Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/June 2026/Book reviews
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This book covers the operations of No. 455 Squadron RAAF and No. 489 Squadron RNZAF during the period in which they used Bristol Beaufighter aircraft in the anti-shipping role with RAF Coastal Command during 1944 and 1945. It forms part of the 'Australian Air Campaign Series' that is sponsored by the RAAF and was written by the retired fighter pilot and air vice-marshal turned historian John Quaife.
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ANZAC Strike Wing - John Quaife |
- By Nick-D
I find Coastal Command's late-war anti-shipping campaign to be a fascinating and somewhat under-appreciated topic and was interested in learning more about the Australian and NZ role in this campaign. This book largely delivered. It appears to be aimed at junior RAAF personnel, and provides a good account of the tactics and experiences of the Australian airmen and their allies. This includes a couple of chapters providing short summaries of the careers of individual airmen posted to the squadrons. Quaife confidently discusses how the tactics used by the Beaufighter squadrons evolved over the campaign as a result of experience and the development of new weapons. The book is very generously illustrated with photos and maps, and feels like a high-quality publication. A consequence of the RAAF sponsorship is that it's available for less than $A20 depending on where you shop - I paid about $A15.
The main limitation is the rather light sourcing (83 references and notes across 145 pages) but this isn't too bad given it is aimed at a general audience rather than an academic one. I was surprised that Quaife didn't explicitly draw out the lessons from this campaign for the modern RAAF: the importance of specialist anti-shipping teams of intelligence personnel and aircrew and the ability to react to unexpected events during operations seem quite relevant to the wars the RAAF is currently preparing for.
Overall, this is an interesting and useful book and a bargain at its price.
Publishing details: Quaife, John (2026). ANZAC Strike Wing: Operations in the North Sea with RAF Coastal Command. Newport, New South Wales: Big Sky Publishing. ISBN 9781923514485.
Anthony Tucker-Jones - Rhineland: Hitler's Last Defence 1939–45 |
- By Hawkeye7
Although an Osprey publication, this is not a thin paperback but a regular-sized hardback. It covers the fighting in the Rhineland in 1944 and 1945, deliberately omitting Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Scheldt and the German Ardennes-Alsace offensive, about which much (perhaps too much) has been written in any case. Nonetheless, the scale of the operations described is very large indeed, and the author would probably have been better off concentrating on one aspect, or perhaps confining the narrative to the operations in 1945.
That said, the book does give a good overview of these operations. Most of it is from the German side; I think the original intention was to tell the story from the German side, but this got lost along the way. Mostly this is because of its broad scope, but it is also partly because of its reliance on published English-language sources. The book does not really come to grips with the personalities involved, nor with the strategy, operational art or tactics, and there is next to nothing on logistics. The end product is workmanlike, but with little that is special or new. Accordingly, I cannot find much in it to recommend.
Publishing details: Tucker-Jones, Anthony (2025). Rhineland: Hitler's Last Defence 1939–45. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-4728-5992-1. OCLC 1542820585.
Robert Gibson and Anthony Paustian - Space Ace: A Combat Pilot's Journey from Vietnam to Beyond Earth |
- By Hawkeye7
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This book is a co-written autobiography of NASA astronaut Robert L. "Hoot" Gibson. I have a shelf of astronaut biographies, and NASA pilot astronauts generally have similar backgrounds. Let's see how Hoot compares:
White Anglo-Saxon protestant- From a small town
- Married, with children
- Built model aircraft as a kid
- Parents involved in aviation
- Undergraduate degree in aviation engineering
- Military aviator
- Flew combat missions
- Test pilot
Of course, not all US pilot astronauts have all of these attributes: Buzz Aldrin, for example, was not a test pilot; but Hoot ticks all the boxes. So what makes this book different and worth reading? Not much, as it turns out. Gibson divides his life into three parts: his careers as a Navy fighter pilot (including his wartime service in Vietnam), as an astronaut, and as an air racer. He mentions his wives and children, in a few sentences, but clearly writing about them is not much of a priority for him. Whether it comes from Hoot or his co-writer, there is a concerted effort to portray him as being better than the stereotypical egoistical, hot-shot, flat-hatting fighter jock, but this is largely unsuccessful due to an abundance of contradictory facts.
The astronaut section is, surprisingly, the weakest; there is a lot more that Gibson could have said that would have been of interest to the reader, such as his brief suspension and his time as Chief of the Astronaut Office, but this is largely passed over. The section on his early life and Navy career is well written and surprisingly frank; he confesses that joining the Navy was motivated by a desire to finish his aeronautical engineering studies and become a pilot (having qualified for his private pilot licence as a teenager) instead of being drafted into the Army and having to serve on the ground in Vietnam. This was not cowardice; he subsequently qualified as a naval aviator and flew harrowing combat missions over Vietnam. This part is well detailed, but the reader with a particular interest in the air war over Vietnam could wish for more.
About a third of the book is devoted to details of his air racing hobby; although his actual paying job was as a pilot for Southwest Airlines, this merits a solitary sentence. Hoot used his aeronautical engineering expertise to repair and upgrade a customised racer, the description of which is fairly interesting. He went on to win the Reno Air Races. This is covered in great detail, but I doubt that many readers will be as interested in his racing exploits as Hoot is. Hoot was fond of saying that any landing you can walk away from is a good one, and if the aircraft is still flyable as well, then it is perfect. His record speaks for itself in this regard: there was a notable air racing crash that saw him suspended and nearly fired from astronaut duty, and a near-fatal crash of the Space Shuttle on the STS-27 mission, although neither was his fault.
Gibson's second wife, astronaut Rhea Seddon, has also written an autobiography (without the aid of a ghost writer), Go For Orbit: One of America's First Women Astronauts Finds Her Space (2015), which is much better.
Publishing details: Gibson, Robert; Paustian, Anthony (2026). Space Ace: A Combat Pilot's Journey from Vietnam to Beyond Earth. Des Moines, Iowa: Bookpress Publishing. ISBN 978-1-960259-45-5. OCLC 1549671083.
Recent external reviews |
Smith, Jeffrey A. (2021). Themistocles: The Powerbroker of Athens. Barnsley, United Kingdom: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 9781526790453.
- Molina, Andres O. (May 2026). "Review of Smith, Jeffrey A. Themistocles: The Powerbroker of Athens". H-War, H-Net Reviews.
Wakelam, Randall T.; March, William; Rayls, Peter, eds. (2023). On the Wings of War and Peace: The RCAF During the Early Cold War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781487526764.
- Mahoney, Ross (25 May 2026). "#BookReview – On the Wings of War and Peace". Balloons to Drones.
Waters, Conrad, ed. (2025). Seaforth World Naval Review 2026. Barnsley, United Kindom: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 9781036150761.
- Roberts, John (5 May 2026). "Seaforth World Naval Review 2026". The Naval Review.
Barno, David W.; Bensahel, Nora (2020). Adaptation under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime. New York City: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190672058.
- Marlow, Rebecca (26 May 2026). "Land Power Library - Adaptation Under Fire". Land Power Forum. Australian Army Research Centre.
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