Rearming the RAF for the Second World War: Poor Strategy and Miscalculation

When the RAF rearmed to meet the growing threat from Nazi Germany's remorseless expansion in the late 1930s, it faced immense challenges. It had to manage a huge increase in size as well as mastering rapid advances in aviation technology. To protect Britain from attack, the RAF's commanders had to choose the right strategy and the right balance in its forces. The choices had to be made in peacetime with no guidance from combat experience. These visions then had to be translated into practical reality. A shifting cast of government ministers, civil servants and industrialists with their own financial, political and military agendas brought further dynamics into play. The RAF's readiness for war was crucial to Britain's ability to respond to Nazi aggression before war broke out and when it did, the RAF's rearmament was put to the acid test of battle. Adrian Phillips uses the penetrating grasp of how top level decisions are made that he honed in his inside accounts of the abdication crisis and appeasement, to dissect the process which shaped the RAF of 1940. He looks beyond the familiar legends of the Battle of Britain and explores in depth the successes and failures of a vital element in British preparations for war. AUTHOR: Adrian Phillips broke new ground with The King Who Had To Go, the first account of the political dimension of the abdication crisis of 1936. It exposed the remorseless strategies developed in the corridors of power that confronted King Edward VIII's glamourous love for a socially unacceptable, twice-divorced American woman. He now directs his understanding of how decisions are made at the highest level together with an intimate knowledge of the individuals involved, to probe how each side in the conflict manoeuvred to control the media during the crisis and in its bitter aftermath. 40 b/w illustrations