Thesis - The RAF and the Raid on Dieppe, 19 August 1942: A Reappraisal?

The proposed title for my thesis is as you can see above about the RAF’s role in the raid on Dieppe in 1942. Dieppe has always held a bit of a fascination for me, not really sure why though, and I have never been fully satisfied with the explanation that Mountbatten was fully to blame for its failure. Therefore, I am hoping to show that, form the point of view of the RAF at least, the failure was more due inherent differences between the services and the evolutionary nature of air power at the time, which led to the problem of 19 August 1942.

Thus, my principal aims have been set out as;

1. Examine the reasons for the failure of the Royal Air Force during the raid on Dieppe in August 1942.

2. Place the failures into their historical context especially looking at aspects British Air Power Strategy and Tactics in the early years of the Second World War, especially with reference to RAF Fighter Command.

3. Examine the lessons learnt from the raid on Dieppe and whether these were integrated into RAF doctrine in preparation for the Invasion of Europe or were the lessons necessary learnt elsewhere.

If anyone has any thoughts, ideas or comments please let me know.

My thesis proposal has been accepted!!

As I have mentioned before I am about to embark on my MPhil research and I have just had the go ahead from my university, Birmingham. This means I will have the oppurtunity of studying at one of the UK’s leading, if not leading, institution for Military History. This is an excellent chance and I for one am looking forward to it greatly. Hopefully, the oppurtunities to get some teaching and further reasearch will come along from this.

New Research Centre - The Centre for Second World War Studies

Many of you may be aware of the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, which Dr John Bourne founded back in 2003. Up until now it has specialised in the First World War and successfully launched an MA in British First World War Studies back in 2004. However, over the past year the university’s history department has expanded in the direction of military history with the addition of Professor Gary Sheffield and Dr Steffen Prauser. With this growing expertise within the centre a decision was taken to launch an MA in British Second World War Studies, which started last October. It has now been decided to open a new research centre to house the new MA and on May 8 the Centre for Second World War Studies will open its doors. This is all very good news for the development of military history here in the UK and hopefully will spurn on more research in the field.

Latest Acquisition - T C G James - ‘Air Defence of Great Britain, Volume 2: The Battle of Britain’

The latest book added to my ever growing library, my wife never stops complaining about it too, is T C G James’ history of the Battle of Britain. This book forms part of the Whitehall series of RAF Official Histories originally published by Frank Cass but now done by Routledge. The book is one the narratives written by James while he was at the Air Historical Branch. It is the second of a two volume set looking at the development of the air defences from 1936 onwards. These histories were never meant for public consumption and therefore, do not necessarily have the rhetoric which the other ‘Official’ histories have. Thus, the narratives tend to give a clearer cut picture of the events they were written to analyse. As such this volume is full of interesting information and its layout has been mimicked by many historians since. A fuller account of this will follow soon but by the looks of it this is a very interesting addition to the collection.

Interesting Blogs

Having been new to blogging I have been trawling through the internet and I have found some very interesting sites. The first of these is a site by Australian PhD candidate Bret Holman. Bret’s site, and thesis, it is all about the issue of Air mindedness (I do not think that’s a word!) and Britain. An issue, which is extremely interesting so Bret’s site, Airminded, is well worth a peek. Another very interesting site, which I had come across before I started blogging is that of American historian Mark Grimsley. Mark has some interesting articles on the development of military history, which I think anyone with any interest in the subject should have a read of. So have a look at his interestingly named Blog them out of the Stone Age. The final one, for now, it Gavin Robinson’s Investigations of a Dog, which I have been finding very interesting, especially his stuff on Early Modern Cavalry, as I am in the process of teaching the English Civil War to my AS Students and not being my particular area I did find it useful. Gavin is hosting a Military History Carnival, which will be interesting when it starts next month.

The one thing I have noticed from other peoples sites it that they have a tendency to use other sites such as WordPress. So a general question to anyone reading this - what is the best blogging site/software?

More problems for Wikipedia

On the way back from a teaching conference in London yesterday I read another article in The Indepedent about a sham poster for the site. This person had the gaul to pass himself of as a university Professor and as specialist in Religious Studies. The article can be found here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2331980.ece

The problem was that he was no expert and was relying on one basic text to produce his information. The reason I mention this was because at the conference I was at yesterday I had an intriguing conversation with Professor Eric Evans over what I described to him as the ‘Wikipedia Culture’ and he replied that he found it useful. Now I will admit myself to having used it. However, I think the difference is for professional historians and lecturers is that we are able to identify or question the source and vet it accordingly, something, which my students certainly find difficult.

However, I have increasingly had to deal with student citing Wikipedia as there only source. At the level that I teach these students just do not have the skills necessary to identify a problem. They tend to rely on single sources and are not bothered about cross - referencing their sources, a skill, which AS/A2 Levels are supposed to develop. Therefore, Wikipedia really has got to tighten its publishing control or vetting procedures in order to ensure that people who are using it as a learning tool can rely on it. I have to admit this is not limited and a similar discussion has occurred on the H - War discussion board. Wikipedia could be a great source but they need to act now before faith is lost by the teaching profession as to it validity.