‘terror’, drones, and cyber-war, and consider briefly what air
power may look like in the future.
Like any other field of military activity, air warfare has pro-
duced an alphabet soup of acronyms. There is, I am afraid, no real
way of avoiding them entirely. Terms are given in full at first
usage along with the acronym and subsequently acronym only;
there is a complete list of abbreviations at the start of the book.
Before embarking on the story of military air power, we will visit
an air base near a conflict zone today, where a mission is being
prepared to attack a target in enemy territory.
Anatomy of an Air Strike

Intelligence officers and imagery analysts have pored over images
taken from manned reconnaissance aircraft, drones (also known
as RPAS, ‘Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems’ or UAV, ‘Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle’), and satellites. They have selected the target; lawyers
have confirmed that hitting it conforms with international humani-
tarian law, the law of war, and senior officers or even politicians
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 Foundations
have approved the mission. Engineers have ensured that the two
aircraft are airworthy, and armourers have placed the correct
bombs and missiles (known as ‘ordnance’) onto the bomb-racks
and loaded the guns. Flight operations personnel fuel the aircraft.
Fire-crews and medical personnel are on constant stand-by.
A ‘combat search and rescue’ team is briefed; the team will go in
by helicopter and ‘extract’ aircrews who are shot down and eject
over enemy territory. All are fed and sustained by a highly complex
and usually smoothly functioning administration and logistics
system, which itself benefits from the advantages offered by trans-
port aircraft (mobility) which can move supplies or personnel
anywhere in the world very quickly.
The crews flying the aircraft in the mission (which is sometimes
called a ‘strike package’) are briefed with the latest imagery and
information on the enemy’s defences. They enter their cockpits,
complete their own checks ensuring the aircraft software is cor-
rectly updated and communicating with other elements of the
mission. When the time comes for take-off, air traffic control
ensures airspace ahead of the strike package is clear. If neutral
territory is to be overflown, diplomats may have obtained clear-
ances. Once aloft Aerospace Battle Management (ABM) teams
take over and ensure the mission is coordinated with allied forces
in the area.
ABM is sometimes based in large aircraft packed with radars and
detectors which range the electronic spectrum; as well as surveying
the ‘battle space’ looking for enemy activity they also ‘deconflict’
with other nations’ aircraft which may also be operating in the area.
A ‘quick-reaction alert’ (QRA) fighter element is on standby to
protect us and deter curious or indeed hostile attention. There is
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Foundations 
also likely to be an ‘electronic countermeasures’ (ECM) aircraft,

packed with powerful jamming equipment in support. The ECM
crew will be trying to jam the enemy’s radars and perhaps disrupt
his electronic networks. All the time the strike package is itself
using an extensive suite of electronics to detect possible threats
from the ground, or indeed in the air, in the form of missiles. All of
these activities are intended to ensure that there is adequate control of
the air to enable the mission to proceed. ABM will also co-ordinate
any air-to-air refuelling (AAR) that may be required on a long-
range mission.
Upon entering the enemy’s airspace the strike aircraft will need
to avoid enemy air defences, and both fighters and ground-based
air defences (GBAD). Friendly fighters will assist in eliminating an
air threat. As for anti-aircraft missiles (surface to air missiles
(SAMs)), another strike mission may have been ordered to deal
with those and their controlling radars—if ECM has not already
managed to neutralize them. This is called ‘suppression of enemy
air defences’ (SEAD). Low-level flying skills can also help with this.
Once the aircraft arrive at their objective, the target may be
‘marked’ with a laser. In some circumstances troops on the
ground, probably special forces, will mark the target, or global
positioning system (GPS) co-ordinates may be used to achieve
great precision for the strike. Either way, it is imperative that in
hitting the target the mission avoids, to the greatest extent pos-
sible, civilian casualties, as ‘collateral damage’ may impair the
overall war effort by reducing its legitimacy. The aircraft returns
to base, with all elements remaining vigilant.
This is not the end for this attack mission. Satellites or other
aircraft must now do a battle-damage assessment to see if the
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 Foundations
bombs have done the intended damage. They will also conduct
the baleful task of assessing whether there has been collateral
damage in the form of civilian deaths. The system then begins
again and gears up for another attack.
That was a very simple example of a relatively straightforward
mission. The reader will appreciate that there are very many
‘moving parts’ in such a simple operation, as well as very many
acronyms! The reader might consider it worth recalling as we go
on to look at the history of air power that many missions were
orders of magnitude more complex than this one. Imagine the
preparation for a WW thousand-bomber raid over Germany in
the dark, opposed by a ferociously efficient enemy with fighter
aircraft and anti-aircraft guns directed by radar. The technology
has improved but the four fundamental roles of military aircraft—
control of the air, attack, reconnaissance and mobility remain the same.
The Four Roles of Air Power: Control of the Air

The four roles of air power (Box ) are interdependent and to an
extent they are labels of convenience. Some operations may
involve all four roles, and indeed may incorporate other compo-
nents of air power such as command and control.
Without a significant degree of control of the air, the other
three elements are impossible to achieve. It is the key enabler for
the other main roles of air power. If a commander cannot be
assured of air control, the shape of operations will change greatly.
Control of the air is not only gained by other aircraft (e.g. fighters)
as GBAD may also be highly effective. For example, in the Vietnam
War,  per cent of US air losses (helicopters and strike aircraft)
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Foundations 
B  The Four Roles of Air Power

......................................................................................
() Control of the Air: ensuring that it is you, not your enemy that has
the freedom of the air. The ultimate aim is ‘air supremacy’ which
is unchallenged control. ‘Air superiority’ is next best, where
enemy challenge is reduced to a minimum. Control of the air
is usually gained with the use of fighters; it can also be chal-
lenged by effective ground-based anti-aircraft missiles or guns,
or indeed by taking or attacking airfields—an approach termed
‘offensive counter-air’.
() Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, also termed Intelligence
and Situational Awareness: finding the enemy and learning as
much as you can about him. Very commonly, reconnaissance
is carried out by dedicated and specially equipped aircraft and
satellites, as well as troops on the ground. The acronym ISTAR
is commonly used for this function (‘intelligence, surveillance,
target acquisition, and reconnaissance’).
() Attack: otherwise known as bombing. Attack is enabled by
control of the air and good intelligence. It is the primary
means by which air power is exercised on land or at sea.
There are three primary forms: tactical bombing is applied to
targets on the battlefield; interdiction attempts to ‘seal the
battlefield’ from supplies and reinforcements; strategic bombing
is directed against the industrial or civilian base of a country.
() Mobility: the ability to use aircraft to transport equipment or
people—sometimes termed logistics. This can act as a ‘force-
multiplier’ for ground forces whether carried out by helicopters
at the battlefield or tactical level, or huge transport aircraft
which provide ‘strategic lift’. Operations can also be sustained
by the use of AAR.
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 Foundations
were sustained from ground fire. ‘Offensive counter-air’ (OCA)

involves attacking an enemy’s bases; clearly if an aircraft cannot
take off, it is of no use. This is an example of how one role, attack,
can act to achieve another, control of the air. Possibly the best
example of this took place on  June  when the Israeli Air
Force destroyed much of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground in
a surprise attack (see Chapter ); for the rest of the Six Day War,
Israeli aircraft ranged relatively freely over the battlefields.
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

The oldest function of air power reflects the old military adage
that a commander needs to ‘see the other side of the hill’. The
earliest demonstrations of the potential of aircraft were simple
attempts to use balloons to acquire sufficient height to see behind
enemy lines. In , just eleven years after the Montgolfier broth-
ers had flown the first manned hot air balloon, the French Army
Aerostatic Corps was formed—twenty-five soldiers were selected
for their expertise in chemistry and other relevant fields; com-
manded by Captain Jean Marie Joseph Coutelle, they were the
world’s first air arm.
In June  at the Battle of Fleurus, pilots of the Corps flew the
‘Entreprenant’—a tethered hydrogen balloon (Figure ). They were
able to inform the French commanding General Jourdan of the
movements of Austrian troops by dropping messages and using
semaphore. The battle was a significant victory for the French and
established their superiority in the Revolutionary Wars of the
period, although the Aerostatic Corps was rarely used again—it
was disbanded in . The first years of the American Civil War
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Foundations 
Figure  ‘L’Entreprenant’ at the Battle of Fleurus 
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 Foundations
saw both sides deploy balloons to no decisive effect and they

were also seen in the Franco-Prussian War of –. Since ,
reconnaissance has usually involved the use of powered aircraft
utilizing control of the air to observe the enemy and find targets
for attack. Again, this can involve using aircraft on or near the
battlefield (tactical) and deep behind enemy lines (strategic).
Since the early s satellites have played an ever-increasing
role, particularly in providing strategic intelligence. Since the late
s many reconnaissance aircraft have been unmanned.
Attack
Attack is the application of explosives or other forms of ordnance
from the air against enemy forces or indeed civilians. It too has a
long pedigree. On  November , nd Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti
of the Italian Army air battalion, based in Libya, took off in his
flimsy single-seat aircraft and dropped four grenades on Turkish
troops just outside Tripoli. He was the world’s first bomber pilot
(Figure ). Exactly one hundred years later, North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) bombers soared over the same Tripoli
skies. The first raid on a civilian target by a heavier-than-air
aircraft was on  October  during the First Balkan War
when a Bulgarian aircraft flown by Captain Radul Milkov dropped
two small bombs on Adrianople (now Edirne). No casualties were
reported in either operation.
Attack is often used in the interdiction role, denying the enemy
resupply or reinforcement. For example, during the Ardennes
Campaign of , better known as the Battle of the Bulge, Allied
air forces had almost entirely stopped the flow of fuel to German
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Figure  An Italian aircraft dives on Turkish troops
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army tank units. If a tank cannot move due to lack of fuel it

is essentially useless. In modern terminology this is called a
‘mobility kill’.
A  Royal Flying Corps paper authored by the man who was
to become the ‘father of the Royal Air Force’, Hugh Trenchard,
said that ‘ . . . the mere presence of a hostile machine above them
inspires those on the ground with exaggerated forebodings of
what it is capable of doing’. In an age of armed drones, whose
presence may merely be suspected, this is at least as true now as it
was then.
Reconnaissance and control of the air are often used to enable
attack by finding targets and clearing the way for strike aircraft
(bombers or their smaller relatives, fighter-bombers). When sol-
diers call upon aircraft to assist them in battle directly, by attack-
ing other soldiers, this is known as close air support (CAS).
Probably the most ferociously contested controversy in air
power theory concerns the war-winning potential of air power.
One school believes that air power can have a strategic (war-
winning) effect on its own. At the other extreme there are those
who believe that air power has only ever been truly effective in
achieving war aims when it is used as an adjunct to fighting forces
at the tactical (battlefield) level. Most commentators would agree
that the answer depends on which war, or indeed which phase of
a given war, one is discussing.
Mobility
The fourth fundamental role of air power, air mobility, is vital too,
perhaps now more than ever. In ‘expeditionary’ conflicts of the
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kind we have seen in Iraq or Afghanistan, the air supremacy

enjoyed by the coalition forces was itself dependent on large
aircraft bringing in the supplies necessary to sustain the air
bases. Indeed, the helicopters which flew troops around their
operational zones—providing ‘intra-theatre mobility’ and often
defending these same soldiers from insurgents—are usually them-
selves flown into ‘theatre’ (the operational area) inside very large
aircraft.
Today, mobility is the most immediately visible function of air
power, from the transport of troops to and indeed around oper-
ational theatres as well as evacuation of casualties. One vital
aspect of current mobility operations is AAR. Air forces that
possess this capability enjoy the advantages of greater reach and
operational scope.
Dimensions
As with any other successful dynamic system, military air oper-
ations exist within a number of physical and conceptual dimen-
sions. First and foremost is logistics. US Marine General Robert
H. Barrow famously wrote in  that ‘amateurs talk about
tactics, but professionals study logistics’. All military endeavours
require extremely complicated and extensive supply and support
networks and the systems to organize them, and air forces are no
exception. For a start, all aircraft of all types need bases, requiring
large numbers of personnel to build, run and secure them. During
WW the largest single engineering effort in the UK was the
construction of the vast array of air bases from which the com-
bined US and British bomber offensive was launched against
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Germany (see Chapter ). At sea, air power is delivered from

aircraft carriers, the most complex and expensive surface ships
in any naval fleet. The largest US warships are aircraft carriers;
these astonishing vessels are  metres long,  metres wide and
tower up to  metres above the waterline. Weighing over
, tons they carry up to one hundred jets and helicopters
and provide a home for , men and women. In addition to
prodigious amounts of fuel and weaponry they also contain a
fully functioning nuclear power station which provides the power
for the ship.
Air bases, both on land and at sea, require vast supplies of fuel
and, when at war, weaponry, both of which necessitate a long,
fragile and highly organized supply chain. This is in addition to
the ‘life-support’ which any military base requires in the form of
basic requirements such as food and clean water. Bases need to be
protected, either by a well-trained guard force or, in the case of
aircraft carriers, other warships equipped to ward off or defeat
attack from surface or submarine forces. Supply networks are
difficult to sustain when under active attack by determined enemies
from the air or aggressive cyber forces.
Aircraft need constant maintenance. For example, the Euro-
fighter Typhoon used by several European countries requires nine
hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. The even more
complex American F- requires forty-five hours. This in turn
implies the need for engineers and technicians usually at least as
highly qualified as the pilots who depend on the engineers for
their safety. This requires a large and extensive industrial and
engineering base. It was only in  that man first engaged in
powered flight. One of the reasons it took so long to develop is
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that combining light internal combustion engines with a flyable

airframe in a reasonably safe and efficient fashion is a very difficult
task. By the beginning of the First World War, however, every
major country had aeronautical construction industries sup-
ported by military investment.
Aeronautical development and technology were vastly acceler-
ated by WW. From then until arguably the early s the global
aviation industry engaged in what historian David Edgerton has
called ‘military and civil leapfrogging’ with developments in one
being passed into and contributing to the advances of the other.
Most of the time, but not always, military developments led the
way. In the s and s there was much private investment in
racing aircraft, which eventually gave rise to the innovations allow-
ing high-powered all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft such as the
Supermarine Spitfire.
The drive for profitable airliners brought similar advances to
bombers. The Second World War, like WW, brought an expo-
nential increase in investment in technology; the jet engine,
invented before WW (German and British engineers both claimed
it as their invention) was first made operational and even mass-
produced (by Germany) during WW. The need for long-range
four-engined bombers during WW made long-distance jet air-
liners with pressurized cabins possible and now commonplace.
In the late twentieth century, with the advent of large computer
and IT industries with huge investment bases in the s, mili-
tary technologies once again began to follow civilian develop-
ments. The single exception to this trend today may be drones,
where military technology is usually ahead of contemporary
commercial applications.
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Air forces require excellent personnel to operate and service

this expensive and complex equipment. They must recruit from
the best available young people to maintain the necessary edge
over adversaries. Training must be intensive and realistic. During
WW, research demonstrated that Allied bomber crews were
most likely to be shot down in their first ten or the last five
missions of (usually) thirty in a ‘combat tour’. During the first
ten missions, their combat skills were beginning to develop and
they were more vulnerable. During the final five, exhaustion
was assessed as a major factor. A similar pattern was observed
in other conflicts, especially Vietnam. Following Vietnam, the US
Air Force instituted the ‘Red Flag’ series of intensely realistic
exercises in . Red Flag offers authentic air combat scenarios
supported by dedicated ‘aggressor’ squadrons trained and pre-
pared to fly using the latest ‘enemy’ tactics. One of the purposes
of this is an attempt to overcome the inexperience in combat
situations that affects performance during those crucial first few
missions in actual conflicts. Red Flag continues to be a major
event in the training schedules of many air forces.
There must also be a strong basis of technical skills. Despite
having large numbers of modern aircraft, usually supplied by
the Soviet Union, Arab air forces lost all their battles with the
Israeli Air Force. One reason put forward by leading air power
scholar Robin Higham in an essay in his edited volume Why Air
Forces Fail is that although they had modern aircraft and equip-
ment, the Arab air forces were without an adequate basis of state
investment in technical education and training, particularly of
non-commissioned officers. This mistake was not made by the
Israeli Air Force, which has always taken the best and the
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brightest of each conscription cadre and trained them to a very

high standard.
In extended conflicts, such as WW, attrition of pilots and
other aircrew was a major problem. The inability of German
and Japanese aircrew training systems to replace their losses at
anything like the rate of their adversaries contributed greatly to
their defeat. Both countries had planned for a short war and had
made little provision for extended conflict. By contrast, the United
Kingdom’s political leadership made a conscious decision that the
highest-qualified and best recruits drafted into the armed services
should be directed to the Royal Air Force. Huge efforts and
resources were put into training and preparing them for combat
and setting up the highly complex systems necessary to accom-
plish this. In a memorandum to the cabinet on the first anniver-
sary of the declaration of war on  September , Churchill
wrote: ‘The Navy can lose us this war, but only the RAF can win
it . . . the bombers alone provide the means of victory’. Clearly this
was a view on priorities taken at a level where strategy and
political leadership intersected.
Such strategic thinking must be informed by an intelligent,
experienced and preferably well educated leadership which in
turn will be drawn from the high quality young officers the
prudent air force or air arm will have recruited. Ideally, but by
no means always, the best of these will rise to positions of high
command. They will then be operating at the strategic level along-
side the political leadership of a state.
When the bullets begin to fly, the effective deployment of air
power relies upon good generalship advising and working closely
with political leaders. The interplay between politics and air
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power has been particularly intimate since WW and continues

today. Political decisions must be carried out down to the level of
the battlefield; this requires effective command and control (C)
arrangements. Bringing together all the elements of air warfare
and applying them to a particular task can be a very complex
business indeed, since it involves many thousands of moving
pieces. Successful air campaigns inevitably have strong and robust
C systems. For example, the Battle of Britain in  was won by
the Royal Air Force at least as much by its C network (bringing
together the various elements of detection, intelligence, command,
and operations) as by its fighter pilots. In today’s air forces the term
‘C’ is also used, meaning ‘command, control, and communica-
tions’, with ‘C’ adding ‘computers’ to the acronym more recently.
Clearly a commander cannot be expected to know every detail
everywhere. One way of getting around this problem is to use
‘mission command’. This is a technique where a senior com-
mander makes his intent clear and allows subordinates to achieve
that objective in their own way, without close supervision. Obvi-
ously this requires a high degree of trust. There are limitations to
this. With the high cost of modern equipment, resources (espe-
cially aircraft) are often scarce and therefore control may need to
be exerted more closely in certain circumstances. Likewise, the
role of air power as a (supposedly) strategic tool may necessitate
more directive control. Today, decisions about dropping muni-
tions on a specific target are sometimes made at high level due to
the risk of collateral damage. Similarly, orders for a fighter jet to
shoot down an unresponsive airliner suspected of being hijacked
by terrorists planning to use it as a missile, as occurred in the /
attacks, would be given by a senior politician.
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Over the last two decades, with the populations of Western

countries highly sensitive to the prospect both of casualties to
their own forces and those collateral civilian deaths, the question
whether or not to use air power has become a matter of national
debate. Both politics and law have to a great degree entered the
cockpit. There are still some people, even today, who agree with
theorist Giulio Douhet’s views that laws restraining and govern-
ing the use of air power are ‘nothing but international demagogic
hypocrisies’. Most practitioners of air power recognize that some
law or regulation, however apparently ineffective, is better than
none. The need for legal regulation of air power was realized early
on, as the potential for balloons to cause damage on the ground
became clear. The Hague Conventions of  and  had
already banned bombing from the air. Although WW demon-
strated the ineffectiveness of such strictures, serious efforts were
made to tighten up and indeed to enforce legal norms. The Hague
Rules for Air Warfare () were the first concerted attempt
to limit attack from the air. Notably, they restricted bombing
to ‘military objectives’ the destruction of which would ‘constitute
a distinct advantage to the belligerent’. As has been regularly
pointed out since , the term ‘military objective’ is decidedly
imprecise; in wartime almost anything can be made to fall into
that category.
The  Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of
 brought the law on targeting up to date. These are based
around the four central concepts of international humanitarian
law: ‘proportionality’, ‘necessity’, ‘humanity’, and ‘distinction’
between civilians and combatants. The principle of proportionality
dictates that any civilian losses must be proportionate to the
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military advantage gained. Necessity is closely linked, requiring

the commander to ensure that only the force necessary to achieve
the objective is used; for example, destroying an entire town to
get at a single person may be considered neither necessary nor
proportionate. The inclusion of the principle of humanity is an
attempt to reduce the suffering in war which is why, for example,
incendiary weapons such as napalm are now forbidden. Finally,
and most importantly, distinction (sometimes called ‘discrimination’)
means ensuring that as far as possible harm to non-combatants is
avoided—a vital factor in retaining public support in democratic
countries for possibly controversial operations. It is by reference
to these principles that our strike package at the start of the
chapter will have been cleared, or not, by air force lawyers.
No one would dispute that aircraft and the dimensions that
impact upon their use are central to modern warfare. It is easy to
forget that—notwithstanding the French Aerostatic Corps of the
s and some desultory military ballooning in the nineteenth
century—aircraft are relatively new to the world of conflict. As we
will see in Chapter , once powered aircraft had taken to the air in
the early twentieth century, it did not take long for their potential
as a military instrument to be realized.
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
Beginnings
The First World War –
In , General Ferdinand Foch, who was to go on to command

all Allied forces in WW, stated that ‘aviation may be fine as a
sport . . . but as an instrument of war, it is nothing [c’est zero]’.
It did not take long for that sceptical view, by no means shared
by all senior officers, to be compromised by reality. With
its kill-or-be-killed imperative, WW vastly accelerated the
development of aircraft technology, tactics, and operational
thinking.
Aircraft were a relatively rare sight over the battlefields of
. By , aircraft were organized by major powers into vast
air forces. They were regarded by many as an essential, if not as
yet decisive factor on the battlefields themselves; further, they
had demonstrated their potential to cause damage far behind the
front lines.
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 Beginnings: The First World War –
Reconnaissance
It was in reconnaissance, particularly in providing eyes for the
artillery that dominated all major battlefronts, that the nascent air
forces of WW found their most vital role. In August , the first
month of the war, both France and Britain were staring at the very
real prospect of defeat by the German army. French and British
forces were outflanked. Paris itself prepared for a siege. The Allied
forces, in headlong retreat, did not know the location of General
Alexander von Kluck’s First Army. On  September, Corporal Louis
Breguet, formerly an aircraft builder, took off with his observer
Lieutenant Andre Watteau and found the German force. Their
information enabled French and British forces to turn and stop
the German advance, striking it in the flank, at what became known
as the ‘Miracle of the Marne’. Breguet surely has at least a claim to
have been the ‘saviour of France’, a title later co-opted by the former
air-sceptic Marshal Foch.
As the Western Front, the main theatre of conflict, settled into
trench warfare, the primary means of killing the enemy became
artillery. No less than  per cent of casualties, and probably more,
were directly caused by gun barrages. In order for the artillery
guns to be directed they needed precise information on the
location of enemy positions, their numbers, and strength—if
concentrations of men or supplies could be found within range
of the heavy guns, so much the better.
However, placing reasonably well-trained eyes in the sky above
those enemy positions, and especially behind their lines to a depth
where the artillery could reach; that would be useful. Aircraft
could see troops massing at key points and these in turn could
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Beginnings: The First World War – 
be shelled by long-range artillery. This was the first use of air

interdiction—stopping or hindering the enemy getting to the
battlefield. If the aircrew could locate the enemy’s own artillery
positions, so much the better, as they could themselves be tar-
geted with counter-battery gunfire to hit their guns and kill their
crews. The lethal imperative to gain that artillery-spotting edge on
the enemy drove all aspects of the conflict in the air.
Driven by the imperative of providing good timely intelligence
to the guns, reconnaissance technology developed rapidly. Ini-
tially it amounted to little more than observing the target, flying as
quickly as possible back to base and telephoning the information
to army headquarters. By the end of the war many of the basic
techniques in use for the rest of the century were well-established
and functional wireless equipment enabled air-to-ground real-
time reporting of artillery accuracy, so that artillery commanders
could adjust their aim. Aircrew were able to use radio and Morse
code to call artillery strikes upon the locations of enemy units
they spotted using ‘zone calls’. Precision photography, as well as
the capabilities to interpret and analyse images and glean useful
intelligence from them, created a lethal combination of air recon-
naissance and accurate artillery.
Most studies of air power in WW focus on the Western Front,
where millions of British, Indian, Canadian, Australian, German,
French, and (after ) American troops were locked in combat.
Nevertheless, it was also vital on the Eastern Front. In addition
to artillery spotting, aircraft were used by Russian, German, and
to a lesser extent Austro-Hungarian forces, to spot the move-
ments of armies over the vast battlefields of what is now Poland
and Ukraine.
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 Beginnings: The First World War –
In August , Russian generals advancing towards German

forces ignored warnings of German movements from their Air
Corps. General von Hindenburg’s staff did not make the same
mistake when German pilots provided accurate information on
their enemy. The result was a crushing German victory—the
Battle of Tannenberg. Hindenburg was clear on the importance
of aircraft: ‘without airmen, there would have been no Tannenberg’.
In stark contrast to their early lack of appreciation of the value
of reconnaissance, in June  Russian aircraft provided an excel-
lent overview of Austro-Hungarian defences prior to the Brusilov
Offensive, enabling Russian generals to plan a highly effective
attack.
Hundreds of thousands of photographs were taken of enemy
positions by German, British, and French air forces. For example, in
one month alone—September —on the Ypres front, the Royal
Flying Corps (RFC) took over , photographs of enemy posi-
tions and distributed , prints. Reconnaissance photographs
now provide one of the most valuable resources for historians of
the war (Figure ). For the aircrews involved, this was an uncom-
fortable high-risk task involving precision flying and almost con-
stant bone-freezing cold combined with fear. High altitude was
essential to provide any chance of avoiding the enemy’s fighters or
ever-improving ground-based anti-aircraft defences.
The risks for all aircrew in WW were very great and life
expectancies were low. By way of one example amongst many
thousands, Lieutenant J. S. Walthew was on a mission to locate
enemy positions during the particularly appalling Third Battle of
Ypres in . In a letter home he wrote about how his aircraft was
hit by ground fire, piercing his fuel tank and spraying him with
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Beginnings: The First World War – 
Figure  Reconnaissance photograph of the village of Allaines
petrol. ‘It was a great misfortune having a bad day . . . ’ he opined.

It could have been far worse. A stray bullet or even a misfiring
engine would have condemned him to the kind of horrendous
death suffered by thousands of airmen on all sides—being burned
to death in his cockpit. Walthew was lucky on that occasion.
It was the fate of the great majority of aircrew in WW to be shot
down and killed. One month later, Lieutenant Walthew was shot
down; his body was never found.
Once an aircraft was disabled or burning there was no chance of
escape, as parachutes were neither issued nor permitted to air-
crews. Everard Calthrop, the designer of the first effective British
parachutes, ‘Guardian Angels’, took the view that ‘No-one in high
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 Beginnings: The First World War –
quarters had any time to devote to investigating the merits of an

appliance whose purpose was so ridiculously irrelevant to war
as the saving of life in the air.’ It was not until  that air forces
on all sides began to permit them, and they have been seen as an
essential piece of equipment ever since, not least for morale
reasons since they offer some hope of survival in the event of
critical aircraft damage.
The only airmen for whom parachutes were permitted in WW
were the crews of tethered hydrogen observation balloons, which
floated over the front lines of all sides, spotting the fall of artillery
shells. These were always very heavily defended by belts of guns.
Nonetheless, they were constantly targeted, not only by enemy
artillery but of course by fighters. Spotting from highly inflam-
mable balloons was another occupation with a very limited life-
expectancy.
Control of the Air

In the early days of the war, control of the air was not practically
an issue, since there were no aircraft dedicated to destroying other
aircraft, and anti-aircraft defences were primitive. However, the
lethal advantages offered by reconnaissance aircraft with their
ability to direct artillery to targets far behind enemy lines were
quickly appreciated. Consequently the need to shoot down those
‘eyes in the sky’ drove the development of the so-called ‘fighter’
aircraft. At an early stage in the war it became clear that such
specialized aircraft were needed if control of the air was to be
gained, which in turn might provide at least some freedom for the
artillery spotters to do their work. Fighters now began to conduct
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Beginnings: The First World War – 
operations to shoot down other fighters with the objective of

gaining and retaining that essential air supremacy. In any event,
by  the best reconnaissance aircrew had become a specialist
cadre flying far higher than other aircraft, beyond the reach of
potential fighter opponents.
In the early months of the war, attacking the enemy’s recon-
naissance aircraft was the task of other similarly designed planes.
The first fighters were mostly crewed by a pilot and an observer
with a machine gun on a swivel mount. One of these observers
was French Corporal Louis Quenault who claims the distinction
of being the first man to shoot down an aircraft in air-to-air
combat on  October . Pilots and aircrew found trying to
aim a gun on a moving mounting in turn fixed to a speeding,
jinking, swaying, twisting, and turning airframe difficult to say the
least, especially when aiming at another machine doing exactly
the same. Why not point the aircraft instead? This would allow
for a steadier aim and a reduced crew as it would be the pilot
doing the aiming and firing with the aircraft itself acting as a
reasonably stable gun-platform. Wings in those days were not
strong enough to support a gun-mount plus ammunition, so
machine guns needed to be attached to the fuselage of the aircraft.
If the guns were to be fired forward, this raised the problem of
firing through the propeller. Various solutions were attempted.
These ranged from mounting the gun over the propeller, to
coating the propellers with wedge-shaped steel plates and firing
through them hoping for the best. This was first tried (initially
with some success) by the French fighter pilot Roland Garros,
after whom the famous tennis stadium is named. A true system of
synchronization of the gun with the propeller was first mastered
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 Beginnings: The First World War –
by the Dutch engineer Antony Fokker, whose eindecker (mono-

plane) aircraft ruled the skies of late . They were equipped
with an interrupter mechanism allowing the machine-gun bul-
lets to pass between the spinning propeller blades. The ‘Fokker
Scourge’ gave rise to the first great slaughter of British reconnais-
sance pilots and the fighters trying to protect them.
Soon British and French designers incorporated their own
interrupter mechanisms. However, the British RFC remained
particularly disadvantaged by a haphazard and incoherent train-
ing regime for their aircrew. Their adversaries in the Luftstreitk-
räfte (the German Air Arm) were usually far better prepared for
combat. The German Air Force approach to control of the air
gave rise to some highly original tactical thinking, informed by
hard-earned experience. In  the leading German fighter
leader and tactician Oswald Boelcke drafted a set of precepts
for air-to-air combat; these were fully explained in the form of a
booklet given to each German fighter pilot on completion of
training. The ‘Dicta Boelcke’ (Box ) are still studied by fighter
pilots today.
On both sides a large proportion of air-to-air kills were made
by aces—men who had shot down five or more opponents. The
most famous of them all was Oswald Boelcke’s protégé Manfred
von Richthofen—the so-called ‘Red Baron’—with eighty kills. By
the same token, most victims of the ‘aces’ were relative novices;
this was a pattern that was to continue in WW.
The British sustained another defeat in the air in the summer of
 at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme when their losses
were three times that of the Germans and their superior fighter
aircraft. Despite this, with new and better aircraft they recovered
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Beginnings: The First World War – 
B  The ‘Dicta Boelcke’: Sayings of Oswald Boelcke on Air

Fighting
......................................................................................
() Be sure you have the advantage before you attack (speed, height,
numbers, position); attack out of the sun when you can.
() Once you have begun an attack, prosecute it to the end.
() Open fire only at close range, and then only when your oppon-
ent is square in your sights.
() Don’t let your opponent out of your sight.
() In any type of attack, it is imperative that you approach from
behind.
() If your opponent dives on you, do not try to evade his attack—
turn towards your attacker.
() When over enemy lines, always keep in mind your own line of
retreat.
() When fighting in groups, it is best to attack in groups of four or
six; when the melee begins, ensure that not too many of your
own aircraft go after the same adversary.
to regain control of the air. In the spring of , whilst British

aircraft had developed quickly and were often as advanced as
German planes, the continuing disparity in training resulted in a
further British defeat; this was ‘Bloody April’. The chances of
poorly trained British pilots were not improved by the relentlessly
aggressive tactics of the RFC commander Brigadier (by early 
Major-General) Hugh Trenchard. These tactics were designed to
retain the initiative in the air, whatever the cost. The view of a
retrogressive British leadership outmatched by efficient German
Account: s8944763
 Beginnings: The First World War –
operational techniques is not entirely accurate and must be

understood in the context of the necessity for British aircraft
to keep the Luftstreitkräfte reconnaissance missions as far from
British lines as possible.
In the last year of the war good British fighter airframes were
married to excellent French Hispano-Suiza engines. This, com-
bined with major improvements in training, resulted for the first
time in more German aircraft being shot down than British. Both
sides learnt from each other throughout the war in tactical and
technological terms; however, it is fair to say that for most of the
war aircraft technology was led by German designers, culminat-
ing in  with the excellent Fokker D.VII; it was just about
matched by the French Nieuport, British Sopwith, and Royal
Aircraft Factory SEa.
French and British air arms were by this time now being
reinforced by aircraft and crews from the US Army Air Service,
initially led by the legendary Lieutenant-Colonel (as he then was)
William ‘Billy’ Mitchell. By the end of the war throughout the
Western Front the combination of overwhelming Allied produc-
tion rates and an increase in relative quality of training and
equipment began to tell—attrition took its toll on the Luftstreitk-
räfte. Having said that, albeit outnumbered by up to three to one
by Allied adversaries, German pilots remained an effective force
until the last day of the war.
Attack
Once you have control of the air and understand what it is that
needs to be destroyed on the ground through reconnaissance, there
Account: s8944763
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Fig. 5. Types of spears.
Others devote much attention to the shaping of the spear by

scraping and rasping its surface. Exceptionally straight and
smoothed mulga spears were made by the Barcoo natives of the
Durham Downs district and by the Dieri (b), whilst on the north coast,
the Crocker Islanders’ spears are deserving of the same comments;
the latter, in addition, are decorated by a few delicate engravings in
the form of circumferential rings and wavy longitudinal bands
composed of short parallel transverse lines. The Arunndta groove
the spears lengthwise with a stone adze.
An improvement on this type is rendered by the cutting of a
pointed blade at one end of the spear (c). Some of the best
specimens come from the eastern Arunndta in the Arltunga district.
The blade is symmetrically cut, sharply edged, and smooth; the
remaining portion of the spear is grooved longitudinally throughout
its length.
All the above-mentioned types of spear are thrown by hand.
A straight, single-piece, hard-wood spear is made more effective
by splicing a barb on to the point with kangaroo or emu sinew (d).
The barb being directed away from the point, the spear cannot be
withdrawn without forcibly tearing it through the flesh of the animal or
man it has entered. The natives living along the Great Australian
Bight, from Port Lincoln to King George Sound in Western Australia,
used to make this the principal weapon; the spear was up to twelve
feet in length, perfectly straight and smooth, and was thrown with a
spear-thrower.
A rare and perhaps unique variety was found at Todmorden on the
Alberga River in the possession of an Aluridja. It was a simple, one-
piece, bladed spear, like that described of the Arltunga natives, but it
had two wooden barbs tied against one and the same side of the
blade with kangaroo sinew, one above the other, at distances of
three and six inches, respectively, from the point.
The hard-wood spears may have the anterior end carved, on one
or two sides, into a number of barbs of different shape and size. The
simplest and most rudimentary forms were to be met with among the
weapons of the practically extinct tribes of the lower reaches of the
River Murray, including Lake Alexandria. The shaft was of mallee
and by no means always straight and smooth; its anterior end, for a
distance of from twelve to eighteen inches, had from five to six
medium-sized, thorn-like barbs or spikes, which were directed
backwards and cut out of the wood, on one or two sides. More rarely
one would find spears with a three-sided serrature, consisting of
something like two dozen small barbs, directed backwards,
extending in three longitudinal lines over a distance of about fifteen
inches; at the top the serrated lines merged into a single strong
point. Vide Fig. 5, e, f, and g.
PLATE XXIV
A “boned” Man, Minning tribe.
“He stands aghast, with his eyes staring at the treacherous pointer, and
with his hands lifted as though to ward off the lethal medium....”
The most formidable weapons of this kind are those still in daily
use as hunting and fighting spears on Melville and Bathurst Islands
(h). The head of this type has many barbs carved on one side, and
occasionally on two diametrically opposite sides. There are from ten
to thirty barbs pointing backwards, behind which from four to eight
short serrations project straight outwards, whilst beyond them again
occasionally some six or more small barbs point forwards. The
spears have a long, sharp, bladed point. The barbs are
symmetrically carved, and each has sharp lateral edges which end in
a point. The size of the barbs varies in different specimens. Many of
the spears are longitudinally grooved or fluted, either for the whole
length or at the head end only. Usually these weapons are
becomingly decorated with ochre, and may have a collar of human
hair-string wound tightly round the shaft at the base of the head.
Some of the heaviest of these spears are up to sixteen feet long,
and would be more fitly described as lances.
The most elaborate, and at the same time most perfect,
specimens of the single-piece wooden spears of aboriginal
manufacture are the ceremonial pieces of the Melville Islanders.
These have a carved head measuring occasionally over four feet in
length and four inches in width, consisting of from twelve to twenty-
five paired, symmetrical, leaf-shaped or quadrilateral barbs, whose
sides display a remarkable parallelism. The barbs are surmounted
by a long tapering point emanating from the topmost pair; and very
frequently one finds an inverted pair of similar barbs beneath the
series just mentioned. Occasionally, too, the two pairs opposed to
each other at the bottom are fused into one, and a square hole is cut
into the bigger area of wood thus gained on either side of the shaft
(i).
The structure may be further complicated by cutting away the point
at the top, and separating the paired series of barbs by a narrow
vertical cleft down the middle (j).
We shall now turn our attention to spears whose head and shaft
are composed of separate parts. In the construction of these, two
principal objects are aimed at by the aboriginal, the first being to
make the missile travel more accurately through space, and in
accordance with the aim, the second to make the point more cruel
and deadly. Whereas, with one exception, all the single-piece
spears, so far discussed, are projected or wielded with the hand
only, in every instance of the multi-pieced spears, a specially
designed spear-thrower is used for that purpose.
The native has learned by experience that weight in the forepart of
the spear will enable him to throw and aim with greater precision.
One has only to watch the children and youths during a sham-fight to
realize how well it is known that the heavier end of a toy spear must
be directed towards the target whilst the lighter end is held in the
hand. Green shoots of many tussocks, or their seed-stalks, and the
straight stems of reeds or bullrushes, are mostly used. They are cut
or pulled at the root in order that a good butt-end may be obtained,
and carefully stripped of leaves; the toy weapons are then ready for
throwing. One is taken at a time and its thin end held against the
inner side of the point of the right index finger; it is kept in that
position with the middle finger and thumb. Raising the spear in a
horizontal position, the native extends his arm backwards, and,
carefully selecting his mark, shies his weapon with full force at it.
The simplest type of a combination made to satisfy the conditions
of an artificially weighted spear is one in which the shaft consists of
light wood and the head of heavier wood (k). Roughly speaking, the
proportion of light to heavy wood is about half of one to half of the
other. The old Adelaide tribe used to select the combination of the
light pithy flower-stalk of the grass-tree with a straight pointed stick of
mallee. The western coastal tribes of the Northern Territory construct
small, and those of the Northern Kimberleys large spears composed
of a shaft of reed and a head of mangrove; the former being four or
at most five feet long, the latter from ten to twelve. The joint between
the two pieces is effected by inserting the heavier wood into the
lighter and sealing the union with triodia-grass resin or beeswax. The
Adelaide tribe used the gum of the grass-tree.
The River Murray tribes used to make the point of the mallee more
effective by attaching to it a blade-like mass of resin, into both edges
of which they stuck a longitudinal row of quartz flakes.
The Northern Kimberleys natives accomplish the same object by
fixing on to the top end of the mangrove stick a globular mass of
warm, soft resin, in which they embed a stone spear-head (l). In
certain parts of the Northern Territory one occasionally meets with a
similar type of spear, but such in all probability is imported from the
west.
The popular spear of central Australian tribes consists of a light
shaft fashioned out of a shoot of the wild tecoma bush (T. Australis),
which carries a long-bladed head of hard mulga wood. The junction
is made between the two pieces by cutting them both on a slope,
sticking these surfaces together with hot resin, and securely binding
them with kangaroo tendon. The bottom end is similarly bound and a
small hole made in its base to receive the point of the spear-thrower
(m).
As often as not the blade has a single barb of wood bound tightly
against it with tendon.
It is often difficult to find a single piece of tecoma long enough to
make a suitable shaft, in which case two pieces are taken and neatly
joined somewhere within the lower, and thinner, half with tendon.
The shoots, when cut, are always stripped of their bark and
straightened in the fire, the surfaces being subsequently trimmed by
scraping.
A very common type of spear, especially on the Daly River, and
practically all along the coast of the Northern Territory, is one with a
long reed-shaft, to which is attached, by means of a mass of wax or
gum, a stone-head, consisting of either quartzite or slate, or latterly
also of glass. The bottom end is strengthened, to receive the point of
the thrower, by winding around it some vegetable fibre (n).
The natives of Arnhem Land now and then replace the stone by a
short piece of hard wood of lanceolate shape.
If now we consider the only remaining type—a light reed-shaft, to
which is affixed a long head of hard wood, with a number of barbs
cut on one or more edges—we find a great variety of designs. The
difference lies principally in the number and size of the barbs; in
most cases they point backwards, but it is by no means rare to find a
certain number of them pointing the opposite way or standing out at
right angles to the length of the head. These spears belong
principally to the northern tribes of the Northern Territory.
The commonest form is a spear having its head carved into a
number of barbs along one side only, and all pointing backwards (o).
The number ranges from three to over two dozen, the individual
barbs being either short and straight or long and curved, with the
exception of the lowest, which in many examples sticks out at right
angles just above the point of insertion. The point is always long and
tapering. These spears are common to the Larrekiya, Wogait, Wulna,
and all Daly River tribes.
PLATE XXV
1. Dieri grave, Lake Eyre district.
2. Yantowannta grave, Innamincka district.

The same pattern of barbs may be found carved symmetrically on
the side diametrically opposite, or, indeed, it may be cut in three
planes.
An elegant, but rare, type is found among the weapons of the
Ponga Ponga, Mulluk Mulluk, and Wogait tribes on the Daly River. Its
hard-wood head is long and uniformly tapering from its point of
insertion to its sharp tip. On one side there are very many small
barbs, diminishing in size from the shaft upwards; as many as one
hundred barbs have been counted; they point either slightly
backwards or at right angles to the length (p).
A spear in use on the Alligator River, and in the districts south and
west therefrom, has the barbs along the edge of the anterior moiety
directed backwards, whereas those of the posterior portion point
forwards. And occasionally one finds the barbs arranged
asymmetrically on two sides of the spear-head.
Finally, a rather remarkable type will be referred to, which belongs
to the Arnhem Land tribes, or rather to the country extending from
Port Essington to the Roper River, including Groote Island and
smaller groups lying off the coast. It is a neat and comparatively
small spear, about eight feet long on an average. The head, instead
of possessing a number of barbs, has a series of eye-shaped holes
cut along one of its sides, which give the impression of being so
many unfinished barbs, or so many barbs with their points joined
together (q). The major axes of the holes are parallel and directed
backwards; there may be up to thirty holes present. Occasionally
there are a few real barbs cut near the shaft end of the head; or a
number of incomplete barbs may there be cut with their axes turned
towards the front of the spear. The point is always sharp and stands
back somewhat from the level of the uncut barbs.
For special purposes, like fishing, two or three of the simple-
barbed prongs are frequently affixed to a reed shaft with beeswax or
resin, and vegetable fibre. This combination is met with all along the
coast of the Northern Territory. The natives know very well that the
chances of stabbing a fish with a trident of this description are much
greater than with a single prong. As a matter of fact, a barbed spear
with less than two prongs is not normally used for fishing purposes,
yet a plain, single-pronged spear is often utilized when there is none
of the other kind available.
The Australian aboriginals do not poison their spears in the
ordinary sense of the word, but the Ponga Ponga and Wogait tribes
residing on the Daly River employ the vertebræ of large fish, like the
barramundi, which have previously been inserted into decaying
flesh, usually the putrid carcase of a kangaroo, with the object of
making the weapon more deadly. The bones are tied to the head of a
fighting spear. This is not a general practice, however, and the spear
never leaves the hands of the owner. The natives maintain that by so
doing they can kill their enemy “quick fella.”
CHAPTER XXII
SPEAR-THROWERS
Principle of construction—How held—Some of the common types described—

Other uses.
To assist in the projection of a spear, the aboriginal has invented a

simple apparatus, which is commonly referred to as a spear-thrower
or wommera. In principle it is just a straight piece of wood with a haft
at one end and a small hook at the other. In practice the hand seizes
the haft, the hook is inserted into the small pit at the bottom of the
spear, and the shaft is laid along the thrower and held there with two
of the fingers of the hand, which is clasping the haft. In this position,
the arm is placed well back, the point of the spear steadied or made
to vibrate, and, when the native has taken careful aim, the arm is
forcibly shot forwards. The missile flies through space, towards its
target, but the thrower is retained by the hand.
One of the simplest types was made by the tribes living along the
shores of the Great Australian Bight. It consists of a flat piece of
wood, about three feet long, roughly fluted lengthwise and slightly
sloped off at either extremity. At one end a mass of resin forms a
handle, in which, moreover, a quartzite or flint scraper is embedded.
At the other end a wooden peg is affixed with resin against the flat
surface of the stick. Both surfaces of the implement are flat or slightly
convex; at Esperance Bay they are rather nicely polished, the wood
selected being a dark-coloured acacia. Towards the east, however,
as for instance at Streaky Bay, the inner side, i.e. the one bearing
the hook or peg, becomes concave and the outer side convex. On
Eyre Peninsula, the old Parnkalla tribe made the spear-thrower
shorter but wider, and its section was distinctly concave.
Northwards, through the territories of the Kukata, Arrabonna,
Wongapitcha, Aluridja, Arunndta, and Cooper Creek tribes, the
shape becomes leaf-shaped and generally of concave section, with
a well-shaped haft and broad flint scraper; the peg is attached with
resin and sinew. Within this same area, another type is less
frequently met with, which is of similar shape, but flat; it is really used
more for show purposes, and for that reason is usually decorated
with engraved circles and lines, which during some of the
ceremonies are further embellished with ochre and coloured down.
The last-named is the prevalent type, which extends westwards as
an elongate form through the Murchison district right through to the
Warburton River, where it is again broader. In both the areas
mentioned, the inner surface of the spear-thrower is deeply incised
with series of parallel, angular bands made up of transverse notches.
In the south of Western Australia, the shape remains the same, but
the incised ornamentation disappears.
Yet another variety comes from the old Narrinyerri tribe and from
the lower reaches of the River Murray, where it was known as
“taralje.” It is a small, flat, spatulate form, elongated at both ends, the
lower (and longer) prolongation making the handle, the upper
carrying a point of bone or tooth deeply embedded in resin. The
inner side, against which the spear is laid, is flat, the outer surface
being convex. The handle is circular in section and is rounded off at
the bottom to a blunt point. The convex side is occasionally
decorated with a number of pinholes, arranged in a rudely
symmetrical pattern.
All through the northern districts of the Northern Territory and the
Northern Kimberleys, the principal type is a long light-wood blade,
tapering slightly from the handle end to the point and having
comparatively flat or slightly convex sides. A handle is shaped by
rounding off the ends and cutting away some of the wood
symmetrically on each side, a few inches down. A clumsy-looking
peg is attached to one of the flat surfaces at the opposite, narrower
end with beeswax. The peg is made big on account of the instrument
being exclusively used to propel the reed-spears, which are naturally
hollow, and consequently have a large opening or pit at the bottom
end. This type of thrower is nearly always decorated in an elaborate
way with ochre. When used, the thrower and spear are held by the
right hand in such a way that the shaft of the latter passes, and is
held, between the thumb and index finger, the remaining fingers
holding the handle of the thrower. Vide Plate XIV, 2.
A spear-thrower used exclusively for projecting the small variety of
reed-spear is known to the Larrekiya, Wogait, Wordaman, Berringin,
and a few other coastal tribes of the Northern Territory. It consists of
a rod of hard wood, four feet or so in length, tapering a little towards
either end. A lump of resin is attached to one end, and, whilst warm
and plastic, is moulded into a blunt point, which fits into the hole at
the bottom of the spear. At about five inches from the opposite end,
a rim of resin is fixed, and from it a layer, decreasing in thickness, is
plastered around the stick to near the extremity. When using this
thrower, the hand is placed above the resin-rim, and the shaft of the
spear is held by the thumb against the top of the middle finger,
without the aid of the index finger. In addition to this, its principal
function, the thrower is often used for making fire, the native twirling
its lower point against another piece of wood.
A variety of the above type is found in the Gulf of Carpentaria
country, on the MacArthur River, which has a tassel of human hair-
string tied with vegetable fibre immediately below the rim of resin
around the handle.
One of the most remarkable of all spear-throwers is made by the
Larrekiya, and other Northern Territory tribes, consisting of a long,
leaf-shaped, and very thin, flexible blade, flat on one side and slightly
convex on the other. The peg is pear-shaped, and is fixed with
vegetable string and beeswax. The handle is thick and cone-shaped,
and covered with a thin layer of resin or wax. It is ornamented with
rows of small pits, which are pricked into the mass while warm with
the point of a fish bone or sharpened stick. The instrument is so thin
and fragile that only experienced men dare handle it. At times the
blade is curved like a sabre.
In addition to serving as a projecting apparatus, most of the hard-
wood spear-throwers with sharp edges are used for producing fire by
the rubbing or sawing process; those of concave section also take
the place of a small cooleman, in which ochre, down, blood, and
other materials are stored during the “making up” period of a
ceremony.
Any of the flat types of spear-thrower may be used for making fire
by the “sawing process.” The edge of the implement is rubbed briskly
across a split piece of soft wood until the red-hot powder produced
by the friction kindles some dry grass which was previously packed
into the cleft. The spark is then fanned into a flame, as previously
referred to (page 111).
CHAPTER XXIII
BURIAL AND MOURNING CUSTOMS
Customs depend upon a variety of circumstances—Child burial—Cremation

disavowed—Interment—Graves differently marked—Carved tomb-posts of
Melville Islanders—Sepulchral sign-posts of Larrekiya—Platform burial—
Mummification of corpse—Skeleton eventually buried—Identification of
supposed murderer—Pathetic scenes in camp—Self-inflicted mutilations—
Weird elegies—Name of deceased never mentioned—Hut of deceased
destroyed—Widowhood’s tribulation—Pipe-clay masks and skull-caps—
Mutilations—Second Husbands—Collecting and concealing the dead man’s
bones—Treatment of skull—Final mourning ceremony.
The burial and mourning ceremonies, if any, attendant upon the

death of a person, depend largely upon the tribe, the age, and the
social standing or status of the individual concerned. Old people who
have become “silly” (i.e. childish), and who in consequence do not
take an active part in any of the tribal functions or ceremonies, are
never honoured with a big funeral, but are quietly buried in the
ground. The reason for this is that the natives believe that the
greater share of any personal charms and talents possessed by the
senile frame have already migrated to the eternal home of the spirit.
As a matter of fact, the old person’s spirit has itself partly quitted the
body and whiles for the most time in the great beyond. For precisely
the same reason, it often happens that a tribe, when undergoing
hardship and privation brought about by drought, necessitating
perhaps long marches under the most trying conditions, knocks an
old and decrepit person on the head, just as an act of charity in order
to spare the lingering soul the tortures, which can be more readily
borne by the younger members. These ideas exist all over Australia.
When infants die, they are kept or carried around by the mothers,
individual or tribal, for a while in a food-carrier, and then buried
without any demonstration. The extinct Adelaide tribes required of
the women to carry their dead children about with them on their
backs until the bodies were shrivelled up and mummified. The
women alone attended to the burial of the child when eventually it
was assigned to a tree or the ground.
But at the demise of a person in the prime of his or her life, and of
one who has been a recognized power in life, the case is vastly
different. Both before and after the “burial” of the corpus, a lengthy
ceremony is performed, during which all sorts of painful mutilations
are inflicted amongst the bereaved relatives, amidst the
accompaniment of weird chants and horribly uncanny wails. Before
proceeding with the discussion of the attendant ceremonies,
however, we shall give an outline of the different methods adopted in
Australia for the disposal of the dead.
Cremation is nowhere practised for the simple reason that the
destruction of the bony skeleton would debar the spirit from re-
entering a terrestrial existence.
The spirit is regarded as the indestructible, or really immortal,
quantity of a man’s existence; and it is intimately associated with the
skeleton. The natives tender, as an analogy, the big larva of the
Cossus or “witchedy,” which lies buried in the bark of a gum tree. As
a result of its ordinary metamorphosis, the moth appears and flies
away, leaving the empty shell or, as the natives call it, the “skeleton”
of the “dead” grub behind. It is a common belief on the north coast
that the spirit of a dead person returns from the sky by means of a
shooting star, and when it reaches the earth, it immediately looks
around for its old skeleton. For this reason the relatives of a dead
man carefully preserve the skeletal remains, carry them around for a
while, and finally store them in a cave.
PLATE XXVI
1. Aluridja widow.
2. Yantowannta widow.
Stillborn children are usually burnt in a blazing fire since they are
regarded as being possessed of the evil spirit, which was the cause
of the death.
The simplest method universally adopted, either alone or in
conjunction with other procedures, is interment.
Most of the central tribes, like the Dieri, Aluridja, Yantowannta,
Ngameni, Wongapitcha, Kukata, and others, bury their dead, whilst
the northern and southern tribes place the corpse upon a platform,
which they construct upon the boughs of a tree or upon a special set
of upright poles. The Ilyauarra formerly used to practise tree-burial,
but nowadays interment is generally in vogue.
A large, oblong hole, from two to five feet deep, is dug in the
ground to receive the body, which has previously been wrapped in
sheets of bark, skins, or nowadays blankets. Two or three men jump
into the hole and take the corpse out of the hands of other men, who
are kneeling at the edge of the grave, and carefully lower it in a
horizontal position to the bottom of the excavation. The body is made
to lie upon the back, and the head is turned to face the camp last
occupied by the deceased, or in the direction of the supposed
invisible abode of the spirit, which occupied the mortal frame about
to be consigned to the earth. The Arunndta quite occasionally place
the body in a natural sitting position. The Larrekiya, when burying an
aged person, place the body in a recumbent position, usually lying
on its right side, with the legs tucked up against the trunk and the
head reposing upon the hands, the position reminding one of that of
a fœtus in utero.
The body is covered with layers of grass, small sticks, and sheets
of bark, when the earth is scraped back into the hole. But very often
a small passage is left open at the side of the grave, by means of
which the spirit may leave or return to the human shell (i.e. the
skeleton) whenever it wishes.
The place of sepulture is marked in a variety of ways. In many
cases only a low mound is erected over the spot, which in course of
time is washed away and finally leaves a shallow depression.
The early south-eastern (Victorian) and certain central tribes place
the personal belongings, such as spear and spear-thrower in the
case of a man, and yam-stick and cooleman in the case of a woman,
upon the mound, much after the fashion of a modern tombstone. The
now fast-vanishing people of the Flinders Ranges clear a space
around the mound, and construct a shelter of stones and brushwood
at the head end. They cover the corpse with a layer of foliage and
branches, over which they place a number of slabs of slate. Finally a
mound is erected over the site.
The Adelaide and Encounter Bay tribes built wurleys or brushwood
shelters over the mound to serve the spirit of the dead native as a
resting place.
In the Mulluk Mulluk, when a man dies outside his own country, he
is buried immediately. A circular space of ground is cleared, in the
centre of which the grave is dug. After interment, the earth is thrown
back into the hole and a mound raised, which is covered with sheets
of paper-bark. The bark is kept in place by three or four flexible
wands, stuck into the ground at their ends, but closely against the
mound, transversely to its length. A number of flat stones are laid
along the border of the grave and one or two upon the mound.
In the Northern Kimberleys of Western Australia, when an
unauthorized trespasser is killed by the local tribes, the body is
placed into a cavity scooped out of an anthill, and covered up. In a
few hours, the termites rebuild the defective portion of the hill, and
the presence of a corpse is not suspected by an avenging party,
even though it be close on the heels of the murderers.
The Dieri, in the Lake Eyre district of central Australia, dispense
with the mound, but in its place they lay a number of heavy saplings
longitudinally across the grave. Their eastern neighbours, the
Yantowannta, expand this method by piling up an exceptionally large
mound, which they cover with a stout meshwork of stakes, branches,
and brushwood lying closely against the earth (Plate XXV, 1 and 2).
One of the most elaborate methods is that in vogue on Melville
and Bathurst Islands. The ground immediately encompassing the
grave is cleared, for a radius of half a chain or more, and quantities
of clean soil thrown upon it to elevate the space as a whole. The
surface is then sprinkled with ashes and shell debris. The mound
stands in the centre of this space, and is surrounded by a number of
artistically decorated posts of hard and heavy wood, or occasionally
of a lighter fibrous variety resembling that of a palm. Each of the
posts bears a distinctive design drawn in ochre upon it; several of
the series in addition have the top end carved into simple or
complicated knobs; occasionally a square hole is cut right through
the post, about a foot from the top, leaving only a small, vertical strip
of wood at each side to support the knob (Fig. 14). The designs are
drawn in red, yellow, white, and black, and represent human, animal,
emblematical, and nondescript forms.
The Larrekiya erect a sort of sign-post, at some distance from the
grave, consisting of an upright pole, to the top of which a bundle of
grass is fixed. A cross-piece is tied beneath the grass, which projects
unequally at the sides and carries an additional bundle at each
extremity. The structure resembles a scarecrow with outstretched
arms, the longer of which has a small rod inserted into the bundle of
grass to indicate the direction of the grave. Suspended from the
other arm, a few feathers or light pieces of bark are allowed to sway
in the wind and thus serve to attract the attention of any passers-by.
When the body is to be placed upon a platform, it is carried, at the
conclusion of the preliminary mourning ceremonies, shoulder high by
the bereaved relatives to the place previously prepared for the
reception of the corpse. A couple of the men climb upon the platform
and take charge of the body, which is handed to them by those
remaining below. They carefully place it in position, and lay a few
branches over it, after which they again descend to join the
mourners. The platform is constructed of boughs and bark, which are
spread between the forks of a tree or upon specially erected pillars
of wood.
The Adelaide tribe used to tie the bodies of the dead into a sitting
position, with the legs and arms drawn up closely against the chest,
and in that position kept them in the scorching sun until the tissues
were thoroughly dried around the skeleton; then the mummy was
placed in the branches of a tree, usually a casuarina or a ti-tree.
Along the reaches of the River Murray near its mouth, the
mummification of the corpse was accelerated by placing it upon a
platform and smoking it from a big fire, which was kept burning
underneath; all orifices in the body were previously closed up. When
the epidermis peeled off, the whole surface of the corpse was thickly
bedaubed with a mixture of red ochre and grease, which had the
consistency of an ordinary oil-paint. A similar mummification process
is adopted by certain of the coastal tribes of north-eastern
Queensland.
The Larrekiya, Wogait, and other northern tribes smear red ochre
all over the surface of the corpse, prior to placing it aloft, in much the
same manner as they do when going to battle. The mourners,

Aerial Warfare The Battle For The Skies Frank Ledwidge Full Chapter

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Aerial Warfare: The Battle for the Skies

Over the course of researching and writing this book many

the production team led by Clement Raj, copy-editor Brian North,

 ‘L’Entreprenant’ at the Battle of Fleurus  

 The USS Essex 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

As with most military topics, air power is replete with acronyms

xii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

RAF Royal Air Force

‘Air power is the use of air capabilities to inﬂuence the behaviour

inﬂuenced military conﬂict. However, air power has several unique

Vast resources have been and are spent on the development

logistical structures. The world’s ﬁrst independent air arm, the

Anatomy of an Air Strike

also likely to be an ‘electronic countermeasures’ (ECM) aircraft,

The Four Roles of Air Power: Control of the Air

B  The Four Roles of Air Power

were sustained from ground ﬁre. ‘Offensive counter-air’ (OCA)

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

Figure  ‘L’Entreprenant’ at the Battle of Fleurus 

saw both sides deploy balloons to no decisive effect and they

Figure  An Italian aircraft dives on Turkish troops

army tank units. If a tank cannot move due to lack of fuel it

kind we have seen in Iraq or Afghanistan, the air supremacy

Germany (see Chapter ). At sea, air power is delivered from

that combining light internal combustion engines with a ﬂyable

Air forces require excellent personnel to operate and service

brightest of each conscription cadre and trained them to a very

power has been particularly intimate since WW and continues

Over the last two decades, with the populations of Western

military advantage gained. Necessity is closely linked, requiring

In , General Ferdinand Foch, who was to go on to command

 Beginnings: The First World War –

Beginnings: The First World War – 

be shelled by long-range artillery. This was the ﬁrst use of air

 Beginnings: The First World War –

In August , Russian generals advancing towards German

Beginnings: The First World War – 

Figure  Reconnaissance photograph of the village of Allaines

petrol. ‘It was a great misfortune having a bad day . . . ’ he opined.

 Beginnings: The First World War –

quarters had any time to devote to investigating the merits of an

Control of the Air

Beginnings: The First World War – 

operations to shoot down other ﬁghters with the objective of

 Beginnings: The First World War –

by the Dutch engineer Antony Fokker, whose eindecker (mono-

Beginnings: The First World War – 

B  The ‘Dicta Boelcke’: Sayings of Oswald Boelcke on Air

to regain control of the air. In the spring of , whilst British

 Beginnings: The First World War –

operational techniques is not entirely accurate and must be

Others devote much attention to the shaping of the spear by

A “boned” Man, Minning tribe.

1. Dieri grave, Lake Eyre district.

2. Yantowannta grave, Innamincka district.

Principle of construction—How held—Some of the common types described—

To assist in the projection of a spear, the aboriginal has invented a

Customs depend upon a variety of circumstances—Child burial—Cremation

The burial and mourning ceremonies, if any, attendant upon the

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