Wings of Empire: The Forgotten Wars of the Royal Air Force, 1919-1939

At the end of the First World War, British power in the colonies was at an all-time low. That was until a ragtag band of visionaries, including Winston Churchill and T.E. Lawrence, proposed that the aeroplane, the wonder weapon of the age, could save the empire. Using the radical strategy of air control, the RAF tried to subdue vast swathes of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Wings of Empire is a compelling account of the colonial air campaigns that saw a generation of young airmen take to the skies to battle against warlords, jihadists and hostile tribes. bropught out in paperback to coincide with the centenary of Hugh Trenchard, the author of Air Power, becoming head of the RAF on 31 March 1919, marking the start of the whole experiment, this book chronicles the full story of the RAF’s most extraordinary conflict. AUTHOR: Barry Renfrew is a foreign correspondent and has covered wars in Afghanistan, Africa and the former Soviet Union during 30 years of reporting. His reporting won major journalism awards, including The Associated Press Top Reporting Award; he was twice a finalist for The Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He has a life-long interest in British colonial military history, and previous publications include: Forgotten Regiments: Regular and Volunteer Units of the British Far East (Terrier Press); British Colonial Badges Vols. 1 & 2 (Terrier Press).