The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940
*Starred Review* This massive volume is informative, enthralling, and moving�often all three at once. It effectively combines narrative and analysis to tell the story of the confrontation between the Luftwaffe and RAF Fighter Command from May through October 1940. The Germans won the Battle of France, but not in a walk�and could not prevent the evacuation at Dunkirk. When they had set up bases in France and were crossing the Channel in short-legged fighters, it was another matter, as the Luftwaffe was trying to fight a strategic campaign with a tactical air force. They also never caught on to the British radar net, although they came perilously close to either disabling it or wearing out Fighter Command�s pilots before they switched to attacks on cities in September. More than a battle of weapons, this was also a battle of human will and endurance, and Holland does full justice to the people on both sides. They are not just the pilots, although he includes both those who become household names as well as those who didn�t survive their first combats, but the sweating ground crews and the families who waited for the pilots� return, and on the British side, the ground observers, radar operators, intelligence officers, and ordinary civilians ducking into rudimentary shelters when the sirens went. Genuinely brilliant. --Roland Green--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.