Christopher M. Rein. The North African Air Campaign

In The North African Air Campaign, Christopher M. Rein provides a useful explanation of the import of the Allied air effort in North Africa during World War II. North Africa exposed the rift between ground-minded commanders and air-minded commanders regarding how airpower should be employed in war. Ground commanders have generally considered the airplane to be an evolutionary extension of war, and airplanes simply another weapon in the inventory, one most properly used to support the main effort (defined as the land campaign). Airmen, however, have argued that airpower is revolutionary and more than simply flying artillery or the eyes of ground commanders. They believe that airpower is a war-winning capability in its own right and should be largely (if not completely) free of surface tethers. They also believe that the best way to advance the ground effort is to wrest control of the air away from the enemy. Yet at the beginning of World War II, the ground-centric perspective held sway. North Africa would change this.

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