VICTORY DENIED - The Rise of Air Power and the Defeat of Germany 1920-45 by Saward, Group Captain Dudley, RAF

London 1985, Buchan & Enright, first UK edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, VG/VG CONDITION ( dj is price clipped & small corner edge bump ), v, 376 pages, illus, maps, index. In 1918, at the end of the First World War, Germany lay defeated, ruined, and torn by internal revolt. In time, however, there arose a new Germany, a nation whose remarkable economic recovery and refusal to accept the shameful terms of the Versailles Treaty paved the way for Hitler and, under his direction, the rebirth of forbidden armed forces, and the building of new and powerful weapons. The rest of the world ignored the warning signs until almost too late, and was to pay a heavy price when war came in 1939. Raised and trained in secret, the Luftwaffe played a decisive part in the coming of that war.Concealed within the static strategy of the Great War had lain the seeds of a new and powerful weapon - air power. Few could have guessed that the frail biplanes of 1914 would one day father the giant four-engined bombers and advanced fighters that, in the end, not only broke the Luftwaffe, but brought Germany herself to the verge of defeat, paving the way for the sweeping land victories of 1944 and 1945.In this new study, the author charts the rise of air power contemporary with the rise of Hitler and Nazism, and examines the campaigns in the air against Germany. He demonstrates how, in the shadow of defeat and humiliation, a united German state became first powerful, then brutal and aggressive, almost unopposed by nations whose one idea was peace at any cost. He argues convincingly that it was air operations that laid the foundations of victory, and that it was Allied air superiority that made Hitler's defeat inevitable - ironically, a view held by the Germans, but not by many for whom, at a high cost, the victory had been gained.