Fighting Spirit: 75 Years of the RNZAF

Random House, 2012. Large inscription on title page.

This is a beautifully designed, handsome hardback with a very accessible narrative telling a fascinating story that also tracks the development of our nation. This book marks the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. It traces the broad sweep of the Air Force from the early twentieth century to the first decade of the twenty-first, and extends beyond the romance of early military aviation and the drama of World War Two to describe the diversity of roles it has undertaken in recent decades. The account begins in 1909 with the gift of a Blériot plane to New Zealand in response to the first awareness of the potential of military air power, and moves through both World Wars. It then details the air force?s most turbulent years in the 1980s and 1990s, when governments cut ANZUS ties with the United States, reduced the number of bases and personnel, decided to focus on peacekeeping, and killed off the air combat force, and on to 2001, when the ?war on terror? reintroduced a global outlook, along with hectic deployments and leaps in technology, paralleled by the stress of cutbacks in personnel.
Fighting Spirit is lively and well-written, focusing on people and the way in which the Air Force has shaped a distinctive can-do national character.