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Book Reviews the ZEPPELIN Afterburner Book Reviews THE ZEPPELIN By M Belafi the prime movers. The Count was not an engineer or a pilot but learnt enough along the way to Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Books, 47 understand and fulfi l both roles. It also describes his Church Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire S70 2AS, UK. philanthropic side; building a town for his employees 2015. 211pp. Illustrated. £30. ISBN 978-1-47382- with farming co-operatives and local infrastructure, 785-1. much of which survives today. The book is not perfect, as many of the hard There are numerous published histories of the found images are of poor quality and could easily Zeppelins and their missions in WW1 creating fear have been omitted. A few captions are wrong or on the ground but making little impression on that misplaced probably more to do with the publisher horrifi c confl ict. There are also many documentaries, or proof-checker than the author. The manuscript of varying accuracy, on the Graf Zeppelin and too credits a translator and is quite readable, though many sensationalist descriptions of the Hindenburg the English is often poorly structured but is at Lakehurst that public perception tends to think comprehensible by the attentive reader. The of those harrowing images as soon as the word narrative does cover some of the service Zeppelins ‘airship’ or ‘Zeppelin’ is uttered. but is far from comprehensive or even chronological This lavishly illustrated hardback covers none in places; picture placement often falls clumsily in the text and the fi nal chapter on the NT generation of this in detail. Its true value is the biographical Kaiser Wilhelm II, left, with content on Ferdinand von Zeppelin himself that Count Ferdinand Adolf merely brought the company history up to date at fi lls around 60% of the book. Sourced from the Heinrich August Graf von publication but renders it out of date within years as family and primarily German archives it paints Zeppelin, 1838-1917, on 29 modern advances still face uncertainty and change. August 1909. RAeS (NAL). a picture of an important family with regional However, if the reader has suffi cient coverage responsibilities, a colourful military past and the of the ship’s histories then, for the biography alone, battle to persuade German authorities to recognise it provides a thorough history of the man who added the potential of the Count’s dream of long-distance his name to aeronautical history. Perhaps Pen and aerial communications. It also highlights many of Sword should have titled it simply ‘Zeppelin’. the technical personalities gathered and cajoled by the Count to advise him and fulfi l that dream; too Peter Davison many books talk solely of the Count and Eckener as AMRAeS A QUIET COUNTRY TOWN A Celebration of 100 Years of A Quiet Country Town covers the fi rm’s beginnings as an engineering concern, its move into Westland at Yeovil aircraft manufacture during WW1, then, between the By D Gibbings wars, highlighting the Wapiti, Pterodactyl, Lysander and on into war again. Post-War Chief Engineer The History Press, The Mill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Oliver Fitzwilliam and test pilot John Fay describe Gloucestershire GL5 2QG, UK. 2015. 192pp. the momentous decision to specialise in rotorcraft Illustrated. £16.99. ISBN 978-0-7509-6242-1. and licence produce Sikorsky helicopters. They separately give a fl avour to the fi rm, not overlooking To honour Westland’s centenary, David Gibbings Alan Bristow’s helicopter fl ying. Westland’s growing has compiled and introduced 29 short essays and experience with these American designs led to extracts from publications about the company, its them developing and fi nessing them to suit British people and products and its relationship to Yeovil. Westland Wessex HC2, requirements and then to building their own. XV723, airlifting a Rapier Other pieces deal with the urgent need for an Among the authors, which include David Gibbings launcher in April 1971. himself, the company’s former test pilot Harald RAeS (NAL). AEW Sea King during the Falklands confl ict, one Penrose features strongly and the other essays briefl y considers the politics behind the ‘Westland in this informative anthology are penned by those Affair’ while the superb tale of the 1986 Helicopter closely connected with the fi rm. Understandably World Speed Record is naturally not overlooked. most of these essays are concerned with It all makes an excellent read and is supported the company directly, yet the sweep is broad, by an appendix showing side illustrations of each encompassing the company’s famed designer W Westland type which are unfortunately reproduced E W Petter, Yeovil Town Football Club’s bid for the to a rather small scale. There are further appendices FA Cup in 1949, development of the Lynx and the containing 14 pages of photos and a bibliography cultural challenges of Anglo-Italian collaboration. Stephen Skinner but no index. 44 AEROSPACE / JUNE 2016 THE BATTLE FOR BRITAIN Interservice Rivalry between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, 1909-40 By A J Cumming Naval Institute Press, 291 Wood Road, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA. 2015. Distributed by Eurospan Group, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU, UK. 233pp. £32.50. ISBN 978-1-61251-834-3. The cover reviews of Anthony Cumming’s interesting The author must be congratulated on a truly Short Sunderland I, L2163, book foretell his story. Three distinguished gentlemen amazing compendium of notes and bibliography of 210 Squadron, escorting a troop convoy to the Middle – a fellow author who believes in abolishing the stretching over 46 pages which will prove invaluable East. RAeS (NAL). United States Air Force as a separate force, another to historians. But, regretfully, he makes some key who is an authority on British aircraft carrier design assertions, not supported by research, to degrade and the third a worthy Professor who challenges the value of airpower. I will quote two examples. the champions of air power as to the value of an During ‘Operation Dynamo’, the evacuation of independent force competing for resources with the British and French forces from Dunkirk in 1940, Royal Navy for the projection of the UK’s defence Cummings states that Churchill “played down the interests. Anticipation is thereby averted. success of the Royal Navy to lavish praise on the RAF The vital question Mr Cumming poses to himself fi ghter pilots (overhead).” He ignores the fact that as author and to his readers is in the last sentence Admiral Ramsey, in charge of ‘Dynamo’ was a personal of the book: “What is the purpose of independent friend of Churchill, had his recorded support at the airpower?” He admits immediately before that time and that the statement by Churchill was made sentence that it is “.... (the) one key question (which) nine years later when he was writing volume two of needs a convincing answer.” I had anticipated his his tome The Second World War and realised the RAF answer to that question was the reason for his had not been properly praised for its contribution to authorship. Arriving at his concluding sentences I the success of the evacuation at the time. came to the conclusion that, while recognising the Secondly, Cummings states that in the Battle of need for unity of command in time of wars, big, or Britain: “Fighter Command was saved from extinction small, the RAF could serve the nation best as an by the reluctant inclusion of pilots trained in foreign independent force. air forces, who already had some combat experience.” But Mr Cumming does lay bare the thesis He fails to identify the ‘reluctant inclusion’, nor weigh propounded by Trenchard, founder of the Royal Air the reality that these gallant men were but 9% of the Cumming Force, later adopted by ‘Bomber’ Harris in WW2, of the strength of Fighter Command in the Battle, not that ability of air power to crush civilian morale by bombing: many British and Commonwealth pilots were already entered “to take war to the family hearth.” Immense devastation equally battle-hardened during the Battle of France. dangerous was caused by aerial bombardment in WW2 but, Cumming entered dangerous waters with his waters with neither in the UK, nor Germany, did civilian morale pen, but deserves praise for ‘having a go’. his pen, but crumble. But the thesis did become reality when the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then a Sir Kenneth Warren deserves praise whole nation, Japan, collapsed within days. FRAeS for ‘having a go’ Find us on Twitter i Find us on LinkedIn f Find us on Facebook www.aerosociety.com JUNE 2016 45 Afterburner Book Reviews HIGH G FLIGHT more detailed study of a particular topic. As indicated by the title, the focus is on aviation, although there is enough detail on spacefl ight for the reader to be suffi ciently informed in this area. The book is divided into four Parts. Part One explains the underpinning Newtonian physics but also sets the context of gravity within Einstein’s General Theory. This part also provides a limited assessment of the G loads expected with certain aircraft types and manoeuvres, although the anticipation of ever higher and multi-axis G loads in future platforms Physiological Effects and Staff Sgt Michael Keller takes is perhaps optimistic! a self portrait in an F-15E The second Part provides a comprehensive Countermeasures Strike Eagle during a local training mission over North review of gravitational physiology at 1G and at By D G Newman Carolina in 2010. increased G (with a passing nod to the problems of USAF. the giraffe’s long neck!). There is also a good review Ashgate Publishing Limited, Wey Court East, Union of the current state of knowledge of G-related Road, Farnham, Surrey GU9 7PT, UK.
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