Contents:
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Buy The Cinderella Service: RAF Coastal Command Reprint by Andrew W.A. Hendrie (ISBN: ) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday. This book reveals the vital contribution that RAF Coastal Command made to the Allies war effort. Although often referred to as the 'Cinderella Service' because.
Hosted by Andy H. It costs you nothing extra but it helps keep the forum up and running. We see how Coastal Command grew from a motley collection of some odd wholly unsuitable aircraft for the most part in We see how Coastal Command struggled to get the aircraft it required, especially in the face of determined opposition from Bomber Command and also to some extent Churchill himself.
The early make do collection was gradually replaced by more usable types, able to perform the tasks asked of it. Weaponry, as in any war develops at a pace and that was no different here.
The aerial depth charge being Coastal Commands prime weapon is discussed in some depth, along with torpedoes, rockets and guns. This history of RAF Coastal Command during the Second World War is based on the author's PdD thesis, and is thus backed by some impressive original research in the archives demonstrated by the over footnotes and 21 appendices. Perhaps rarely in a book with such a solid academic basis, it also has a solid personal basis, for the author flew operationally with Coastal Command from until the end of the war.
Hendrie's academic approach means he is able to support some unexpected conclusions with solid fact - one example being his suggestion that small-scale 'smash and grab' anti-shipping strikes were more effective than the massed attacks of the strike wings, which often suffered disproportionately high losses for the results they achieved. Another nice touch comes at the very end of the last appendix, which gives the Command's casualty figures - here the figures are the updated ones produced in May , by which time the number of the missing had been reduced from to only 5, after had been found safe and well.
A number of features of Coastal Command's war stand out in the text.