ROLLING THUNDER: Jet Combat From WW II to the Gulf War [Hardcover]

Ivan Rendall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 1999

"The jet fighter is one of the great icons of the second half of the twentieth century, a symbol of achievement, of technical excellence, of ultimate modernity, of latent military power."

So begins Ivan Rendall, a former Royal Air Force pilot, in this thrilling first-ever history of the most seductive and deadly of all of man's weapons of war. From its birth in battle during the last days of World War II to its current aeronautical peak, the jet fighter has always been the king of the sky. Rendall's "Rolling Thunder" is the celebration of a machine, and a culture, for which "winning is about accepting that there is no such thing as second-best."

Rendall's scrupulous history is driven by a strong thesis: jets may depend upon technological advances, but the human edge supplied by their pilots has determined their success or failure in all times and places. In this respect, the West has triumphed over its enemies. Beginning with the dangerously fast but hopelessly outnumbered German Me 262, jets and the men who flew them quickly became potent physical and psychological weapons. From the ruins of a defeated Germany came the now-familiar look of swept-back wings and with them the secret of supersonic flight. Less than a decade later, the two World War II allies most responsible for Germany's defeat would meet as enemies in Korea. Their planes -- the American F-86 Saber and Russian MiG-15 -- clashed over the Yalu River in what American pilots called "MiG Alley." Diving from 40,000 feet and flying through dry riverbeds so low that their engines kicked up dirt, both sides' machines soon proved their worth.

In Vietnam, American fighter pilots involved in the costly "RollingThunder" campaign again proved the value of the American emphasis on individualism as taught in the "Top Gun" school of aeronautics. Rendall vividly describes pilots in F-4 Phantoms and F-105 Thunderchiefs dodging SA-2 surface-to-air missiles in the "ultimate test of man versus machine."

Recent uses of air power, from the legendary "Instant Thunder" campaign in the Gulf War to the enforcement of No-Fly Zones in Bosnia, have proved that the jet fighter remains as versatile and dangerous as ever. But today, with $100 million mach 3 machines capable of climbing 65,000 feet -- twice the height of Everest -- in a minute, many have argued that the pilot has become the weak link in the jet fighter's lethal equation. Rendall shows that the argument to remove the pilot from his machine -- seemingly complete with NASA's new unmanned X-36 -- is as old as the machine that broke the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager's X-1. The ability to balance the grace and brutality of a machine that has evolved into a perfect combination of form and function will remain the unique province of the fighter pilot -- the "quintessential warrior of our times."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over the course of the last half-century, warfare has been completely transformed by jet aircraft and aerial combat. This is a tale that has been often told, but rarely as eloquently and insightfully as by RAF veteran Rendall (now a TV producer and writer). Working from the premise that jet-dominated Western war strategy may soon be eclipsed by computer-driven combat, Rendall evokes both the mystery and the power of the deadly but, for some, romantic airborne machines. (A jet fighter, he writes, is "like a stunningly beautiful and dangerous courtesan.") Rendall's vivid battles scenes, often reconstructed from original reports or testimony, are interspersed with knowledgeable technical discussions as he takes readers through 50 years of fighters, beginning with the Luftwaffe's Me 262s and the USAF's answering X-I (in which Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than sound). He then surveys jet warfare in the Korean War, the early years of the Cold War and Operation Rolling Thunder, America's 1965 entry into the Vietnam War. Chapters on the wars in the Middle East and computerized aviation lead inexorably to the Gulf War, to which Rendall accords his authorial standing ovationAa response that aviation-loving readers will be happy to bestow on this book.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In the last months of World War II, air combat saw the introduction of jet-powered fighters; from then on, with continuous improvements to airframe, components, and armament, air warfare's course to the present was set. Rendall, a writer and TV producer who served in the Royal Air Force, presents a thorough, straightforward history of his complex subject's trends and turning points that is well told, immediate, and nicely aimed at an aviation-related readership. Using the Korean, Vietnam, Israeli-Egyptian, Falklands, and Gulf War air actions, Rendall illustrates how having the edge in technology and training has produced battlefield success and speculates on the future of air combat, in which the fighter pilot, ironically, may be relegated to a "virtual" cockpit on the ground. A wide-ranging history; for public libraries and all military and aviation history collections.AMel D. Lane, Sacramento, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (May 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684857804
• ISBN-13: 978-0684857800
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,145,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating View of Air Warfare Development, July 25, 2003

By 

C. Ryan (Winthrop, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ROLLING THUNDER: Jet Combat From WW II to the Gulf War (Hardcover)

This book analyzes the evolution of jet air superiority warfare from the German Me-262 of 1944-45 through the mid-1990s. More than being a mere compilation of aircraft performance statistics, photographs and macho war stories (all of which are somewhat lacking), Rolling Thunder analyzes the major jet air superiority campaigns to date - late-WWII, Korea, Cold War bomber-intercept development, Vietnam, Israel's 1960s-80s conflicts, the Falklands, Desert Storm and post-Desert Storm in the Balkans and the Iraqi "no-fly zones".

I do NOT agree with other reviewers who compare it unfavorably to more narrowly focused books or complain about focus on the U.S. Air Force (there's a lot about German, British, Israeli and non-Western air forces) And let's face it: the U.S. Navy did not have good enough jets to maintain air superiority in Korea and in Desert Storm the Navy only downed two Iraqi jets compared to 30 for the USAF (and half of THOSE were accounted for by one unit!). The number of misspellings, typos and date errors is relatively minor and NOT distracting from the overall book quality.

Besides well-written complex narratives explaining how tactics and weapons use evolved over time, Rendall emphasizes the importance of human factors in achieving battlefield air superiority. While it's important to have the highest quality aircraft and weapons, it's still - to date, at least - pilot ability and tactical leadership make the ultimate difference. This is most strongly illustrated by Israel's ability on many occasions to establish air superiority - with air-to-air kill ratios of 50-to-1 - even with comparable aircraft and Britain eventually beating back Argentine aircraft that outnumbered them by more than 6-to-1.

One of Rendall's most thoughtful insights is the fundamental advantage of Western culture's celebration of individual excellence, competition and initiative. Non-Western air forces, most significantly the Soviet Union, relied heavily on central ground control of large numbers of aircraft and mediocre pilots rather than letting a small number of superior pilots and air warfare leaders act with individual initiative. Soviet training showed its spectacular weaknesses in the annihilation of its client states' air forces, most notably Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

There's a fascinating description of declining Soviet pilot skill levels during the 1970s-80s due to their leftwing obsession with a form of pilot "affirmative action". Rendall says that to ensure weaker pilots would not be "left behind", and thereby reflect badly on the pilot selection/training establishment, the Soviets systematically reduced pilot training standards. They had many outstanding pilots, but their average pilot skill level steadily declined even as their aircraft performance and weapons quality increased.

At the end of the book I understand how Western - especially American/Anglo - air forces came to dominate their actual and potential adversaries. However the incredible cost of developing and deploying new aircraft is almost beyond the range of even the United States - an F-80 cost $90,000 in 1946 and today's fighters can cost more than $30,000,000! And if the United States ever loses a couple of AWACS at the same time during combat the air battle will quickly descend into total confusion. Finally, Western air forces and other superior military capabilities have driven our adversaries to employ suicide bombers and other asymmetrical tactics not easily countered by conventional forces (Saddam Hussein is probably the only person in the world dumb enough to take on the U.S. armed forces (twice!))

I REALLY enjoyed this book and recommend in the highest possible terms to anyone interested in modern warfare, late-20th Century international conflicts and the history of technological development. Rolling Thunder's weakest point is its unfortunate title, which was the name of an air campaign that, despite pilot skill and gallantry, was notably ineffective while losing and resulted great aircraft and aircrew losses due to strategic, political and leadership flaws at the highest levels of the U.S. military and civilian government.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a good single volume history of air combat tactics, June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: ROLLING THUNDER: Jet Combat From WW II to the Gulf War (Hardcover)

This single volume history of air combat tactics since the advent of jets in World War II is a very good overview of the topic. The author, an RAF veteran, is conversant with the aircraft and the changes that jet technology caused in the arena of air combat. It is technical without being overly so, and there are excellent accounts of combat action, particularly in the sections on Korea and the Israeli wars. It is an excellent companion volume to Johnny Johnson's "Full Circle," (published around 1965) and Edward H. Sims's "Fighter Tactics and Strategies," (published in 1970), that deal with fighter aircraft combat. Mr. Rendall takes us to the Gulf War. This is the American edition of "Splash One," and has a few distracting typos. What I can't understand is why the publisher chose to use the name of an ill-managed and unsuccessful American bombing campaign in Vietnam as the title! Simply calling it "Jet Combat" would have been much better and far more accurate about the contents.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What's That I Hear?, August 10, 2004

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ROLLING THUNDER: Jet Combat From WW II to the Gulf War (Hardcover)

For me one of the more difficult books to pull off is the general history type book. The reason being is that it is always the case of not being able to please all of the people all of the time. With a general middle of the road type book compromises have to be made and it is the good author that can bridge the gaps that these choices leave. This author tried to give the reader both a general overview of jet fighter development and descriptions of actual jet fighters in combat. Based on what I was looking for the author provided me just the right mix. He was very heavy into descriptions of all major jet fighter combat experiences over the last 60 years and a bit light on the development process.

This authors talents lay with his ability to describe combat. I became more impressed with his writing skill with each new battle he covered. He brought a nice combination of straight shooting facts and the type of drama that is appropriate for a non fiction book. I learned the most from his descriptions of the wars the Israelis have fought and some nice details on both the first Gulf war and the Korean war. My only negative comment on his war coverage was that it was always one sided. Again choices had to be made and I am sure obtaining written accounts of either the Soviet, Arab or Korean battles is not as easy as getting American and British versions. Plus the winners were the versions he used and we all know the winners write the history.

I did not buy the book to get into a deep and well researched account of jet fighter development, and because of this the book gave me just want I was looking for. The author covered the devolvement as a bit of an after thought and you could tell by the writing style that this author was more excited about the combat then the design room. Overall I liked the book. It was easy to read and had a lot of nice detail about many jet fighter combat incidents. If you are looking for a nice overview of jet battles over the past half decade then this book will give you a nice start. If you are after a detailed account of jet development then keep looking, there is just not enough detail of this type to keep you engaged.