rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: RAF
    sub title: the birth of the world's first air force
  title info:
    title: Birth of the RAF, 1918
  name:
    name part: Overy, Richard
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nyu
    date issued: 2018
    copyright date: 2018
    edition: First American edition.
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: x, 149 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm.
  abstract: The birth of the Royal Air Force during World War I marked a pivotal moment in modern military and political history. With Europe's western front frozen in a bloody stalemate of trench warfare, both sides sought some means of directly attacking enemy resources and morale. The new technologies of air power were used at first for reconnaissance of enemy positions for artillery strikes. By 1917, German bombers had begun raids on British cities, including an attack on London that killed hundreds, with eighteen schoolchildren among the casualties. Public outrage in Britain sparked a call for air defense and spurred political support for an independent air ministry. Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his minister of munitions, Winston Churchill, led the debates over how to shape Britain's air power during the war. The immediate path to an independent RAF is a fascinating story of political, bureaucratic and personal rivalries. By the end of World War I, the RAF was launching effective bombing campaigns on industrial and military targets in western Germany. It survived postwar retrenchment thanks largely to Churchill, who as colonial secretary gave the RAF special responsibility for enforcing imperial control in the Middle East, especially in the new League of Nations mandates of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. The RAF helped to shape the way air power developed not just in Britain but notably in Germany and the United States. The massive bombing campaigns of World War II against civilian and industrial targets in major cities are rooted in this history. This compact book shows a master historian at work. In command of the archival sources, at home in all dimensions of the story, Richard Overy crafts an engrossing narrative of this turning point in our history.
  table of contents: Britain and the war in the air -- Battles in the sky, battles in Whitehall -- April Fools' Day 1918 -- "A very grueling business": saving the RAF.
  note: Richard Overy.
  note: Originally published: The birth of the RAF, 1918 : the world's first air force. London : Penguin Books, 2018.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    geographic code: e-uk---
  subject:
    name:
      name part: Great Britain.
      name part: Royal Air Force
    topic: History
    temporal: 20th century
  subject:
    topic: World War, 1914-1918
    topic: Aerial operations, British
  classification: D602 .O85 2018
  classification: 940.4/4941
  identifier: 9780393652291
  identifier: 0393652297
  identifier: 2018009312
  record info:
    record content source: DLC
    record creation date: 180305
    record change date: 20180718090442.0
    record identifier: in00004025788