A Grand Collection
Winged Shield, Winged Sword: A History of the USAF
Edited by Bernard C. Nalty
1997, Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program
1,172 pages (Two-volume set)
Reviewed by Sid
Perkins
Special to The Stars and Stripes
If you bet a friend that the idea of U.S. military aviation originated
with the Wright Brothers, you'd be wrong. And if he bet you that the idea
originated with balloonists during the Civil War, he'd be wrong
too.
U.S. military aviation, as a concept, actually goes back almost to the
founding of our country and may have sprung from one of young America's
greatest minds -- Benjamin Franklin. After helping negotiate the Treaty
of Paris in 1783, Franklin witnessed some of the first ascensions of
French hot-air balloons and predicted that invading armies would someday
use such craft to cross enemy-dominated seas.
That's just one of the fascinating facts contained in Winged Shield,
Winged Sword: A History of the USAF, a grand collection of essays
published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Air Force as an
independent service.
The 25 essays, grouped into seven major sections, cover the evolution of
America's land-based air power from its origins with the balloon corps of
the Union Army (all eight of the pilots were civilians and were paid by
the day) to today's high-tech, global-capable service on the brink
of the 21st century.
Each major section of the book deals with a particular time period,
recounting everything from early air experiences in WWI to the tremendous
successes of the Persian Gulf War and the challenges associated with the
post-Cold War drawdown.
The nine authors, all of whom either are or were members of the Office of
Air Force History, haven't written just one big "war story." They have
taken care to include significant amounts of material from peacetime as
well, detailing how the Air Force and its personnel learned the lessons
from previous wars as they developed doctrine and new aircraft for the
next.
Although the essays were researched and written in an academic manner,
they aren't boring if you have the slightest interest in aviation history.
They chronicle not only the people and the planes that made history and
broke records, but also the ideas and decisions that have molded the Air
Force into the institution that it is today.
Understandably, the authors explore the gamut of overarching themes and
philosophical issues such as the development and evolution of air
doctrine, the Air Force's struggle to become an independent service, and
the question that plagues every visionary -- "Where do we go from
here?"
But the essays are also chock full of the trivia that make history
interesting. For instance, one of the Union Army officers who observed
Confederate positions near Richmond in 1862 from a hot-air balloon (as a
passenger, not a pilot) was a young cavalry lieutenant and future general
named George Armstrong Custer. Another interesting fact: Much of the
groundwork that made Stealth technology feasible resulted from the
scientific papers of a Soviet physicist, whose work came to the attention
of American intelligence experts in 1971.
Winged Shield, Winged Sword is an absorbing collection of essays.
If the makers of the Trivial Pursuit game ever develop an "Air Force
edition," I'd suggest you commit this two-volume set to memory. You'll end
up head and shoulderboards above your competition.
This review appeared on page 10
of the Sept. 22,
1997, edition of The Stars and Stripes.
Copyright 1997 by The National Tribune Corporation.
All rights reserved.