Customer Reviews

Above and Beyond: The Canadians' War in the Air, 1939-45

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I've read a number of Spencer Dunmore's books, both fiction and non-fiction, and I have to say that I was a little disappointed by this one. Having read some of his sources, it was easy to recognize that the author simply paraphrased these works and cobbled them together instead of crafting his own narrative as was the case with Reap the Whirlwind. Still, I guess it's not a bad book for the general reader wanting to get some background on the subject.

The book does little to convey its intended message, and there are significant gaps in the coverage. The entire war from 1944-45 is glossed over in the last few pages of the book, and significant events such as the use of 4-engine bombers for tactical purposes is completely ignored. I realize the book is intended more as a social history, and as light reading it does well, but like many books seeking to cash in on the concept of "popular history" that Corenlius Ryan and Stephen Ambrose (and now Mark Zuehlke) have perpetuated, the book is far too celebratory. As a cheerleader, Dunmore excells, and the VC descriptions are riveting. For a balanced picture of what the RCAF was doing in the Second World War, this book will not enlighten.

It's hard to be so harsh on an author like Dunmore, who has obvious respect for the subject of his work, and his talent as a writer can't be questioned. There are amusing anecdotes in the book and a fair degree of analysis - but more recent, scholarly research points to such things as inflated tank-kill figures by Typhoon pilots and the problems with tactical air support, and none of this is even hinted at by this social history. What little analysis there is, is uneven. Dunmore describes how few German pilots were "experten" by 1944, then cites the number of Spitfires shot down after D-Day. Lucky shots? Dunmore never explains how the riff-raff he claims was left in the Luftwaffe managed to kill so many Allied pilots.

There is no organized description of hardware or software - ie of plane types, performance characteristics, etc., and of the training, though lip service is paid to the BCATP and the lack of reinforcement training in the Luftwaffe. As this was intended as a social history, one shouldn't hold that against Dunmore, though one might have expected at the very least an appendix of some sort.

The bottom line is that if you just want a very basic idea of what life in the RCAF was like, or for a reaffirmation that "we" were the good guys, this book will provide an enjoyable experience. As a serious history, it will only frustrate. Indeed, even as a "casual" history, an absolute rank beginner will have no appendices of rank titles or aircraft types to help him/her understand better.

This book would be easy to give a negative review until you realize the task that Dunmore took on in just 400 pages. The author must have conducted dozens upon dozens of interviews to compile this anecdotal history. Dunmore sprinkles this with a Reader's Digest outline of the war's events to give us an entertaining view of the RCAF's huge contribution to the Allied air struggle. While not necessarily for academics, Above and Beyond is a welcome addition to the literature in this area

I loved it!! It's wasn't what I thought it was. I thought it would be boring and there won't excite me but you Spenser Dunmore proved me wrong cause I never read anything like this before!!