I have realized there's something missing in my growing library , I have plenty of books on the aces and airplanes, a few on selected campaigns, the odd in depth analysis of a particular subject, but it seems to me the trees don't let me see the forest. I am lacking a general overview of the airwar, an operational history. Something, that resembles Osprey's tried and proven scheme of opposing air forces, opposing strategies, and campaign description.
The closest thing to what I want would be the official stories of the air services, but I can barely read French so even if I could find a book on the French aviation it would be of little use. I cannot read German either, though fortunately I have in English the only two books on the German air force (Hoeppner memories and Neumann abridged version), plus Kilduff's book and the Osprey book by Sumner. I would like to have the British official history, but it is overkill both in extension and financially.
I own
"The Friendless Sky" by Alexander McKee wich is entertaining but short on detail. Likewise,
"Aces High" by Alan Clark, wich I borrowed is good enough and offers tantalizing bits to make me want to purchase it, even if I have read it and has no major revelations. These books are good, but they are just a sketch of the big picture.
So I have narrowed it to these three books. I excluded books by Peter Hart as being probably similar to McKee and Clark, and
"The Sky Their Battlefield" by Trevor Henshaw since it's the typical Grub Street book, great for the researcher but a yawner to those of us that want to know
"who did what to who, how, when, where, and why"
The First Air Campaign: August 1914- November 1918
-Lawson. 250 pages. 2002
The First Air War: 1914-1918
-Kennet. 288 pages. 1999
and
The Great War in the Air
-Morrow. 512 pages. 1993
Since I am a glutton for punishment, I already purchased Morrow's book and it's on the mail. I chose it for no particular reason other than is the thickest and I suppose it will have the most information, and on the positive review by fellow forumite Barrett. But I have the dawning suspicion it's a brick that is all about the industrial and economic aspects of the air war. Though it is interesting, books about the economics of warfare, the factory front, are less appealing to me than the shooting and killing at carnage at the front, frankly, a list of shot down airplanes is more exciting than a cold statistic of monthly airplane production.
I believe that probably the book that I have on mind hasn't been written yet, and to see the big picture I have to use several sources. So I ask if anybody has read Lawson or Kennet books and how they rate them. I would appreciate a book that tells something about the French air service. I reckon I know as much as I can know about German aviation without knowing German, and know where to look for the British and Empire side of things.
So tell me if they are a good purchase, or they don't have anything that isn't in Morrow already.