A. A. Command
ACK-ACK: Britain's Defence against Air Attack during the Second World War. By General Sir Frederick Pile. (Harrap. I8s.)
IN the course of the last two years a considerable number of books have been written by distinguished commanders and others recount- ing their experiences in the Second World War. These have done much to embroider—in most cases attractively, in a few rather garishly—the bare facts of history contained in the official despatches. General Pile's contribution to this series is an important one ; for, as can be seen from the title, he is concerned with something more than personal experiences. It is the history of the Command which he founded himself in 1939, and whose fluctuating fortunes he directed without a break throughout the entire war. But he writes from a personal angle and in a more conversational style than any official historian would dare to ; and the formal narrative of the raids with statistics and figures of rounds fired and planes shot down, which by itself would tend to become a little monotonous to the lay reader, is skilfully broken up by the author's own comments on events and by accounts of his associations with some of our political and military war-time leaders, in particular Lord Beaverbrook, to whom he was at one time appointed unofficial military adviser, and Mr. Churchill.
Unlike the majority of parents, who have no eyes for the short- comings of their offspring, General Pile has no illusions about the weaknesses which existed in his Command, and his frankness in this respect makes the story he has to tell the more impressive. It was unfortunately at the time too often the failures rather than the successes that were apparent to the public, who for reasons of security were seldom allowed to know what was really happening. Moreover, A.A. Command suffered from the severe disadvantage of being the only military force which had to fight its battles in full view of the public at home and of having inevitably at times to cause injury or inconvenience to civilians. The author quotes some amusing extracts from his voluminous file of correspondence from indignant citizens voicing such complaints as that the barrage was cracking suburban lavatory pans or protesting vociferously that they " do not care where the guns are placed as long as they are not fired." The General and his staff appear to have listened with unending patience and good humour to all these complaints, which were usually engendered by ignorance of the facts.
When one considers the inadequate—almost non-existent—state of our defences in 1939, and the innumerable difficulties of every kind with which A.A. Command had to contend, one is forced to admit that the progress made in the six years of war was really remarkable. The secret of the success was Radar, and General Pile pays a generous tribute to all the scientists who helped to make it possible. It was a case, too, of for ever trying to anticipate the enemy's next move and deploying the available defences in time to counter it. The greatest triumph came right at the end, when the Command, even while it was being daily drained of its fittest men who were being taken away to reinforce the armies in Europe, was nevertheless able to redeploy its remaining strength and take on and defeat almost single-handed the first of the robot planes. The book appears at an appropriate moment, for it fills in many details of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, which Churchill on his broader canvas inevitably has to pass over in the second volume 6f his memoirs. It makes no pretensions to being a great work of literature, but it is very readable, and amply fulfils the main purpose pf the author, who designed it primarily as a tribute to " the great multitude of men and women who served in A.A. Command during the war years and who became a team." G. A. ROWAN-ROBINSON.
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