Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2015/Book reviews


 * By Anotherclown



Australia and the War in the Air is the first book in a five volume set covering Australia's involvement in World War I which is being published by Oxford University Press to commemorate the centenary of the start of the war. Written by Michael Molkentin, the author of Fire in the Sky: The Australian Flying Corps in the First World War (2010), it examines the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) in greater depth than it has been in previous works on the subject, covering all aspects of it from the establishment of the Central Flying School at Point Cook in Victoria in 1913, to the formation of the flying squadrons during the war and their active service in Mesopotamia, the Middle East, and on the Western Front. The AFC's near-involvement in operations in German New Guinea is also covered in more detail than I have seen elsewhere, making for interesting reading. The requirements of raising, training and sustaining these units are covered, detailing issues such as recruitment, training, administration, and command and control arrangements. A number of appendices provide useful information on each of the units, including their movements, operational attachments, and statistics. In addition, the book chronicles the experiences of a significant number of Australian airmen who served in the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) during the war. Overall, this is a high quality book which is well presented and thoroughly researched, and is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to know more on these topics or to expand our articles on them. The remaining books in the series are: The War with the Ottoman Empire by Jeffrey Grey (February 2015), The War with Germany by Robert Stevenson (July 2015), The War at Home  by John Connor, Peter Stanley, and Peter Yule  (October 2015), and  The Australian Imperial Force by Jean Bou, Peter Dennis, and Paul Dalgleish (forthcoming in April 2016).

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The Mediterranean Fleet, 1919–1929 – Paul Halpern, ed.

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 * By Sturmvogel_66

The Mediterranean Fleet, 1919–1929 is a collection of documents regarding the activities of the British Mediterranean Fleet from 1919 to 1929. Divided into four sections, it covers the immediate aftermath of World War I, support of the White movement during the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea and its littoral, activities during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and the Chanak Crisis, and the rest of the much quieter decade. Each section is preceeded by a section that summarizes the situation so that the reader has some familiarity with it before delving into the the documents. These summaries generally cover policy issues between the fleet commander and his superiors at the Admiralty/government and how those policies were implemented by the fleet commander. As such these might be useful for editors looking for an overview of British policy in the Mediterranean and Black Sea littorals during this time. Professor Halpern has helpfully footnoted many of these with explanatory notes, citations, and mini-biographies of prominent people of all nationalities.

These documents cover fleet and ship movements, exercises, orders from the Admiralty and of subordinate commanders as well as reports from all echelons of the fleet. The documents selected cover, in reasonable detail, the various crises dealt with by the Mediterranean Fleet and also give insights into the normal operating routines of a navy at peace. They offer an intimate view of naval command and action, albeit at a certain remove considering their intended audience.

This book will prove useful for articles on the ships mentioned as well as the units to which they belonged. These documents will also provide useful information regarding British activity during the conflicts mentioned earlier, at a greater level of detail than generally available. An unexpected benefit are the mini-biographies of notable persons that can be used as the basis for the creation or expansion of articles on those people, many of whom lack articles.

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