AIR WARFAREAn Inter nat ional Enc yclopedia

AIR WARFAREAn Inter nat ional Enc yclopedia

v o l u m e o n e , A - L

edited by

Walter J. Boyne

Associate Editors

Michael Fopp

Fred Johnsen

Stéphane Nicolaou

George M. Watson Jr.

foreword by

Michael J. Dugan

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

v

Copyright 2002 by Walter J. Boyne

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Air warfare: an international encyclopedia / edited by Walter J. Boyne ;foreword by Michael J. Dugan.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-57607-345-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 1-57607-729-2 (e-book) 1. Aeronautics, Military—Encyclopedias. I. Boyne, Walter J., 1929– UG628.A73 2002 358.4'003—dc21 2002002251

07 06 05 04 03 02 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Alphabetical List of Entries, vii

Foreword, xix

Preface, xxvii

List of Maps, xxix

List of Terms, Acronyms, and Abbreviations, xxxi

VOLUME 1: Entries A-L

VOLUME 2: Entries M–Z

Selected Bibliography, 727

List of Contributors, 733

Index, 737

v

CONTENTS

AcesAcosta, Bertrand B. (1895–1954)Ader, Clement (1841–1925)Aerial Radio NavigationAerial RefuelingAerial TorpedoesAeritaliaAermacchiAeroflotAeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR)Aeronautical Research EstablishmentsAfghanistan War (1978–1992)AgustaAichi AircraftAir AmericaAir CommandosAir (Aerospace) Defense Command (ADC)Air Interdiction (AI)Air National Guard (ANG)Air RescueAir SuperiorityAir Technical IntelligenceAirborne Battlefield Command and Control Center

(ABCCC)Airborne Early Warning (AEW)Airborne LaserAircraft ArmamentAircraft Carriers, Development ofAirLand BattleAirlift Operations, U.S.Airlines, Service in Wartime byAirshipsAlam el Halfa, Battle of (1942)Albatros AircraftAlenia

Aleutian Islands Air WarAlgeriaAlksnis, Yakov I. (1897–1940)ALLIED FORCE (1999)American Volunteer GroupAmet-Khan, Sultan (1916–1971)An Loc, Battle of (1972)Anderson, Orvil “Arson” (1895–1965)Andrews, Frank Maxwell (1884–1943)AnsaldoAntimissile DefenseAntisatellite CapabilityAntisubmarine Warfare (ASW)Antonov AircraftANVIL (1944)Anzio, Battle of (1944)Apollo Space ProgramArado Ar 234 BlitzARC LIGHT

Argentine Aircraft IndustryARGUMENT (BIG WEEK, 1944)Armstrong, Neil A. (1930–)Armstrong Whitworth AircraftArnold, Henry H.“Hap” (1886–1950)Artillery SpottingAtlantic, Battle of the (1940–1945)Atomic BombAustria-HungaryAutomobile Industry, Wartime Mobilization ofAviation and the ArtsAviation MedicineAvro 504Avro AircraftAvro Canada Aircraft (A. V. Roe Canada)Avro Lancaster

vii

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ENTRIES

Avro VulcanAWPD/1 and AWPD/42

BABYLIFT (1975)Bachem BP-20 (Ba 349) NatterBader, Douglas R. S. (1910–1982)Baer, Heinz (1913–1957)Baikonur CosmodromeBalbo, Italo (1896–1940)Baldwin, Stanley (1867–1947)BalikpapanThe Balkans, Air Operations in (1941)The Balkans and Early Air Combat (1912–1913)Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS)BalloonsBapaume, Battle of (1918)Baracca, Francesco (1888–1918)BARBAROSSA

Barker, William George (1894–1930)Barkhorn, Gerhard (1919–1983)BAT 21Bay of Pigs Invasion Beaverbrook, Lord (1879–1964)Béchereau, Louis (1880–1970)Beech Aircraft Bell AH-1 CobraBell AircraftBell OH-13 SiouxBell P-39 Airacobra and P-63 KingcobraBell P-59A AiracometBell Tilt-RotorsBell UH-1 Iroquois (“Huey”)Bell X-1Beriev AircraftBerlin Air Battles (1940–1945)Berlin AirliftBien Hoa Air BaseBikini Atoll TestsBirkigt, Marc (1878–1953)Bishop, William (1894–1956)Bismarck, Air Operations Against theBismarck Sea, Air Battle of (1943)Bissel, Clayton L. (1896–1973)Blackburn AircraftBlériot AircraftBlimps, Military Use ofBlitzkriegBlohm and Voss AircraftBock’s CarBoeing (McDonnell Douglas/Hughes) AH-64 ApacheBoeing (North American Rockwell) B1-B Lancer

Boeing B-17 Flying FortressBoeing B-29 SuperfortressBoeing B-47 StratojetBoeing B-52 StratofortressBoeing (McDonnell Douglas) C-17 Globemaster IIIBoeing AircraftBoeing (McDonnell Douglas) F-15 EagleBoeing (McDonnell Douglas) F/A-18 HornetBoeing (McDonnell Douglas) KC-10 ExtenderBoeing KC-135 StratotankerBoeing-Vertol CH-47 ChinookBoelcke, Oswald (1891–1916)Bolling MissionBOLO (1967)Bong, Richard I. (1920–1945)Boulton Paul AircraftBoyd, Albert (1906–1976)Boyington, Gregory “Pappy” (1912–1988)Braun, Wernher von (1912–1977)Brazil, Air Operations in World War IIBrazilian Aircraft IndustryBreda AircraftBreguet AircraftBristol Aircraft (Early Years, World War I)Bristol Aircraft (Post–World War I)Bristol BeaufighterBristol, Delbert L. (1918–1980)Britain, Battle of (1940)British AerospaceBritish Aerospace HarrierBritish Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP)British Pacific FleetBulge, Battle of the (1944–1945)Bureau of Aircraft Production (BAP)Bureau of Naval Aeronautics (BNA)BurmaBusemann, Adolf (1901–1986)Bush, George Herbert Walker (1924–)

Cactus Air ForceCambodia BombingsCamm, Sydney (1893–1966)Canadian Air Force (Royal Canadian Air Force)Cant AircraftCape CanaveralCape Engano, Battle of (1944)Caproni Aircraft (Early Years)Caproni Aircraft (Post–World War I)CASA AircraftCasablanca ConferenceCassino, Battle of (November 1943–June 1944)

viii Alphabetical List of Entries

Caudron Aircraft (Early Years)Caudron Aircraft (Post–World War I)Cessna AircraftChadwick, Roy (1893–1947)Chamberlain, Neville (1869–1940)Channel DashChateau Thierry, Battle of (1918)Chennault, Claire L. (1890–1958)Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917–1992)Chinese Air Force and U.S. AidChinese-American Composite WingChinese Communist Air Force (People’s Liberation Army

Air Force [PLAAF])Chkalov, Valeri Pavlovich (1904–1938)Churchill, Winston S. (1874–1965)Civil Air Patrol (CAP, in World War II)Civil Aviation: Impact of Military AdvancesCivil Aviation: Impact on the MilitaryCivil War (U.S.) and Use of BalloonsCivil WarsClark, Joseph J.“Jocko” (1893–1971)Clark, Mark W. (1896–1984)Clark, Wesley K. (1944–)Clay, Lucius D. (1897–1978)Close Air SupportCold WarCold War and Commercial AviationCollege Eye Task Force (CETF)Colonial WarsCombat Cargo CommandCombat Search and Rescue (CSAR)Combined Bomber OffensiveCommand of the Air (Giulio Douhet, 1921)COMMANDO HUNT (1968–1972)Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)Coningham, Arthur “Mary” (1895–1948)Consolidated Aircraft Corporation (CONVAIR, Convair)Consolidated B-24 LiberatorConsolidated B-36 PeacemakerConsolidated PBY CatalinaContinental Air Command (CONAC)Convair B-58 HustlerConvair F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta DartCoppens, Baron Willy (1892–1986)Coral Sea, Battle of the (1942)CORONA Spy Satellites (Discover)Counterinsurgency OperationsCoventry Air RaidsCrete, Battle of (1941)CROSSROADS (1946)CRUSADER (1941)

Cuban Missile CrisisCunningham, Randall “Duke” (1941–)Curtiss AircraftCurtiss Biplane FightersCurtiss, Glenn Hammond (1878–1930)Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny”Curtiss P-40 WarhawkCurtiss-Wright Corporation

Dargue, Herbert A. (1886–1941)Dassault, Marcel (1892–1986)Dassault Mirage IIIDassault Mystère IVADavis, Benjamin Oliver Jr. (1912–)De Havilland Aircraft (Early Years and World War I)De Havilland Aircraft (Post–World War I)De Havilland D.H. 98 MosquitoDe Havilland Tiger MothDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)Defense Support Program (DSP) and Missile DetectionDefense SuppressionDELIBERATE FORCE (1995)Deptula, David A. (1952–)DESERT FOX (1998)DESERT SHIELD (1990)DESERT STORM (1991)Dewoitine AircraftDien Bien Phu, Battle of (1954)Dieppe, Battle of (1942)Distant Early Warning (DEW)Doolittle, James H. (1896–1993)Dornier AircraftDornier Do 217Douglas, William Sholto (1893–1970)Douglas A-4 SkyhawkDouglas A-20 HavocDouglas A/B-26 InvaderDouglas AircraftDouglas C-47 TransportDouglas D-558Douglas SBD DauntlessDouglas World CruiserDowding, Hugh C.T. (1882–1970)Dresden, Bombing of (1945)Dunkirk

Eagle SquadronsEaker, Ira C. (1896–1987)Eastern Solomons, Battle of the (1942)Ebro 33: Rescue EffortsEgyptian Air Force

Alphabetical List of Entries ix

Ejection SeatsEl Alamein, Air Battles of (1942)EL DORADO CANYON (1986)Electronic Warfare (EW)Ellyson, Theodore Gordon (1885–1928)Ely, Eugene (1886–1911)ENDURING FREEDOM

Energy ManeuverabilityEngine TechnologyEnglish Electric AircraftEnglish Electric CanberraEnglish Electric LightningEnlisted Pilots in U.S. Military ServicesEnola GayEthiopian WarEurofighter Typhoon

Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt IIFairchild AircraftFairchild C-82 Packet and C-119 Flying BoxcarFairchild, Muir Stephen (1894–1950)Fairey AircraftFairey SwordfishFalaise-Argentan PocketFalkland Islands WarFar East Air Forces (FEAF)Farman AircraftFarman PushersFerretsFiatField Manual 100-20 (U.S. Army)Fieseler Fi 156 StorchFighter Air Corps, 64th (Soviet Air Force)Finletter CommissionFinnish Air Force (Early Years)Finnish Air Force (in Russo-Finnish Wars)Finnish Air Force (Recent History)First Aero SquadronFirst Marine Air WingFleet Air ArmFletcher, Frank Jack (1885–1973)Flight Refuelling Ltd.Flying BoatsFocke-Wulf AircraftFocke-Wulf Fw 190Focke-Wulf Fw 200 CondorFokker Aircraft (Early Years, World War I)Fokker Aircraft (Post–World War I)Folland, Henry Phillip (1889–1954)Fonck, René Paul (1894–1953)Football War

Ford Motor CompanyFord, William Wallace (1898–1986)Foss, Joseph J. (1915–)Foulois, Benjamin D. (1879–1967)France, Battle for (1940)Franco, Francisco (1892–1975)FRANTIC (1944)Franz, Anselm (1900–1994)French Air DoctrineFrench Air ForceFrench Aircraft Development and Production

(World War I–Early World War II)French Aircraft Development and Production

(World War II–Present)French Army Light Air ForceFrench Missile Production and DevelopmentFrench Naval Air Force (Aéronavale)FREQUENT WIND (1975)Frontal AviationFuchida, Mitsuo (1903–1973)

Gabreski, Francis S. (1919–2002)Gagarin, Yuri (1934–1968)Gallai, Mark (1914–1998)Galland, Adolf (1912–1996)Garros, Roland (1888–1918)GasolineGavin, James Maurice (1907–1990)Geisler, Hans-Ferdinand (1891–1966)Gemini Space ProgramGenda, A. Minoru (1904–1989)General DynamicsGeneral Dynamics F-111 AardvarkGeorge, Harold Lee (1893–1986)German Air Force (Luftwaffe, World War II)German Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte, World War I)German Aircraft Development and Production,

Post–World War IIGerman Imperial Naval Air Service (World War I)German Naval Airship DivisionGerman Rocket DevelopmentGermany and World War II Air Battles (1940–1945)Gibson, Guy P. (1918–1944)Gilbert IslandsGlobal Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)Gloster AircraftGloster E.28/39 (G.40) PioneerGloster MeteorGnôme/Gnôme-Rhône Rotary EnginesGoddard, Robert H. (1882–1945)Goering, Hermann (1893–1946)

x Alphabetical List of Entries

Golovanov, Aleksandr (1904–1975)GOMORRAH (1943)Gotha BombersGreat Britain, Missile Development and Production inGreeceGreek Air ForceGreim, Robert Ritter von (1892–1945)Grizodubova, Valentina Stepanova (1910–1993)Groves, Leslie Richard (1896–1970)Grumman A-6E IntruderGrumman AircraftGrumman Biplane FightersGrumman EA-6B ProwlerGrumman F-14 TomcatGrumman F4F WildcatGrumman F6F HellcatGrumman F9F Panther/CougarGrumman TBF/TBM AvengerGuadalcanalGuam, Battles of (1944)GuernicaGuideline (SA-2) Surface-to-Air MissileGulf of Tonkin ResolutionGulf War (1991)Gun SightsGunshipsGurevich, Mikhail I. (1892–1976)Guynemer, Georges (1894–1917)

Haiphong Air AttacksHalberstädt AircraftHalsey, William Frederick (1882–1959)Hamburg Bombing CampaignHandley Page Aircraft (Early Years/World War I)Handley Page Aircraft (Post–World War I)Handley Page HalifaxHandley Page VictorHannover AircraftHanoi Air AttacksHansell, Haywood S., Jr. (1903–1988)Hanson, Robert M. (1920–1944)Harris, Arthur T. (1892–1984))Hartmann, Erich (1922–1993)Hawker AircraftHawker HunterHawker HurricaneHawker-Siddeley AircraftHawker Typhoon and TempestHeinemann, Edward H. (1908–1991)Heinkel AircraftHeinkel He 111 (1934–1945)

Helicopter Operations in the U.S. ArmyHelicoptersHenschel AircraftHERCULES (1942)Herrman, Hajo (1913–)Hess, Rudolph (1894–1987)HiroshimaHo Chi Minh TrailHolloway, Bruce K. (1912–1999)Horikoshi, Jiro (1903–1982)Horner, Charles A. (1936–)Horten Flying WingsHoward, James Howell (1913–1995)Howze, Hamilton Hawkins (1908–1998)Hump AirliftHunsaker, Jerome Clarke (1886–1984)HUSKY (1943)Hutton, Carl Irven (1907–1966)

Ia Drang Valley, Battle of (1965)Ilya MurometsIlyushin AircraftIlyushin Il-2 ShturmovikImperial Russian Air ServiceIndependent Bombing Force (World War I)Indian and Pakistani AirpowerIndochinaInoue, Shigeyoshi (1889–1975)INSTANT THUNDER (1990)Iran Hostages Rescue OperationIraqi Air ForceIsrael Aircraft Industries (IAI)Israeli Air ForceIsraeli-Arab ConflictsItalian Air Force (Post–World War II)Italian Aircraft DevelopmentItalian Campaign (1943–1945)Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912)Iwamoto, Tetsuzo (1916–1955)Iwo Jima

Jabara, James (1923–1966)James, Daniel “Chappie” (1920–1978)Japan, Air Operations Against (1942–1945)Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF)Japanese Army Air Force, Imperial (JAAF)Japanese Naval Air Force, Imperial (JNAF)Jeschonnek, Hans (1899–1943)Johnson, Clarence L.“Kelly” (1910–1990)Johnson, Robert S. (1920–1998)Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

Alphabetical List of Entries xi

JointnessJones, David C. (1921–)Junkers AircraftJunkers Ju 52/3m, Ju 87 Stuka, and Ju 88

Kaman AircraftKamikaze AttacksKammhuber, Josef (1896–1986)Kamov HelicoptersKármán, Theodore von (1881–1963)Kartveli, Alexander (1896–1974)Kawanishi AircraftKawasaki AircraftKearby, Neel (1911–1944)Kenney, George (1889–1997)Kesselring, Albert (1885–1960)Khalkin Gol Air Battles (1939)Khe SanhKhomyakova, Valeriya (1914–1942)Khryukin, Timofei T. (1910–1953)Kindelberger, James H.“Dutch” (1895–1962)King, Ernest Joseph (1878–1956)KitesKittinger, Joseph W., Jr.(1928–)Koldunov, Aleksandr (1923–1992)Koller, Karl (1898–1951)Korean WarKorolyov, Sergei (1907–1966)Korten, Guenther (1898–1944)KOSMOS

Kozakov, Aleksandr (1889–1919)Kozhedub, Ivan (1920–1991)Kreipe, Werner (1905–1967)Kuban Air BattlesKursk, Battle of (1943)Kutakhov, Pavel (1914–1984)

Lafayette Escadrille/Flying CorpsLangley, USSLaosLavochkin AircraftLeahy, William D. (1875–1959)Leigh-Mallory, Trafford (1892–1944)LeMay, Curtis Emerson (1906–1990)Lend-Lease AircraftLewandowska (Dowbór-Musnicka), Janina (1908–1940)Leyte Gulf, Battle of (1944)Liberty EngineLiberty, USSLINEBACKER (1972)LINEBACKER II (1972)

Link TrainerLippisch, Alexander Martin (1894–1976)Litvyak, Lidya (1921–1943)Locarno ConferenceLockheed AircraftLockheed F-104 StarfighterLockheed HudsonLockheed Martin AircraftLockheed Martin C-130 HerculesLockheed Martin C-5 GalaxyLockheed Martin F-117 NighthawkLockheed Martin F-16 Fighting FalconLockheed Martin F-22 RaptorLockheed P-38 Lightning Lockheed P/F-80 Shooting StarLockheed SR-71 BlackbirdLockheed T-33Lockheed U-2 Dragon LadyLoehr, Alexander (1885–1947)LogisticsLondon Naval Agreement (1930)LOOKING GLASS

Lovett, Robert A. (1895–1986)Ludendorff, Erich (1865–1937)Luetzow, Guenther (1912–1945)Lufbery, Gervais Raoul (1885–1918)Luke, Frank Jr. (1897–1918)

MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964)Macchi Aircraft (Aermacchi)MacDonald, Charles H. (1915–)Mach, Ernst (1838–1916)MagicMagnetic Anomaly DetectionMalaya, Battles of (1941–1942)Malta, Siege ofManned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL)Mannock, Edward (1887–1918)Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976)Mareth Line, Battles of the (1943)Marinelli, Jack L. (1917–1982)MARKET-GARDEN (1944)Marseille, Hans-Joachim (1919–1942)Marshall Islands (1943–1944)Martin AircraftMartin B-10/B-12 BomberMartin B-26 MarauderMartin-Baker AircraftMartini, Wolfgang (1891–1963)Massive RetaliationMayaguez Incident

xii Alphabetical List of Entries

McCain, John S. (1884–1945)McCampbell, David S. (1910–1996)McConnell, Joseph C. (1922–1954)McDonnell AircraftMcDonnell Douglas AircraftMcDonnell F-4 Phantom IIMcGuire, Thomas B., Jr. (1920–1945)Mediterranean Theater of Operations (World War II)Menoher, Charles Thomas (1862–1930)Mercedes EnginesMercury Space ProgramMesserschmitt, Willy (1898–1978)Messerschmitt Bf 109Messerschmitt Me 163 KometMesserschmitt Me 262Meyer, John C. (1919–1975)Midway, Battle of (1942)MiG AlleyMikoyan, Artem I. (1905–1970)Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) AircraftMikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29Mil AircraftMilch, Erhard (1892–1972)Miles AircraftMissiles, Air-to-Air and Surface-to-SurfaceMissiles, Intercontinental Ballistic (ICBMs)Missiles, Intermediate-Range Ballistic (IRBMs)Missiles, Surface-to-Air (SAMs)Mitchell, Reginald J. (1895–1937)Mitchell, William “Billy” (1879–1936)Mitscher, Marc Andrew (1887–1947)Mitsubishi A6M Reisen (“Zero”)Mitsubishi AircraftMitsubishi G4M (“Betty”)Moelders, Werner (1913–1941)Moffett, William Adger (1869–1933)Morane-Saulnier 406Morane-Saulnier AircraftMu Gia PassMuencheberg, Joachim (1918–1943)Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle

(MIRV)Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945)Mutual Assured Destruction

NagasakiNagumo, Chuichi (1886–1944)Nakajima AircraftNational Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP)

National Security Act of 1947National Security Council (NSC)Naval Aircraft Factory (NAF)NAVSTAR Global Positioning SystemNesterov, Pyotr (1887–1914)Netherlands East Indies (1942)Neuve Chapelle, Battle of (1915)Nguyen Cao Ky (1930–)NICKEL GRASS (1973)Nieuport AircraftNieuport-Delage NiD-29Night Witches (46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment)Nimitz, Chester William (1885–1966)Nishizawa, Hiroyoshi (1920–1944)Nonlethal WeaponsNormandie-Niemen SquadronNormandy, Task ForceNorstad, Lauris (1907–1988)North African CampaignNorth American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)North American AviationNorth American B-25 MitchellNorth American B-45 TornadoNorth American B-70 ValkyrieNorth American F-86 SabreNorth American OV-10 BroncoNorth American P-51 MustangNorth American T-6 TexanNorth American X-15North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)Northrop AircraftNorthrop Flying WingsNorthrop Grumman B-2 SpiritNorthrop T-38 Talon, F-5 Freedom Fighter, and

Tiger IINorwegian Air Campaign (1940)Novikov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (1900–1976)Nowotny, Walter (1920–1944)

O’Grady, ScottOhain, Hans Joachim Pabst von (1911–1998)O’Hare, Edward H. (1914–1943)OkinawaOlympic Arena/Guardian ChallengeOnishi, Takijiro (1891–1945)Osirak Nuclear ReactorOzawa, Jisaburo (1886–1966)

Alphabetical List of Entries xiii

Pacific Air ForcesPakistan Air ForcePalau, Battle of (1944)Palomares Nuclear IncidentPanama Invasion (1989)Panavia TornadoPanay, USSPantelleriaPape, Robert A. (1960–)ParachutesParis Air AgreementPark, Keith Rodney (1892–1975)Patrick, Mason Mathews (1863–1942)Patterson, Robert Porter (1891–1952)Pattle, Marmaduke Thomas St. John (1914–1941)Pave NailPearl HarborPEDESTAL (1942)PeenemündePeltz, Dietrich (1914–)Pepelyaev, Evgenii Georgievich (1918–)Pershing, John Joseph (1860–1948)Peru-Ecuador Boundary ConflictPetersen, Frank E. (1932–)Petlyakov AircraftPfalz AircraftPhilippines (1941, 1944)Piaggio AircraftPiasecki HelicoptersPilatusPiper AircraftPlatz, Reinhold (1886–1996)Ploesti Oil RefineriesPOINTBLANK (1942–1945)Pokryshkin, Aleksandr (1913–1985)Poland, Aircraft Development and ProductionPolikarpov, Nikolai N. (1892–1944)Polish Air ForcePolish Auxiliary Women’s Air Force Service (1943–1945)

and [British] Air Transport Auxiliary (1941–1945) Portal, Charles (1893–1971)Porte, John C. (1884–1919)Potez 25Potez 63Potez AircraftPowers, Francis Gary (1929–1977)Precision-Guided MunitionsPreddy, George E., Jr. (1919–1944)Presidential AircraftPressurized Cabins and CockpitsPrisoners of War

PropellersPueblo, USSPZL Aircraft (Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze)

Quesada, Elwood R. (1904–1993)Question Mark

RabaulRadar and How It WorksRadar, and the Battle of BritainRall, Guenther (1918–)Raskova (Malinina), Marina Mikhaylovna (1912–1943)Ravens (1966–1974)Read, Albert C.(1887–1967)Reber, Samuel (1864–1933)Reeves, Joseph M. (1872–1948)Regia Aeronautica (Pre–World War II)Regia Aeronautica (World War II)Reitsch, Hanna (1912–1979)Republic AircraftRepublic F-105 ThunderchiefRepublic F-84 Thunderjet, Thunderstreak, and

ThunderflashRepublic P-47 ThunderboltRequest for Data R-40C: The XP-54, XP-55, and XP-56

Fighter ProgramsResearch AircraftRichthofen, Manfred von (1892–1918)Richthofen, Wolfram Freiherr von (1895–1945)Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon (1890–1973)Ridgway, Matthew Bunker (1895–1993)Risner, Robinson (1925–)Ritchie, Richard S.“Steve” (1942–)Rocket Research in Germany (World War II)Rockwell InternationalROLLING THUNDER (1965–1968)Rosendahl, Charles E. (1892–1977)Royal Aircraft FactoryRoyal Australian Air Force (RAAF)Royal Bulgarian Air ForceRoyal Flying Corps (RFC)/Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS)/

Royal Air Force (RAF)Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNAF)Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF)Royal Yugoslav Air Force (RYAF)Rudel, Hans-Ulrich (1916–1982)Rudenko, S. I. (1904–1990)Ruhr Bombing CampaignRumpler AircraftRussian Air Force (Post-Soviet)Ryan Aircraft

xiv Alphabetical List of Entries

Saab AircraftSaab J-29 TunnanSaab J-35 DrakenSaab J-37 ViggenSaab JAS-39 GripenSafonov, Boris (1915–1942)SAGE (Semiautomated Ground Environment) Defense

SystemSaint Mihiel, Battle of (1918)Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de (1900–1944)Sakai, Saburo (1916–2000)Salerno, Battle of (1943)Salmond, John M. (1881–1968)Salmson AircraftSalyutSamson, Charles R. (1883–1931)Santa Cruz, Battle of (1942)Saro AircraftSatellite Command and ControlSatellitesSchmid, Josef (1901–1956)Schnaufer, Heinz-Wolfgang (1922–1950)Schriever, Bernard A.“Bennie” (1910–)Schütte, Johann (1873–1940)Schwarzkopf, H. Norman (1934–)Schweinfurt-Regensburg RaidsSENTRY (Samos) Reconnaissance SystemSeversky, Alexander P. de (1894–1974)Seversky AircraftShenyang J-6 and J-8Short Aircraft (Early Years and World War I)Short Aircraft (Post–World War I)Short StirlingShort SunderlandShort, Michael C. (1944–)SIAI MarchettiSignals Intelligence (SIGINT)Sikorsky, Igor I. (1889–1972)Sikorsky S-55/H-19 ChickasawSikorsky S-61R/CH-3/HH-3 (“Jolly Green Giant”)Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane/CH-54 TarheSikorsky S-65/CH-53 Sea StallionSikorsky S-70Sikorsky UH-60 Black HawkSingle Integrated Operation Plan (SIOP)Six Day WarSlessor, John C. (1897–)Smushkevich, Yakov “General Douglas” (1902–1941)SNCASO 4050 VautourSokolovsky, Vasily Danilovich (1897–1968)Somalia

Somerville, James F. (1882–1949)Somme, Battle of the (1916)Sopwith AircraftSopwith, Thomas O. M. (1888–1989)Sosnowska-Karpik, Irena (1922–1990)South Atlantic/Trans-Africa Air RouteSoutheast Asia Air War (1965–1972)Soviet Air ForceSoviet Aircraft Development and Production Soviet Volunteer PilotsSoviet Women PilotsSoviet Women’s Combat Wings (1942–1945)Soyuz Space VehicleSpaatz, Carl Andrew (1891–1974)Space Shuttle, and Military UseSpace StationsSPAD AircraftSpanish Air ForceSpanish Civil WarSpecial OperationsSpeer, Albert (1905–1981) Sperrle, Hugo (1885–1953)Spruance, Raymond A. (1886–1969)SputnikSquier, George Owen (1865–1934)Stalingrad, Battle of (1942–1943)Stapp, John Paul (1910–1999)Stearman AircraftSTEEL TIGER (1965–1968)Steinhoff, Johannes (1913–1994)STRANGLE (1951)Strategic Air CommandStrategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT)Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)Strategic BombingStrategic Defense Initiative (SDI,“Star Wars”)Strategic Triad ConceptStudent, Kurt (1890–1978)Stumpff, Hans-Juergen (1889–1968)SUD AviationSueter, Murray (1872–1960)Suez CrisisSugita, Shoichi (1924–1945)Sukhoi AircraftSukhoi Su-24Sukhoi Su-27Supermarine AircraftSupermarine SpitfireSuprun, Stepan (1907–1941)Sutyagin, Nikolai (1923–1986)Swedish Air Force

Alphabetical List of Entries xv

Swiss Air ForceSwiss Aircraft IndustrySyrian Air ForceSystems Management

TACAMOTactical Air Command (TAC)Tactical Air WarfareTank, Kurt (1898–1983)Taran (Ramming)Taranto Air Attack (1940)Tarawa, Battle of (1943)Task Force 38/58Task Force 77Taylor, Maxwell Davenport (1901–1987)Tedder, Arthur W. (1890–1967)Tereshkova, Valentina (1937–)Terror-BombingTerrorismThomsen, Hermann von der Lieth (1867–1942)Tibbets, Paul W. (1915–)Tokugawa, Yoshitoshi (1882–1963)Tokyo Air RaidsTop GunTORCH (1942)Towers, John H. (1885–1955)Trenchard, Hugh (1873–1956)Truman, Harry S.TsAGITsiolkovsky, Konstantin Eduardovich (1857–1935)Tunner, William H. (1906–1983)Tupolev AircraftTuskegee AirmenTwining, Nathan F. (1897–1983)

Udet, Ernst (1896–1941)Ugaki, Matome (1890–1945)UltraUnited Aircraft United States Air Force: Organizational HistoryUnited States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE)United States Army Air Corps (USAAC)United States Army Air ForcesUnited States Army Air ServiceUnited States Army Signal CorpsUnited States NavyUnmanned Aerial VehiclesU.S. Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) U.S. Air Force AcademyU.S. Air Force Doctrine

U.S. Aircraft Development and Production (World War I)

U.S. Army Aviation: OperationsU.S. Army Aviation: OriginsU.S. Coast Guard AviationU.S. Marine Corps Aviation U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)U.S. Navy, Office of the SecretaryU.S. Postal Air Mail ServiceU.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (SBS)

V-1 Missile and V-2 RocketValencia, Eugene A. (1921–)Vandenberg, Hoyt S. (1899–1954)Vang Pao (1929–)VARSITY (1945)V-BombersVerdun, Battle of (1916)Versailles TreatyVertol (Piasecki) H-21Verville, Alfred (1890–1970)Vian, Philip L. (1894–1968)Vichy French Air ForceVickers AircraftVickers ValiantVietnam WarVietnamese Air Force (North)Vietnamese Air Force (South)Vimy Ridge, Battle of (1917)Vo Nguyen Giap (1912–)Voisin AircraftVoskhodVoss, Werner (1897–1917)VostokVought A-7 Corsair IIVought AircraftVought F4U CorsairVought F-8 CrusaderVought VE-7

Wake Island, Battles of (1941–1945)Warden, John A. III (1943–)Warning SystemsWarsaw Pact AviationWashington Naval ConferenceWeapons SystemWelch, Larry D. (1934–)Wells, Edward C. (1910–1986)Wells, Herbert George (1866–1946)Westland Lynx

xvi Alphabetical List of Entries

Alphabetical List of Entries xvii

Westland LysanderWever, Walter (1887–1936)Weyland, Otto P.“Opie”White, Thomas Dresser (1901–1965)Whittle, Frank (1907–1996)Wild WeaselWilliams, Robert R. (1918–)Wind TunnelsWinter War (1939–1940)Women Airforce Service PilotsWomen in Air CombatWomen in the Air Force (WAF)Women in the Aircraft Industry (World War II)Women’s Auxiliary Air ForceWomen’s Auxiliary Ferrying SquadronWorden, Hector (1885–1916)

World War I AviationWorld War II AviationWorld War II ConferencesWright, Orville (1871–1948)Wright, Wilbur (1867–1912)Wright-Patterson Air Force BaseYakovlev, Aleksandr S. (1906–1989)Yamaguchi, Tamon (1892–1942)Yamamoto, Isoroku (1884–1943)Yeager, Charles E. (1923–)Yom Kippur War (October War)Y-Service

Zeppelin, Ferdinand Von (1838–1917)Zero-Length LauncherZuckert, Eugene M. (1911–2000)

A first in the field of military studies, Air Warfare: An Inter-national Encyclopedia is a wealth of information—a com-prehensive source of names and places, planes and aces, de-signers and builders. But more than anything it is a record ofideas, developed and brought to fruition over the past cen-tury, relating to the conduct of warfare in the third dimen-sion. The men and women, the thinkers and visionaries, theplanners and executers of air warfare had new and differentideas about the use of the air—and space—for the prosecu-tion of war and the preservation of peace.

This foreword is meant to unify the sweeping and diverg-ing elements that follow. Most of the writings about air war-fare focus on its very visible characteristics—air vehiclesand propulsion systems, the victories achieved, the lossessuffered, the tons delivered, the damage inflicted—intendedand unintended.

Vehicles for air warfare command a wide-ranging mix ofsuch “visibles”: materials, design, controls, power plants.And though there has been great diffusion of engineeringknowledge across national boundaries, these elements were,and are, largely pursued independently by nations that hadthe resources to do so. Few nations have successfully fieldedeffective air forces, yet there is a significant display of visi-bles that nations throughout history have fielded. The twovolumes that make up this ground-breaking publicationcapture in great detail those visible characteristics and themen and women who dreamed, developed, and deployedthem.

Beyond this visible content—and arguably more impor-tant to the development of air warfare—are the largely in-visible elements that provided the conceptual and analyticalbasis for designing, funding, producing, deploying, and em-ploying air forces and the logistical framework so necessaryfor effective use.

Air warfare is fundamentally about new ideas and the re-

sulting new weapons and concepts for their employment; itis not, primarily, about airplanes and pilots; it is not aboutthe platforms from which new weapons are employed. Thoseelements are the visibles that are the easy to observe and towrite about. The unseen and the unreported are much morecentral to the essence of air warfare and its achievements.The ideas that stimulated and supported war in the third di-mension envisioned, and still envision, a changing conflictenvironment in which air forces would take the fight directlyto the political source of an enemy’s strength, avoiding thedeadly contest at the front. For centuries nations have foughttheir enemies at the front—from the periphery to therear—toward some high-priority physical objective, the de-struction or threatened destruction of which would causethe enemy to sue for peace.

Airmen had a different idea; they sought to take mortalcombat directly to the high-priority objectives—so-calledcenters of gravity—bypassing the time-honored sacrifice ofyoung men, sometimes by the thousands, at the front. Thisnew notion of war, this new thinking, has received mixed re-views. From questions about its morality—as if killing50,000 friendly ground forces at the front on separate occa-sions within a 25-year period did not raise questions ofmorality for the USA—to questions about its effectiveness,air warfare has generated almost as many detractors as ithas supporters. The ensuing intellectual and political debategenerated widely divergent views on both sides. The debatehas sharpened the critical analysis of air operations far be-yond the review and analysis of other areas of warfare, andfrom that crucible of debate has sprung more pertinentideas, more compelling concepts, more useful weapons. Theintroduction of the intercontinental ballistic missile, theubiquitous employment of space-based capabilities sup-porting surface and air warfare, the migration and diffusionof reconnaissance from horseback to airplane to spacecraft

xix

FOREWORD

and, now, to unmanned aerial vehicles demonstrate the ca-pacity of an idea-based movement to adapt to new circum-stances—not just new technology, not just piloted vehicles,but to the ideas that drive innovation.

The new ideas associated with air warfare are either revo-lutionary or conventional depending on one’s viewpoint ofwar as an instrument of national policy. A viewpoint sug-gesting more revolutionary ideas holds that air warfarechanges everything but policy: New means of warfare re-quire new military doctrines and new relationships amongthe armed forces of a nation; new air warfare capabilities re-quire different planning efforts to maximize the politicalutility and military power of the evolving force, includingair, land, and sea elements; new capabilities afford new con-cepts of operations and, potentially, less predictable ap-proaches to dealing with enemy forces; incrementalism doesnot suffice. A viewpoint suggesting that ideas relating to airwarfare are more conventional holds that little changes: Hu-man nature has not changed over the millennia; therefore,the causes of, and the events in, war will be familiar; thefunctions of the armed forces do not change; relationshipsamong combatants may evolve for lots of reasons, but not asthe result of any passing technological phenomenon in thethird dimension; change in military affairs is continuous,slow, and incremental.

The 1970 pamphlet “Men, Machines, and Modern Times,”written by the distinguished naval historian Samuel EliotMorison, captures the difficulty in acknowledging value andeffecting change in traditional military societies (and in thetraditional steel and rail industries as well) some 150 yearsago.Accepting the advent of the unknowns of steam over theknowns of wind and sail; accepting rifling in the field anddeck pieces for armies and navies; accepting breach load-ers—each dastardly, revolutionary ideas that were foughthard and for all the wrong reasons. The introduction ofbreach-loading weapons merits some elaboration: PresidentLincoln, attempting to recruit and deploy sufficient forcesfor the Civil War, was effectively opposed, even neutralized,by the insistence of the Union Army’s Colonel of Ordnancethat federal troops be equipped with muzzle loaders de-signed a half-century earlier. There are various estimates ofthe cost of the delay in adapting to the changed circum-stances; the patented Colt could, and eventually did, multiplythe effectiveness of each soldier so equipped by a factor oftwo or three. Lincoln’s recruiting efforts and the eventualcost of the war were extended by the rejection of change.Adapting to change is a painful exercise for military forces.The burden of history and tradition—and especially of suc-cess—is one of the major reasons.

In some 5,000 years of recorded history it appears that

man has fought in organized formations on the ground vir-tually every year (and the same at sea for almost 3,500years). In the long view of history, air warfare is but a foot-note to the vast compendia of battles and heroes of war onland and at sea. Yet the vector of accomplishment demon-strated by air forces in the past 100 years has commandedbroad attention and high expectations. In particular, thoseon the receiving end—on land and at sea—of aerial attackhave expressed their respect for the power and impact—physical and psychological—of this still new element ofwarfare.

Such respect is not universal. There is great tensionamong the leadership of various service elements in virtu-ally every country over the attention and the approbationpaid by the public to the illusion, the promise, and the re-sults of air warfare. This attention is reflected in national de-bates, policy decisions, and their consequent impact on forcestructures and operations. The tension manifests itself inmany ways and applies well beyond the competition for re-sources among those who fight in the air, on the ground, andat sea.

Most air forces are subordinate organizational elementsof their nations’ armies, and the leadership of the army de-termines, in large measure, the political, doctrinal, and oper-ational environment in which the its force exists. For exam-ple, in China the People’s Liberation Army Air Force(PLAAF) is an integral arm of the Peoples’ Liberation Army.It is not in any way a separate air force, and neither is it anequal player when decisions are made about force develop-ment, force structure, and force employment. The purpose ofan air force in such an environment is to maximize the con-tributions of ground combat operations toward achievingthe nation’s military objectives. The organizational, deploy-ment, and employment concepts of the PLAAF are muchmore closely aligned with ideas of Alexander, Caesar, andNapoleon than with those of Douhet, Trenchard, and Doolit-tle. Consequently, the research and development, the train-ing, the standards, the norms, and the operations of thePLAAF are derived from the warfighting needs of theground forces. Such historical development and the continu-ing imperatives of traditional ground warfare have limited,in many regards, the potential of air forces to fully exploitthe different capabilities inherent in air operations.

These limits are not solely military. In most nations mili-tary tradition is embodied in its army. In those few nationswith a civil and military seafaring history, the navy may getequal opportunity; nevertheless, for purposes of military in-volvement in international affairs, for internal security con-siderations, and in many cases for various internal policepowers, the army is the political force of choice when the

xx Foreword

head of government is seeking a new chief of defense staff(or, in the United States, a new Chairman of the Joint Chiefsof Staff). This selection further limits the breadth of militaryadvice that governments can bring to bear on defense andmilitary issues.

An additional limiting factor has to do with the insightand advice that political leaders can, and do, get from de-fense intellectuals. Political scientists and classically trainedhistorians understand from their research that war is foughton the ground and on the sea; libraries are full of volumes bymen—made famous by their own military exploits and bythe work of scholars—who have written in great detail ofthe formations and the armaments, of the marches and themaneuvers, of the decisions that created victories and de-feats. The history of ground and naval warfare is recorded inhandsome drawings, outlining the progress of friendly andopposing forces in painstaking detail, including precise timelines, none of which reflect the chaos of real battle. Carefullydrawn maps and charts with red lines and blue lines, depict-ing the positions and the timing that the various forces exe-cuted an envelopment or “crossed the T,” capture for eternitythe tactical analysis and the strategic decisionmaking of thevictorious generals and admirals and the triumphs of theirforces. Detailed analysis of war from the loser’s perspectiveis rare, and war from an airman’s perspective is rarer yet.Airmen typically do not write, and firsthand reports of bat-tles fought from the air are almost nonexistent and becom-ing more so.

The “first draft of history” is the label that news re-porters, particularly in time of war, like to assign to the re-sults of their daily work; they pride themselves in firsthandobservation and carefully crafted reports thereof. Churchillmade an early name for himself reporting on the Boer War.Today’s journalists do the same tasks with somewhat fastertransmission of their stories. Even Churchill, careful ob-server that he was, would have great difficulty covering to-day’s aerial operations—few combatants, small cockpits, nospace for observers, hundreds of miles deep in enemy terri-tory, closing speeds of 500–1,500–15,000 miles per hour,unseen electronic combat, stealthy participants on bothsides—and submitting gripping copy.

All of this captures how aerial warfare is differentiated byoutside observers from warfare on the ground and at sea:Only the effects of air operations are observable, measura-ble, and reportable. For ground and sea operations, reporterscan see, touch, and feel; the activity is the story—the forcedmarch, the thunder of shelling, the smell of cordite, the after-action interview, the personal sense of fear and camaraderiewith the engaged troops. For air operations reporters, inlarge measure, can report only on results. There are more re-

ports by far of the preparation of the aircraft and weapons,the launching and the recovery of missions from aircraftcarriers, than of the conduct of combat operations by navalaviators and their formations. For the news industry thestory is about “how the game is played.”Who won is of someinterest, but the preferred story is one that follows the ballplay-by-play, that fills airtime and column inches, that cap-tures the feelings of the wounded sergeant, that permits thereporter to do the “standup shot” in front of the burninghulk. The preferred story covers individual bravery and unitactions with evident risk-taking and on-scene heroes. Howthe game is played by modern air forces is unseen, untold,and unreported, and consequently history books will con-tinue to accumulate a disproportionate amount of data andanalysis on ground warfare. Some are very good; otherworks, for example, Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in theGulf War, by (Major General) Robert H. Scales Jr., will unfor-tunately fill libraries and scholars with seriously flawed data.Certain Victory is a pompous, self-congratulatory dreamabout the Gulf War of 1990–1991; it is a press-agent ap-proach to scholarly writing about war, and unfortunatelypolicy analysts will continue to cite it.

For several reasons the person on the street is interestedin results; he has sons and daughters, nieces and nephews;he is interested in peace and prosperity, not glory and lau-rels. If unseen and unreported air operations can secure hisinterests, he is not confused by the perspective of intellectu-als in the media and elsewhere. In the United States the mostwidely attended outdoor attractions are air shows; Ameri-cans are captivated by airplanes, aviation, and aviators. It isprobably not an accident that the first man to fly was anAmerican; the first to cross the Atlantic solo was an Ameri-can; the first to fly supersonic was an American; the first towalk on the moon was an American. Americans have been,and are, fascinated by air and space accomplishments andreflect this fascination in their political and financial sup-port of advancing air and space developments.

A consequence of this fascination is high expectations ofair operations, air forces, and air commanders. The politicaland public fallout of an air incident are far more widely re-ported, investigated, and acted on than a similar event in anyother medium. These considerations apply to militaryforces. For example, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole inthe port of Aden, Yemen, in 1998 resulted in the deaths of 18sailors, a naval court of inquiry into the performance of theship’s captain, and a determination of no formal administra-tive or judicial action; a terrorist attack on Khobar Towers inDhahran, Saudi Arabia, in June 1996 resulted in the deaths of18 airmen, an investigation by a politically appointed out-sider, and public humiliation for the air commander; an ill-

Foreword xxi

conceived operation in Somalia, a U.S. initiative, resulted inthe deaths of 19 soldiers and has yet to be investigated. Ex-pectations are higher; the standards are different for airmen.

Higher expectations are also reflected in the treatment ofresults, intended and unintended. Air operations are nodoubt a blunt instrument of national policy; they deal withweapons in tons; they have a history, brief as it is, of scatter-ing those tons approximately 1,000 feet, more or less, around(World War II–era) aiming points. Even today, with muchmore precise technology and techniques, it is not unusual tohear of unintended or “collateral” damage from air-deliveredweapons. It is highly unusual, however, to hear of collateraldamage from friendly sea and ground operations. Villages,towns, and cities overrun by mechanized infantry or ar-mored divisions seldom generate complaints of collateraldamage; weeks, months, or years later, when the displacedpersons finally return to their homes, they are more inter-ested in rebuilding—and news reporters have found fresherstories. The prevalence of TV cameras, the depth of air oper-ations in enemy territory, and the utility for enemy informa-tion warfare (propaganda) purposes make collateral dam-age stories the preferred option for depicting air warfare.

Selected physical damage, vivid images of “innocentcivilians,” and anguished interviews by survivors make airwarfare appear dysfunctional to the political solution of theproblem at hand. Ground and surface naval forces are highlyunlikely to damage or destroy the embassy of a great power;air warfare bears a special burden. The reality is, in all areasof warfare, death, dismemberment, damage, and destruc-tion—intended and unintended—are the essence of com-bat operations; the more successful a nation is in limitingunintended results, the more egregious the remaining exam-ples will seem. As for intended results, because there are nomoving lines on the ground and there are no easily observedand measured symbols of “advance,” air operations may ap-pear ineffective until a political collapse occurs, until the en-emy forgoes military (for diplomatic) action. The few exam-ples where air forces were permitted to take a leadingrole—the Berlin Airlift, the LINEBACKER operations, the Falk-lands campaign, the Gulf War, Kosovo—have resulted inprompt and effective operations with a minimum cost inblood and treasure.

Four fundamental assumptions were held by the early vi-sionaries of air warfare and are held by today’s day-to-dayoperational air commanders in every theater of operations.Air forces will be able to: identify, find, hit, and destroy high-priority objectives. These assumptions were, and are, some-times valid.

Not until the last twenty years of the twentieth centurydid the technical tools and the operational techniques start

to become widely available to give high confidence that vir-tually all delivery vehicles would routinely solve the naviga-tion problem and find the assigned objective. The introduc-tion of inertial navigation equipment and the GlobalPositioning System gives those nations that have the meansto install and train with this equipment virtual assurancethat missions will arrive in the assigned objective area. Thenext issue—hitting the assigned target or target area, usingthe correct coordinates, and placing the aiming device onthe correct physical entity—is not trivial. Although therehave been great technical advancements in precision-guidedweapon development, there are natural and enemy-createdimpediments. Weather affects all military and naval opera-tions, and even the latest weapons and guidance systems arenot immune from these effects. Enemy-created effects arebroader: active and passive defenses, concealment, decep-tion, camouflage, movement—all serve to complicate theend-game difficulty of dealing with an assigned objective.Nevertheless, the probability of hitting, photographing, orresupplying the assigned objective is a high-probabilityevent today for appropriately prepared forces.

The issue of sufficient damage or destruction, given thatthe objective is struck, is an enduring challenge. Matchingthe most appropriate weapon to the characteristics of thetarget is an art; doing so while minimizing collateral damageis a fine art. Hardening fixed facilities and replicating thecritical components of high-value potential targets willmake damage and destruction continuing issues; a biggerhammer is not necessarily the answer; the answer in manycases is a vulnerability analysis and selection of the keynode. This is part of the enduring intellectual problem ofwarfare, to which we turn next.

To identify the most appropriate objective, or the mostappropriate element embedded within a target area, is themajor continuing challenge of air warfare. Choosing themost appropriate objectives, prioritizing across a broad areaof operations, and identifying the most critical enemy func-tion or functions that can, individually or in conjunctionwith a coherent campaign plan, best achieve the nations waraims in the quickest and most economical manner are theproblem for air-war planning. The difficulty of allocatingscarce resources against the most appropriate military ob-jective in an active enemy system is the most demandingintellectual problem faced by war planners. All of the com-petitive issues seen in modern business and athletic compe-tition are brought to bear—with the added complexity ofthe sure knowledge that the opponent, at best, is doingeverything in its power to kill each friendly competitor and,at worst, to destroy the armed forces and the social fabric ofthe friendly nation or nations.

xxii Foreword

This burden of identifying the most appropriate objectivefalls, of course, on all military and naval commanders; how-ever, for air commanders it is arguably a more complexproblem because ranges, payloads, and potential militaryand political impacts have greater scope. Furthermore, themost appropriate objectives are likely to be critical compo-nents of organic systems—the communications, the trans-portation, the electrical power, the petrochemical, the otherindustrial, the agricultural, and the military and political in-frastructures—that underpin the enemy’s power base. InWorld War II air forces contented themselves with strikingfacilities—enemy headquarters, air bases, rail yards; todaythe standard is to cripple the military and political functionsthat the facilities support. Today the standard is to achievespecific operational effects within the enemy’s political andmilitary system; this, in turn, demands serious insight intothe enemy’s organization well beyond order-of-battle analy-sis. Such functional understanding of enemy doctrine andprocedures is in itself a powerful weapon, but it is not free ofcosts.

A consequence of the imperative to identify the most ap-propriate operational effects and the related objectives forair operations is a requirement to maintain an intelligencefunction fine-tuned to the new standards. The easy answerfor most nations is the amorphous central and defense intel-ligence agencies that produce products pitched to the needsof the policy establishments. These nations have structuredtheir collection and reporting assets so that the militarycommanders—except for actions such as prisoner interro-gations and documents collected on the battlefield—are thelast to have access to important strategic and operational in-telligence. The more technology has advanced, the greaterthe investments in strategic and national intelligence sys-tems and the greater the gap between the capability of mili-tary forces and their capacity for operational assessmentand decisionmaking—effective operational intelligence. Forthe United States this gap is abundantly apparent in recentevents in Aden, Somalia, Serbia, and elsewhere.

Another area for which “one size fits all” is the wrong an-swer is logistical support of combat forces. Ground, naval,and air forces have major real differences in operating envi-ronments that shape service doctrine and philosophy andthat, in turn, drive design, size, shape, firepower, mobility,maintainability, and reliability of service equipments. Thenotion—prompted largely by financially savvy policymak-ers with little or no interest and experience in military andnaval affairs—that service equipments ought to be com-moditized—conceived, acquired, and maintained by a civil-ian entity that could enforce commonality—is a creepingdisease endemic in virtually all democratic nations. Virtu-

ally every senator or member of parliament in every nationaround the world understands air operations; they fly homealmost every weekend; they assess takeoffs, landings, andon-time arrivals. They would not dream of advising a sub-marine captain on operations, but airmen are fair game.

For air warfare this notion of commoditization—com-monality at all costs—is particularly painful; the develop-ment of new ideas has been fostered in various nations bythe willingness of airmen and astronauts to experiment be-yond the edges of conventional thinking, to engage a broadcross-section of scientists and strategists to explore uncon-ventional methods to achieve engineering, tactical, and op-erational results. In the United States the demise of Air ForceSystems Command was a seminal event, limiting what hadbeen a hugely successful enterprise devoted to assemblingthe best thinkers available, military and civilian, to bring thepossibilities of science and engineering to bear on emergingmilitary problems. The elimination of this organization por-tends the decline of U.S. military air and space leadership.

Similarly, the structure of the maintenance, supply, distri-bution, and data systems that support military forces needsto adjust to the operating patterns and performance of thesupported force. Air forces operate from long distances, of-ten from sanctuaries well outside the area of operations; theability to connect regularly and efficiently to a centralizedlogistical system on virtually an hourly basis changes thematerials and the skills required at each location for the con-duct of operations. Armies and navies, in contrast, are typi-cally not so well connected to global air transportation netsand thus require different and more extensive sets of on-hand machinery, materials, and skills to manufacture andrepair critical parts.

Global air transportation is the least heralded elementin air warfare. Unrecognized by the early air warfarethinkers—who wrote extensively about bomber, pursuit,and observation tasks—military airlift evolved from an ap-preciation for the growing utility of civil aviation fleets;civilian aircraft were embraced to do similar tasks in a mili-tary situation. From the World War II regional experience offlying the Hump, to the Berlin Airlift, to Operation NICKELGRASS (the strategic resupply of Israeli forces in 1973), to thedeployment and redeployment of warfighting and peace-keeping forces around the world, air transportation fleetshave become the sine qua non of conflict management. TheBerlin Airlift is, arguably, the twentieth century’s premier ex-ample of military art at its highest level of accomplish-ment—no “combat” casualties, yet the allied powersachieved their strategic goals, preserved the political statusof, and access to, Berlin, and set the tone for the next fiftyyears of European political and military history. Many na-

Foreword xxiii

tions have found the political and economic tools to inte-grate military and civilian air transportation into globalstrategic lift capability.

Since the beginning of the Cold War the United States hasdeployed, supported, and redeployed, by air, significant mili-tary forces for operations in Korea, Western Europe, South-east Asia, and Southwest Asia plus smaller forces to Panama,Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. This view ofglobal transportation includes the aerial “transportationand delivery” fuel to extend the range and duty time of otherforces, including other lift, surveillance, bomber, fighter, andspace vehicles. There is no historical precedent for the globalscope of major operations conducted by U.S. forces duringthis period. The combination of inflight refueling, intercon-tinental strategic airlift, and the more local tactical airlift isthe crucial determinant of force deployment and, in manycases, force sustainment. Strategic mobility is a very opera-tional capability. Whereas heavy materiel typically moves bycommercial sealift, personnel, high-value supplies, and ca-sualty evacuation are important airlift tasks. Moreover, theU.S. fleet of T-tailed aircraft is the transportation mode ofchoice for every peacekeeping and humanitarian missionconducted by blue-helmeted troops and others worldwide.

The term “independent air force” has, for better or forworse, confused and complicated the debate about the de-velopment and employment of air capabilities. Air forcesclearly cannot exist “independent” of the structures and theoperational activities of the rest of a nation’s military estab-lishment. Air forces need to be and must be integrated intothe totality of the nation’s forces. The potential contributionsof an independent air force need to be viewed, however,through eyes untainted by the burden of traditional militaryhistory. Training, logistics, and intelligence, among otherfunctions, that suffice, or even excel, at the pace a rhythm ofground or sea operations have little in common with theneeds of air and space warfare. The most appropriate objec-tives for tactical and operational planning are different de-pending on the vision and experience of the commander inchief. Those who argue for independent air operations askthat their forces be valued for their independent contribu-tions to the war effort and not solely for their contributionsto maximizing the combat power of some other element.This is not an argument for anarchy or autonomous air ac-tion. Some overall political and military authority, with thebest interests of the nation in mind and a sophisticated viewof operational possibilities, must orchestrate all of the mili-tary tools available to force an early end to hostilities on fa-vorable terms.

Navies seem to have found a way to balance the new withthe old. For those nations with a substantial naval compo-

nent, the fleet has reoriented itself to fully exploit modernoffensive and defensive capabilities. Submarines, occasion-ally, and aircraft carriers are the visibles of modern navies;both are accommodated in integrated operations. Fleets arebuilt around carriers; fleet operations are built around car-rier operations, which, in turn, are built around air opera-tions.

Even in those circumstances where there is an independ-ent air force, the history and the politics of each nation havetypically hobbled the application of air capabilities to theviews, history, and operational experience of the nation’ssenior service. Thus, the elegant Australian War Memorial inCanberra, with its columns and columns of war dead, listedbattalion after battalion, overwhelmingly from the doomedbattle at Gallipoli, has defined for years, and will define formany decades, if not centuries, the historical image of Aus-tralian war experience, the willingness to serve, the sacrificemade. This image has colored, and will continue to color, themilitary leadership that Australian politicians choose andthus the nature of the advice they will receive from the sen-ior military leadership, regardless of the nature of the extantpolitical-military circumstances.

I do not argue that air forces and air force leaders havebetter advice to give than do competent military profession-als from other backgrounds. I do argue that airmen are notwedded to thousands of years of history and tradition andtherefore have less intellectual and institutional baggage ingiving sound military advice.

Two observations by senior commanders will suffice tobookend the traditional views of many ground-force officersconcerning contributions of air operations to the conduct ofwarfare. The first is a quote from Douglas Haig, prior to be-coming commander in chief of the British ExpeditionaryForce during World war I, in a 1914 address to the BritishArmy Staff College: “I hope none of you gentleman are sofoolish as to think that aeroplanes will be usefully employedfor reconnaissance from the air. There is only one way for acommander to get information by reconnaissance and thatis by the use of cavalry.”

The second comes thanks to Wesley K. Clark, the retiredU.S. Army general who was the senior U.S. military com-mander in Europe and senior commander for the North At-lantic Treaty Organization during the 1999 war in Kosovo. Inhis memoirs he took no cognizance of the contributions ofair operations to the NATO effort (except for two chapters onTask Force Hawk, the 5,000-man, 24-helicopter U.S. Armyunit that did not participate in combat operations). The B-2bomber—the stealth platform that penetrated Serbian airdefenses with impunity and served as the workhorse ofGeneral Clark’s engaged forces—is not mentioned.

xxiv Foreword

Notwithstanding the views of traditionalists, air warfarehas proven itself a valuable addition to the tools of state-craft. At the publication of Air Warfare: An International En-cyclopedia, the centennial anniversary of the first successfulflight of a heavier-than-air machine has yet to come to pass,and humanity’s initial ventures into space are barely 40years old. Yet the pace of new ideas, the introduction of newconcepts, and their translation into valued instruments of

national power is breathtaking. Nations that can find theconsiderable resources required to field effective air forcescan enhance the value of their traditional forces and can usethis rapidly evolving instrument of military power to betterpreserve, protect, and defend their interests, wherever theymay be.

—Mike DuganGeneral, USAF (Ret.)

Foreword xxv

In planning this encyclopedia with my colleagues, manygoals were set forth, but there were three that we consideredmost important. The first was to include entries that pro-vided information on the most significant individuals,events, weapons, industries, strategies, and tactics of theroughly 200-year history of international airpower. The sec-ond was to make an initial assessment of the importance ofeach entry. The third was to reach out to the entire aviationcommunity for contributions and to preserve, insofar aspossible, the original flavor of those contributions. Therewere many aspects to this process. Some authors were dis-tinguished scholars, long accustomed to writing encyclope-dia entries, and integrating their work was straightforward.Some authors were experts in their fields but not academics,and so their entries were sometimes less formal. Other au-thors were so technically expert that their entries had to besimplified to be understood by the average reader, yet theirexact meaning had to be preserved. In yet other instances,some entries reflected the fact that English was not thescholar’s native tongue. Because we tried to keep all the en-tries as original as possible, entries written by foreign schol-ars were revised only for the sake of clarity.

The methods we employed were direct. We made an ap-peal to the academic community as well as to the legion ofaviation historians that specialized in various areas of air-power history. In attempting to provide a broad coverage, weunderstood that some elements of airpower history had al-ready been well described in the past and were easily acces-sible to the reader. Still, some elements had been virtually ig-nored. Based on this understanding, we decided tosometimes limit the coverage of well-known subjects whilegiving greater coverage to those less well known.

There were some obvious trade-offs that had to be con-sidered. Given that there was a limit on the size of the ency-clopedia, a decision had to be made as to the number of en-

tries to be included. If fewer topics were selected, morewords could be devoted to each. If more topics were in-cluded, each would contain fewer words. Our initial list ranto roughly 1,300 entries, but it soon became evident that thiswas too many. We were also presented with many new ideasfrom the contributors, often reflecting their specialized in-terests, and this caused a continuous evaluation of whichentries to retain and which to sacrifice.

As a result of these deliberations, we settled on some 990entries running nearly 500,000 words. The length of a givenentry can vary, from as few as 100 words to as many as 7,500words. Our saving grace was often the cross-references pro-vided at the end of most entries. These guide the reader toadditional information on the subject and, of course, lead tostill more sources of scholarship.

In making these difficult decisions, an iterative processwas established with the editors and the contributors. Aninitial list was reduced and circulated, and the contributorswho elected to participate responded with observations andsuggestions that ultimately resulted in encyclopedia younow see. I should also mention that this work owes a greatdebt to the Internet and its related technology, which madethe entire process possible and was an invaluable way toreach new contributors, many in foreign countries.

A note on the use of specialized terminology, acronyms,and abbreviations: Given the complexity of the subject mat-ter, we have tried to be as consistent and clear as possible.Common acronyms appear in the entry’s headword; otheracronyms are typically defined at first instance within anentry. Widely recognized acronyms, such as USAF and RAF,are not formally defined in the text. To help the reader keeptrack of the many acronyms and abbreviations, we provide acomplete list of terms, acronyms, and abbreviations. We en-courage readers to rely on this comprehensive list of air-power-related terminology.

xxvii

PREFACE

I would like to express my gratitude to my associate edi-tors—all distinguished in their fields—who made so manyinsightful suggestions and contributions. In alphabetical or-der, they are Michael Fopp, director of the Royal Air ForceMuseum; Fred Johnsen, a noted author and historian;Stéphane Nicolaou, curator at the marvelous Musée de l’Airet de l’Espace at Le Bourget Field, near Paris, and a well-known author; and the indefatigable George M. Watson Jr., aU.S. Air Force historian whose many suggestions and quickresponses to my calls made the task easier. My admirationfor Spencer C. Tucker is unbounded, for I now know the ef-fort he has put forth in editing other encyclopedias. Spencewas good enough to ask me to participate, and I thank himfor the experience. It is a delight to work with the people atABC-CLIO, especially Alicia Merritt and Liz Kincaid. WallyMeeks, as usual, was helpful with his good ideas.

My most appreciative and humble thanks go to the con-tributors, whose entries were fascinating to read and whosepatience with my nagging was remarkable. Not only did theywork willingly and punctually; they were also the source ofmost of the photographs you will find in the two volumes. Ialso want to express my appreciation to a few would-be con-tributors who signed on but could not deliver; I know thatcircumstances must have prevented your participation, andwant you all to know that the editors and contributorsunderstand.

Finally, I cannot put into words the gratitude I feel to myfamily, who cheerfully put up with my submersion at thecomputer as I worked to bring this project to fruition.

—Walter J. BoyneAshburn,Virginia

xxviii Preface

War in the Balkans, 65

Barbarossa, 69

The Results of the Blitzkrieg: France, 22 June 1940, 88

The Battle of Britain, 107

Persian Gulf War, 282

Japan, 334

Korean War, 355

The Mediterranean, 407

War in Southeast Asia, 677

The Western Front as Stabilized in 1915, 703

xxix

MAPS

AA antiaircraft AAA antiaircraft artillery AAF Argentine Air Force AAMs air-to-air missilesAB Agusta-Bell ABCCC Airborne Battlefield Command and Control CenterABDA American, British, Dutch, AustralianABL airborne laser ABM antiballistic missile ACCS Air Command and Control System; also: Airborne

Command and Control SquadronACFC Air Corps Ferrying Command ACG Air Commando Group ACTS Air Corps Tactical School ACWP Automotive Council of War Production AD Air DivisionADC Air (Aerospace) Defense CommandADRC Air Documents Research Center ADVON Advanced EchelonAEA Aeronautical Experiment Association AEF Aerospace Expeditionary Force AEW airborne early warning AF Air ForceAFB Air Force BaseAFC Armed Forces Council AFDD Air Force Doctrine Document AFM Air Force ManualAFMC Air Force Material Command AI air interdiction AIRCENT Allied Air Forces Central Europe ALAT Army Light Air Force ALCS airborne launch-control system ALERT Attack and Launch Early Reporting to Theater AMC Air Mobility CommandAME Aeronautica Militar Espanola

ANG Air National Guard ANR Aeronautica Nazionale (National) Repubblicana AOC air officer commanding ARM antiradiation missile ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency ARRS Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam ASAT antisatellite ASC Air Support CommandASM air-to-surface missile ASTS Air Service Tactical School ASW antisubmarine warfareATC Air Transport Command ATF Advanced Tactical Fighter ATGM antitank guided missle ATI air technical intelligence AVG American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers)AWACS Airborne Warning and Control System AWPD Air War Plans Division BAe British Aerospace BAP Bureau of Aircraft Production BCATP British Commonwealth Air Training Plan BFW Bayerische Flugzeugwerke bhp brake horsepowerBIS British Interplanetary Society BMEWS Ballistic Missile Early Warning System BNA Bureau of Naval Aeronautics BPF British Pacific Fleet BPR bypass rationCAB Caproni Aeronautica Bergamasca CACW Chinese-American Composite Wing CAF Chinese Air Force CAP Civil Air Patrol; Combat Air PatrolCAS close air supportCAT Civil Air Transport

xxxi

TERMS, ACRONYMS, AND ABBREVIATIONS

xxxii Terms, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

CATF China Air Task Force CBI China-Burma-India CBO Combined Bomber Offensive CCP Chinese Communist Party CENTAF United States Central Air Forces CEO chief executive officerCETF College Eye Task Force CGS Continental Ground Station CIA Central Intelligence Agency CINC commander in chiefCINCPAC Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CNAC China National Aviation Corporation CNO Chief of Naval Operations CNT Cantiere Navale TriestinoCOMINCH commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet COMUSMACV U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam CONAC Continental Air Command CONAD Continental Air Defense Command CPTP Civilian Pilot Training Program CRAF Civil Reserve Air Fleet CRDA Cantieri Riuniti Dell’Adriatico CRT cathode-ray-tubeCSAR Combat Search and Rescue CSAS Comando Servizi Aerei Speciali

(Special Air Services Command)CTA Centro Tecnico Aerospacial CVE escort carrierDARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DASC Direct Air Support Center DATF Desert Air Task Force DCNO (Air) Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air DFC Distinguished Flying Cross DMSP Defense Meteorological Satellite Program DMZ demilitarized zone DNSS Defense Navigation Satellite System DOD Department of Defense (U.S.)DOS Department of State (U.S.)DRA Democratic Republic of Afghanistan DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam DSC Distinguished Service Cross DSP Defense Support Program DVS Commercial Pilot Training School EAP Experimental Aircraft Program ECCM electronic counter-countermeasures ECM electronic countermeasures EDA Ejército del Aire EGNOS European Global Navigation Overlay System ELINT electronic intelligence EOP Executive Office of the President ER/ELINT electronic reconnaissance/intelligence ESM Electronic support measures

ETO European Theater of Operations EVA extravehicular activity EW Electronic warfare FAA Fleet Air ArmFAC forward air control/controllers FAH Fuerza Aerea HondureñaFBW fly-by-wireFEAF Far East Air Forces FECOM Far East Command Fliegerkorps Luftwaffe air corpsFM Field ManualFMA Fabrica Militar de Aviones

(Military Aircraft Factory)FSTA Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft GCI ground-controlled interceptor GEO geostationary orbitGGS Gyro Gun Sights GHQ General HeadquartersGHQ AF General Headquarters Air Force (U.S.)GIAP Gvardeiskii Istrebitelnyi Aviatsionnyi Polk (Guards

Fighter Air Regiment, Soviet Union)GLONASS Global Navigation Satellite System GNBAP Gvardeiskii Nochnoi Bombardirovochnyi

Aviatsionnyi Polk (Guards Night Bomber AirRegiment, Soviet Union)

GNSS Global Navigation Satellite SystemGPS Global Positioning System GSDF Ground Self-Defense Force GvNBAP Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment

(Soviet Union)Himmelbett German radar system for night fightershp horsepowerHQ headquartersHSA Hawker-Siddeley Aircraft HSD Hawker-Siddeley Dynamics HSU Hero of the Soviet UnionHUD head-up display IADS integrated air defense systems IAF Israeli Defense Force/Air Force IAI Israel Aircraft Industries IAK Istrebitelnyi Aviatsionnyi Korpus

(Fighter Air Corps, Soviet Union)IAP Istrebitelnyi Aviatsionnyi Polk

(Fighter Air Regiment, Soviet Union)ICBM intercontinental ballistic missileIDSCS Initial Defense Satellite Communications System IFR Instrument Flight Rules IJN Imperial Japanese Navy IMAM Industrie Meccaniche e Aeronautiche Meridionali IOC Initial Operational CapabilityIQAF Iraqi Air Force IR infrared

Terms, Acronyms, and Abbreviations xxxiii

IRBM intermediate-range ballistic missileItAF Italian Air Force JAAF Japanese Army Air Force, Imperial Jagdgeschwader Luftwaffe fighter wingJagdstaffel (Jasta) Luftwaffe fighter squadronJagdverband Luftwaffe fighter unitJASDF Japanese Air Self-Defense Force JATO jet-assisted takeoffJCS Joint Chiefs of StaffJNAF Japanese Naval Air Force, Imperial JPO Joint Program Office JSDF Japanese Self-Defense Forces JSF Joint Strike Fighter JSOTF Joint Special Operations Task Force Kampfgeschwader Luftwaffe bomber wingkph kilometers per hourKriegsmarine German NavyLAMPS Light Airborne Multipurpose System Lichtenstein type of German airborne radarLORAN long-range electronic navigation LPS Large Processing Station LRP Long-Range Penetration Luftfahrtruppe German aviation troopsLuftflotte Luftwaffe air fleetLuftstreitkräfte German Air Service (World War I)Luftwaffe German Air Force (World War II)MAAF Mediterranean Allied Air Forces MAAG Military Assistance Advisory Group Vietnam MAC Military Airlift Command MACV Military Assistance Command Vietnam MAD magnetic airborne detection; mutual assured

destruction MAL mat-landing MANPADS man-portable air defense system MATS Military Air Transport Service MCM mine countermeasures MCT Mobile Communication Terminal MEO middle-earth orbit MGS Mobile Ground System MGT Mobile Ground TerminalMHz megahertz MIDAS Missile Defense Alarm System MIRACL Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser MIRV Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry

VehicleMIT Massachusetts Institute of Technologymm millimetermph miles per hourMRBM medium-range ballistic missiles MRC Military Revolutionary Council MSDF Maritime Self-Defense Force MTU Moteren und Turbine Union

NACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics NAF Naval Aircraft Factory NAP naval aviation pilot NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASAF Northwest African Strategic Air Forces NATO North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationNATS Naval Air Transport Service NAVAIDS aids to navigation.NAVFE Naval Forces Far East NAVSTAR Navigation Satellite Time and Ranging NBAP Night Bomber Aviation Regiment (Soviet Union)NBS National Bureau of Standards NCO noncommissioned officerNEACP National Emergency Airborne Command PostNIAP Nochnoi Istrebitel’nyi Aviatsionnyi Polk (Night

Fighter Air Regiment, Soviet Union)NLC National Leadership Committee NORAD North American Air Defense Command NPT Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty NRO National Reconnaissance OfficeNSA National Security Act of 1947;

also: National Security AdvisorNSC National Security CouncilNVA North Vietnamese Army NVAF North Vietnamese Air Force OGS Overseas Ground Station ONR Office of Naval Research OPEC Organization of Petroleum Exporting CountriesOSS Office of Strategic Services PACAF Pacific Air Forces PACOM Pacific Command PAF Pakistan Air Force PAVN People’s Army of Vietnam

(North Vietnamese Army)PGMs precision-guided munitions PLAAF People’s Liberation Army Air Force

(Chinese Communist Air Force)PLSK Pomonicza Lotnicza S-UBA Kobiet (Auxiliary

Women’s Air Force Service, Poland)POL petroleum, oil, lubricantsPOW prisoner of warPPI plan position indicator PVO Voiska Protivovozdushnoi Oborony (Antiaircraft

Defense Forces, Soviet Union)PWS Podlaska Wytwornia Samolotow PZL Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze (National Aviation

Establishments, Poland)RA Regia Aeronautica RAE Royal Aircraft Establishment RAF Royal Air ForceRAND Research and development think tankRCAF Royal Canadian Air Force

xxxiv Terms, Acronyms, and Abbreviations

REAF Royal Egyptian Air Force Reichsluftverteidigung Air Defense of GermanyRFC Royal Flying Corps RGS Relay Ground Station Riesenflugzeug giant aircraftRLA Royal Laotian Army RLM Reich Air MinistryRN Royal NavyRNAF Royal Norwegian Air Force RNAS Royal Naval Air ServiceROC Republic of China ROE Rules of Engagement ROTC Reserve Officer Training Corpsrpm revolutions per minuteRTAF Royal Thai Air Force RVN Republic of Vietnam RVNAF Republic of Vietnam Air Force RYAF Royal Yugoslav Air Force SA selective availability SAAC Swiss American Aircraft Corporation SAC Strategic Air Commansd SAGE Semi-Automatic Ground EnvironmentSAR search and rescue SARH semiactive radar-homing SARTAF Search and Rescue Task Force SBIRS Space-Based Infrared System SBS United States Strategic Bombing SurveySchlachtstaffel Luftwaffe battle flight Schräge Musik German upward-firing armamentSEAD suppression of enemy air defenses Seeluftstreitkräfte German naval air forceSeenotdienst Luftwaffe air rescue serviceSEP specific excess power shp shaft horsepowerSIAI Società Idrovolanti Alta Italia SIGINT signals intelligence SIOP Single Integrated Operation Plan SL Schütte-Lanz airship factory SLBM submarine-launched ballistic missile SNCA Société Nationale de Constructions

Aéronautiques (National AircraftBuilding Company)

SOCONY Standard Oil of New York SOF Special Operations Forces SPS Simplified Processing Station SRBM short-range ballistic missile Staffeln Luftwaffe squadronsSTC Satellite Test Center STOL short takeoff and landing

SVAF South Vietnamese Air Force TAC Tactical Air CommandTACAN Tactical Air NavigationTACC Tactical Air Control Center TBMs tactical ballistic missiles TEREC tactical electronic reconnaissance sensor TFA Task Force Alpha TOA time-of-arrival TOW tube-launched, optically tracked, wired-guided

missileTsAGI Tsentral’nyi Aero-Gidrodinamicheskii Institut

(Central Aerodynamics and HydrodynamicsInstitute, Soviet Union)

UAC United Aircraft Corporation UATC United Aircraft and Transport Corporation UAV uninhabited aerial vehicleUCAV uninhabited combat aerial vehicleUN United NationsUSA United States ArmyUSAAC United States Army Air CorpsUSAAF United States Army Air ForcesUSAF United States Air ForceUSAFE United States Air Forces in Europe USAFFE United States Army Forces Far East USMA United States Military Academy USN United States NavyUSSR Union of Soviet Socialist RepublicsUSTRANSCOM United States Transportation Command VC Vietcong VIP very important personVLF very-low-frequency VOR Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Radio

StationVORTAC a combination of VOR and TACANVSTOL very short takeoff and landingV/STOL vertical/short takeoff and landing VTOL vertical takeoff and landingVVS Vozdushno-voennye Sily (Air Forces, Soviet

Union)WAAF Women’s Auxiliary Air Force WAF Women in the Air Force WAFS Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron WASP Women Airforce Service PilotsWDD Western Development Division WFTD Woman’s Flying Training Detachment WPB War Production Board WRAF Women’s Royal Air Force ZAT territorial air zone ZEL zero-length launcher

AIR WARFAREAn Inter nat ional Enc yclopedia

AcesAccording to the traditional definition, an “ace” is a fighterpilot who has attained five confirmed kills of enemy aircraft.Though not technically an ace by this standard, World War IFrench pilot Roland Garros began the tradition of aerialcombat with a clever ploy. He devised a means to shield hiswooden propeller with metal so a machine gun could shootthrough the arc (bullets that hit the blades would ricochetoff). In a mere 18 days in early 1915, he shot down three Ger-man aircraft and claimed two others. Press reports of his ex-ploits were the first to use the French slang “ace” to mean atleast five enemy aircraft downed—although the term sooncame to require five or more confirmed aircraft shot down.The German word was kanone, indicating a star turn; 10 vic-tories were required for that designation.

The French definition of five confirmed became acceptedduring World War I and reappeared in later wars. The idea ofachieving ace status quickly became popular among fliersand the general public. As World War I degenerated intostatic trench warfare with horrific losses and virtually noglory, the contests among pilots to raise scores achieved con-siderable public following. The pilots became the heroeswhom people needed in a protracted and bitter war. Andthey were heroes in later wars as well.

The following table lists the highest-ranking aces fromseveral conflicts since 1914. An excellent study by Al Bowersand David Lednicer indicates that there may have been asmany as 10,000 aces in at least 27 countries, and somewomen also became aces.

World War I (1914–1918)These totals of kills include balloons and aircraft; both werefighter targets. This listing is selective but includes the topaces of the major powers.

Manfred von Richthofen, Germany, 80Rene Fonck, France, 75E. C. Mannock, Britain, 73W. A. Bishop, Britain, 72Ernst Udet, Germany, 62R. Collishaw, Canada, 60J. T. B. McCudden, 57Georges Guynemer, France, 54A. W. Beauchamp-Proctor, South Africa, 54D. R. MacLauren, Canada, 54Charles Nungesser, France, 45Godwin Brumowski, Austria-Hungary, 40Oswald Boelcke, Germany, 40Willy Coppens, Belgium, 37Francesco Baracca, Italy, 34Edward Rickenbacker, U.S., 26

Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)Many of these pilots later attained even higher scores whilefighting World War II; the list below includes the top aces oneither side of the civil conflict.

Joaquin García Morato y Castaño, Nationalist, 40Andres García Lacalle, Republican, 11+

China-Japan-Manchuria (1937–1945)This theater became part of World War II but was foughtover a longer period. The American Volunteer Group (theFlying Tigers) were in action on behalf of China in 1941–1942, totaling 286 confirmed kills. Only the top scorers arelisted:

Hiromichi Shinohara, Japan, 58Mitsuyoshi Tarui, Japan, 28

1

A

Kenji Shimada, Japan, 27Robert Neale, AVG, 16David Lee Hill, AVG, 12Liu Chi-Sun, China, 11

Russo-Finnish Wars (1940–1944)In this sidebar to World War II, Finnish pilots used a mixedbag of aircraft from other nations including obsolete U.S.models with which they did well against the Russians (thereis no data for the Russian side of this conflict). No less than87 Finnish pilots were credited with at least five kills. Thetop three:

Eino Juutilainen, Finland, 94Hans Wind, Finland, 78Eino Luukkanen, Finland, 54

World War II (1939–1945)Pilots from nations rapidly overrun often were able to jointhe Allies and thus fight for the war’s duration—and run uphigher scores. The French allowed pilots to include probablekills, unlike other nations. Russia provided the only femalefighter aces—and by the end of the war more than 150Russian pilots claimed scores of at least 20 (50 had 30 ormore). Germany enjoyed more than 100 aces who gainedmore than 100 victories each (most from the EasternFront)—and 35 had more than 200 each for the highestcounts of aces in any war. Werner Mölders (Germany) wasthe first ace from any country to exceed 100 kills. Heinz Bär(Germany) became the first jet ace with 16 confirmed victo-ries. Of Japanese pilots, nearly 140 claimed 10 or more victo-ries. Only the top-tier aces from each country are includedhere.

Erich Hartmann, Germany, 352Gerhard Barkhorn, Germany, 301Gunther Rail, Germany, 275Otto Kittel, Germany, 267Walter Nowotny, Germany, 258Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Japan, 87Tetsuzo Iwamoto, Japan, 80Shoichi Sugita, Japan, 70Saburo Sakai, Japan, 64 Ivan Kozhedub, Russia, 62Aleksandr Pokryshkin, Russia, 59Grigori Retchkalov, Russia, 58Nikolai Gulaev, Russia, 57Arsenii Vorozheikin, Russia, 52Marmaduke Pattle, South Africa, 51Richard Bong, U.S., 40Thomas McGuire, U.S., 38John E. Johnson, Britain, 38

David McCampbell, U.S., 34Brendan Finucane, Ireland, 32A. G. Malan, South Africa, 32Franco Lucchini, Italy, 26Adriano Visconti, Italy, 26Marcel Albert, France, 23Jean Demozay, France, 21Stanislav Skalski, Poland, 21Witold Urbanowicz, Poland, 20Sven Heglund, Norway, 16

Korean War (1950–1953)The Korean War included the first jet-versus-jet combatmissions. By the end of the war, nearly 40 pilots flying the F-86 Sabre had become aces. Newly revealed records indicatethat the Soviet Union claimed at least 44 aces.

Joseph McConnell Jr., U.S., 16James Jabara, U.S., 15Manuel Fernandez, U.S., 14George A. Davis Jr., U.S., 14Royal N. Baker, U.S., 13Nikolay Sutigan, Soviet Union, 21Evgenii Pepelyaev, Soviet Union, 20Alexander Smorchkov, Soviet Union, 15Lev Schukin, Soviet Union, 14 Dmitry Oskin, Soviet Union,15Nikolay Dokashenko, Soviet Union, 14Sergey Kramarenko, Soviet Union, 13

Vietnam War (1965–1973)During the Vietnam War, several aces shot down their ene-mies using air-to-air missiles rather than gunfire, as in pre-vious wars. The North Vietnamese claimed 17 aces.

Colonel Toon (Tomb), North Vietnam, 13+ (mostprobably a fictional character)

Nguyen Van Coc, 9Mai Van Cuong, 8Phan Thanh Ngan, 8Nguyen Van Bay, North Vietnam, 7+Charles DeBellevue, U.S., 6Richard Ritchie, U.S., 5Jeffrey Feinstein, U.S., 5Randy Cunningham, U.S., 5William Driscoll, U.S., 5Robin Olds, U.S., 5, plus 12 in World War II (there has

been no official confirmation on Olds’s fifth victory)

Middle Eastern WarsIsrael has been very secretive about the men who becameaces, but recent lists indicate at least 34, with Giorora Avan

2 Aces

(Epstein) leading the list with 17 victories. Egypt claims sixaces, Syria five.

Indo-Pakistani WarsIn the Indo-Pakistani conflicts, Pakistan claims two aces,with Mohammad M. Alam having nine victories.

All over the world, scholars are busy reviewing claims, allof which are subject to argument over time. For the mostpart, the claims were made in good faith, most were con-firmed, but in the confusion of battle mistakes were nodoubt made.

Christopher H. Sterling

ReferencesCunningham, Robert. Aces High. St. Louis: General Dynamics, 1977.Harris, John Norman. Knights of the Air, Canadian Aces of World War

I. Toronto: Macmillan, 1963.Hess, W. N. The Allied Aces of World War II. New York: Arco, 1966.______. The American Aces of World War II and Korea. New York:

Arco, 1968.Robertson, Bruce, ed. Air Aces of the 1914–1918 War. London:

Harleyford, 1959.Shores, Christopher. Fighter Aces. London: Hamlyn, 1975.______. Air Aces. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1983.Tolliver, Raymond, and Trevor Constable. Fighter Aces. New York:

Macmillan, 1965.

Acosta, Bertrand B. (1895–1954)Aviation pioneer. Born in San Diego, California, on 15 Janu-ary 1895, Bertrand Blanchard “Bert” Acosta taught himselfto fly and is thought to have built and flown his first airplanein 1910. He joined the Curtiss School of Aviation at SanDiego’s North Island as a mechanic in 1914 and became partof the instructional staff in 1915. Acosta spent much of thenext two years at the Curtiss school in Ontario, Canada,training pilots for the Royal Flying Corps and the RoyalNaval Air Service. After America declared war on Germanyin April 1917, Acosta returned to the United States to teachArmy pilot candidates at Mineola Field, on Long Island.

Following the war, Acosta helped establish the first air-mail routes, took a Junkers transport airplane on a 60-citytour of the United States, and was both speed racer and en-durance flier during the golden age of aviation. His contem-poraries considered him one of the great natural fliers, and itwas said that “he could put wings on a barn door and makeit fly.” In 1921, Acosta won the Pulitzer Trophy race flying atan average speed of 176.7 mph. According to the 1928 e