BATTLESPACE BOOKCLUB

THE SMITHSONIAN DIRECTORY OF AIRPLANES
EDITED BY DANA BELL
Greenhill Books
Price: £25.00
Book Club Price: £23.00

This valuable directory contains a wealth of data on the history of aviation and attempts, for the first time, to identify every aircraft manufacturer and the names and classes of aircraft they produced. The directory serves as a unique guide to the sheer number and variety of aircraft produced in the last one hundred years and more than 25,000 different aircraft are included. Entries are cross-referenced and brief histories of important companies have been added to enable the researcher to chart mergers, closures and name changes. A must for any dedicated aviation researcher, engineer, library, journalist and enthusiast Dana Bell is a leading expert on the history of aviation at the NASM archives division.

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OTHER CHOICES
WAR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION
By Dr Alfred Price Greenhill Books
Price £20.00
Book Club Price £18.00

War in the Fourth Dimension reveals the electronic warfare (EW) tactics and equipment employed by the US in Vietnam, during the Gulf War, the Kosovo war and elsewhere. Electronic Countermeasures were vital in reversing the first use by the Soviet Union of surface-to-air missiles in Vietnam. In subsequent conflicts, the low loss rates suffered by US planes attacking targets in missile-defended areas were the result of the earlier hard-learnt lessons. This book provides a valuable insight into the secret world of EW and the longrunning intelligence battle to collect detailed information on unfriendly nations’ electronic systems, the development of radar stealth techniques, the effect of computer technology on countermeasures systems, the evolution of information warfare and a review of the likely developments in EW systems of the future.

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THE COMMANDOS AT DIEPPE: REHERSAL FOR D-DAY
By Will Fowler
Harper Collins
Price £17.99
Book Club Price: 15.99

The Dieppe raid, Operation Jubilee, of 1942 have often been portrayed as one of the greatest military disasters of the Second World War on the Allied side. The invasion force consisted of 5,000 Canadian troops from 2nd Canadian Division and 1,000 Commandos from No. 4 Commando. Losses totalled 3,164 men and 215 officers as casualties or PoWs as well as all its tanks and vehicles, The Royal Navy suffered 550 casualties, lost 33 landing craft and HMS Berkeley, the RAF lost 106 aircraft, while the Luftwaffe lost only 48 having committed 945 aircraft, the German 15th Army lost 345 killed and 245 wounded. It was also the first time U.S. troops from the U.S. Rangers fired a shot in anger in the War, 45 rangers and six officers were captured.

Often overlooked is No 4 Commando’s successful supporting element of the raid, Operation Cauldron, to disable the heavy German guns that threatened the supporting ships at sea. The aim of the action was the destruction of the guns at the battery at Varengeville-sur-Mer which was achieved with singulars success. In the course of the action the Commando lost two officers killed and three wounded, 14 other ranks killed and 17 wounded. This was the only attack of the whole operation which achieved its objective. There were a number of examples of extreme gallantry, the most conspicuous being the action of Captain (temporary Major) Patrick Anthony Porteous, Royal Regiment, who, having recovered from his multiple wounds was invested with the Victoria Cross by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on October 28th. Lord Lovat, who was commended for his excellent leadership, was awarded the DSO and his Second-in-Command Major D. Mills Roberts received the MC as did Lt. D.C.W. Style a bar was added to the Captain G.C.H. Webb’s existing MC. Will has continued his excellent record of in-depth research in writing this book, interviewing surviving members of No 4 Commando coupled to extensive detail of official records; an eminently readable book.

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