A Photographic History of Airborne Warfare, 1939–1945

On 10 May 1940, German Fallschirmjäger stormed the Dutch fort of  Eben-Emael, south of Maastricht. The brilliantly executed operation was  the first signal success by airborne troops in the Second World War and  it made the military world sit up and take notice. Improved parachutes  and the creation of gliders that could carry troops meant that assault  forces could be dropped or landed behind enemy lines. This was a  significant new tactic which had a dramatic impact on several of the key  campaigns, and it is the subject of Simon and Jonathan Forty’s  in-depth, highly illustrated history.

They tell the story of the  development of airborne forces, how they were trained and equipped, and  how they were landed and put into action in every theater of the global  conflict. The results were mixed. German airborne forces were victorious  on Crete, but the cost was so great that Hitler vowed never to use them  in the same way again. The Allies saw things differently. After Crete  they built up elite units who would play important roles in later  battles – in Normandy, for example, where the British 6th Airborne  Division took vital bridges prior to the D-Day landings.

These  are just two examples of the many similar operations on the Western and  Eastern Fronts and in the Pacific which are covered in this wide-ranging  book. It offers the reader a fascinating insight into airborne warfare  over seventy years ago.