Red Phoenix Rising; The Soviet Air Force in World War II

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012. First Printing thus [Stated]. Hardcover. Good/Very good. xix, [1], 428 pages. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Yellow underlining noted in index. This is one of the Modern War Studies series. Inscribed by Von Hardesty on the title page. Inscription reads To Gene [Eisman], with best wishes and in appreciation of friendship and collaboration on the front lines of history! Von Hardesty 4/3/12. Writing in the Washington Post Book World, Martin Caidin praised author Von Hardesty's Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941-1945, deeming Hardesty's chronicle of Soviet military air power during World War II "a brilliant study" and commending its "wealth of detail on structure, policy, organization and statistical data." According to George Alexander of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the book, which contains many never-before- seen photographs, "recounts the slow, painful transformation of the Voyenno vosdushnyye sily, or Soviet air force, from a 1941 pushover to a 1945 strongman." In addition to Red Phoenix, and its updated Red Phoenix Rising, Hardesty has written and edited numerous other books about aviation. Hardesty is author with Gene Eisman of Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race. The book examines the intense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union as the two countries launched their space programs in the 1950s. Using declassified documents and a number of other American and Russian sources, the authors detail both the American and Russian perspectives as each tried to outdo the other in order to achieve the prize goal of achieving dominance in outer space. A groundbreaking account of the Soviet Air Force in World War II, the original version of this book, Red Phoenix, was hailed by the Washington Post as both "brilliant" and "monumental." That version has now been completely overhauled in the wake of an avalanche of declassified Russian archival sources, combat documents, and statistical information made available in the past three decades. The result, Red Phoenix Rising, is nothing less than definitive. The saga of the Soviet air force, one of the least chronicled aspects of the war, marked a transition from near annihilation in 1941 to the world's largest operational-tactical air force four years later. Von Hardesty and Ilya Grinberg reveal the dynamic changes in tactics and operational art that allowed the VVS to bring about that remarkable transformation. Drawing upon a wider array of primary sources, well beyond the uncritical and ultra-patriotic Soviet memoirs underpinning the original version, this volume corrects, updates, and amplifies its predecessor. In the process, it challenges many "official" accounts and revises misconceptions promoted by scholars who relied heavily on German sources, thus enlarging our understanding of the brutal campaigns fought on the Eastern Front. The authors describe the air campaigns as they unfolded, with full chapters devoted to the monumental victories at Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. By combining the deeply affecting human drama of pilots, relentlessly confronted by lethal threats in the air and on the ground, with a rich technical understanding of complex military machines, they have produced a fast-paced, riveting look at the air war on the Eastern Front as it has never been seen before. They also address dilemmas faced by the Soviet Air Force in the immediate postwar era as it moved to adopt the new technology of long-range bombers, jet propulsion and nuclear arms.
Drawing heavily upon individual accounts down to the unit level, Hardesty and Grinberg greatly enhance our understanding of their story's human dimension, while the book's more than 100 photos, many never before seen in the West, vividly portray the high stakes and hardware of this dramatic tale. In sum, this is the definitive one-volume account of a vital but still underserved dimension of the war, surpassing its predecessor so decisively that no fan of that earlier work can afford to miss it.