A Time for Courage; The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939-1945

New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 24 cm, xix, [1], 828 pages. Maps. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. DJ shows some soiling and edge wear. John Alfred Terraine (15 January 1921 - 28 December 2003) was an English military historian, and a TV screenwriter. He is best known as the lead screenwriter for the landmark 1960s BBC-TV documentary The Great War, about the First World War, and for his defense of British General Douglas Haig against charges that he was "The Butcher of the Somme". Terraine had 16 books published, most of them dealing with aspects of the great European wars of the 20th century, and numerous articles and book reviews. His first major study of the First World War, Mons: The Retreat to Victory was published in 1960. The Right of the Line: The Royal Air Force in the European War 1939-45 (1985) won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year award. Derived from a review in the Los Angeles Times: Whether the formation be a combat advance or peacetime trooping of colors, the British military's "right of the line" is a position reserved for the honored; the bravest, the senior, the most capable warriors. With this book it is suggested that the RAF (Britain's junior service by several centuries) be accorded the right of history's line for its transition from frantic blunderings in 1939 to thunderous supremacy in 1945 with all manner of heroic innovations and brazen conquests in between. This book does some fine shredding of propaganda and realignment of long-held images of Britain's wartime air leaders, the heroes and the heralded victories. One obituarist wrote that for sheer scholarship, the quality and accessibility of his writing, Terraine was one of the outstanding military historians of the 20th century. He was awarded the RUSI Chesney Gold Medal in 1982.