SHORT ER NOTICES
The Soviet Air Force. Eh Asher Lee. (Duckworth. 8s. 6d.)
I-r is right to assume that we know very little about the Russian armed forces, but it is wrong to assume that we know nothing at all. The main achievement of Wing Commander Asher Lee's latest book (he has previously written on the German Air Force) is that it sets out what is known about the Soviet Air Force, which is simply a branch of the Red Army, and extracts a number of useful conclusions from what is known. There is rather more to go on than the average layman may have thought. The historical part of the book—that is, practically the whole of it—includes, along with a miscellaneous mass of material about the aircraft used, some very useful information on the consistent encouragement which air development has received from the highest Soviet authorities, on the energy and enthusiasm of Russian airmen, and on the flexibility with which the force has been employed. All this is essential to a proper understanding. If Wing Commander Lee's account has its longeurs, that is due not so much to any absence of interest in the subject itself as to his slipshod style and his mistaken attempt to include a catalogue of aircraft in the text instead of relegating it to an appendix. As to his final chapter on the present strength of the Soviet Air Force, it is bound to be, like the museum skeletons of prehistoric monsters, something of an intelligent reconstruction from the big toe of the animal. But the reconstruction really is intelligent, and at times there is more to go on than the big toe.
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