front cover of Double V
Double V
The Civil Rights Struggle of the Tuskegee Airmen
Lawrence P. Scott
Michigan State University Press, 1994

On April 12, 1945, the United States Army Air Force arrested 101 of its African American officers. They were charged with disobeying a direct order from a superior officer—a charge that could carry the death penalty upon conviction. They were accused of refusing to sign an order that would have placed them in segregated housing and recreational facilities. Their plight was virtually ignored by the press at the time, and books written about the subject did not detail the struggle these aviators underwent to win recognition of their civil rights. 
     The central theme of Double V is the promise held out to African American military personnel that service in World War II would deliver to them a double victory—a "double V"—over tyranny abroad and racial prejudice at home. The book's authors, Lawrence P. Scott and William M. Womack Sr., chronicle for the first time, in detail, one of America's most dramatic failures to deliver on that promise. In the course of their narrative, the authors demonstrate how the Tuskegee airmen suffered as second-class citizens while risking their lives to serve their country. Among the contributions made by this work is a detailed examination of how 101 Tuskegee airmen, by refusing to live in segregated quarters, triggered one of the most significant judicial proceedings in U.S. military history. Double V uses oral accounts and heretofore unused government documents to portray this little-known struggle by one of America's most celebrated flying units. 
     In addition to providing background material about African American aviators before World War II. the authors also demonstrate how the Tuskegee airmen's struggle foretold dilemmas faced by the civil rights movement in the second half of the 20th century. Double V is destined to become an important contribution in the rapidly growing body of civil rights literature.

[more]

logo for University of North Texas Press
Eagles Overhead
The History of US Air Force Forward Air Controllers, from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul
Matt Dietz
University of North Texas Press, 2023

front cover of Master of the Air
Master of the Air
William Tunner and the Success of Military Airlift
Robert A. Slayton
University of Alabama Press, 2010
 
In 1948, just as the Cold War was settling into the form it would maintain for nearly half a century, major antagonists the US and the USSR began maneuvering into a series of dangerously hostile encounters. Trouble had broken out in Poland and Czechoslovakia, but it was in Germany, which had been at the heart of World Wars One and Two, that the first potentially explosive confrontation developed. The USSR, which had suffered more at Germany’s hands than the rest of the Allies combined, may have viewed developments there with heightened fear and irritability. When the western Allies moved to consolidate their areas of control in occupied Germany, the USSR responded by cutting off land access to West Berlin, holding over two million residents of that city hostage in an aggressive act of brinkmanship.

Into this difficult situation the US placed General William Henry Tunner. He was given a task that seemed doomed to failure—to supply a major city by air with everything it needed to survive from food to a winter’s supply of coal—and made it a brilliant success, astonishing the world in a major public relations defeat for the Soviets, and demonstrating the unexpected capacity of air fleets in a postwar world.
[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower
An Introduction
Ryan Burke, Michael Fowler, and Kevin McCaskey, Editors
Georgetown University Press, 2018

Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower will introduce readers to contemporary strategy and the operational level of war, particularly as it relates to airpower.

This intermediate textbook was developed as required reading for all US Air Force Academy cadets, and is designed to close the gap between military theory and military practice. It asks readers to reconceive of the military as a “profession of effects” rather than as a profession of arms because much of the military's work and impact no longer involves kinetic warfare.

The book covers strategic foundations; operational design and joint-service operations; the air, space, and cyber capabilities that make up modern airpower; and contemporary challenges in the application of strategy. The contributing authors include both military practitioners and scholars of security studies, political science, and history.

In addition to being required reading for Air Force Academy cadets, the book will provide an essential overview of strategy and practice for anyone interested in modern airpower and the joint operating environment.

[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower
An Introduction, Second Edition
Ryan Burke
Georgetown University Press, 2022

An essential introduction to contemporary strategy at the operational level of war, now in its second edition

Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower introduces contemporary strategy at the operational level of war, particularly as it relates to airpower. Developed as foundational reading for all US Air Force Academy cadets, Air Force ROTC students, and Officer Training School candidates, this intermediate textbook is designed to close the gap between military theory and practice. It covers strategic foundations; operational design and joint-service operations; the air, space, and cyber capabilities that comprise modern airpower; and contemporary challenges in the application of strategy.

In this second edition, each chapter has been updated and revised, and several sections have been expanded. Part 2, “Military Forces and the Joint Fight,” now features separate chapters about each service. Similarly, operational design is expanded from one to four chapters to provide a more thorough step-by-step guide through the process. New chapters in this second edition include “Integrating the Instruments of Power,” “The Spectrum of Conflict and Range of Military Operations,” and “The Nuclear Weapons Triad and Missile Defense.”

Military Strategy, Joint Operations, and Airpower’s contributing authors and editors include both military practitioners and scholars of security studies, political science, and history. In addition to being required reading for US Air Force cadets, the book provides an essential overview of strategy and practice for anyone interested in modern airpower.

[more]

front cover of The Posture Triangle
The Posture Triangle
A New Framework for U.S. Air Force Global Presence
Stacie L. Pettyjohn
RAND Corporation, 2013
U.S. Air Force (USAF) global posture—its overseas forces, facilities, and arrangements with partner nations—faces a variety of fiscal, political, and military challenges. This report seeks to identify why the USAF needs a global posture, where it needs basing and access, the types of security partnerships that minimize peacetime access risk, and the amount of forward presence that the USAF requires.
[more]

front cover of This Is Not For You
This Is Not For You
An Activist's Journey of Resistance and Resilience
Richard Brown
Oregon State University Press, 2021
This Is Not For You tells the story of activist and photographer Richard Brown, a Black Portlander who has spent decades working to bridge the divide between police and the Black community. His memoir brings readers with him into the streets with fellow activists, into squad cars with the rank-and-file, and to regular meetings with mayors and police chiefs. There are very few people doing the kind of work Richard Brown has done. And that, as he sees it, is a big problem.

The book finds Brown approaching his eightieth birthday and reflecting on his life. As he recalls his childhood in 1940s Harlem, his radicalization in the newly desegregated Air Force, and his decades of activism in one of America’s whitest cities, he questions how much longer he’ll do this work, and he wonders who, if anyone, will take his place.

This is a book about how and why to become an engaged, activist citizen, and how activists can stay grounded, no matter how deeply they immerse themselves in the work. It also offers an intimate, firsthand look at policing: what policing is and could be, how civilians can have a say, and how police can and should be responsive to and inclusive of civilian voices. This Is Not For You speaks on every page about being Black in America: about Black pride; Black history, art, and culture; and the experience of resisting white supremacy. It also stands as a much-needed counternarrative to Portlandia, telling a different story about the city and who has shaped it.

Over fifty percent of royalties earned on this book will be donated to organizations working on behalf of Black Portlanders.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter