Pictorial History of the R.A.F. : Volume Three, 1945 - 1969

This excellent book, which is well - illustrated with such an amount of photographs, will tell you the post - war history of the R.A.F. and its development until the late 1960's.

Aviation book
In this volume, the authors bring the history of the Royal Air Force right up to date. At the end of the Second World War, the R.A.F. had been an immensely powerful service but, as in 1919, as soon as the fighting was over it was allowed to run down.
Would the victorious Allies remain ’ united nations ’ ? Those who so believed were quickly disillusioned. The cold war between east and west intensified until the Russian blockade of Berlin in 1948 brought Europe to the brink of the Third World War. Air power saved the day, this time with transport aircraft instead of bombers. Despite such a clear warning, the British government still refused to order new sweptwing fighters for the R.A.F., although America was already mass - producing the F - 86 Sabre and Russia the MiG - 15 - with, basically, a Rolls - Royce engine.
Then came Korea, and the vital need to modernise the R.A.F. was at last apparent - or was it ? Even after wars against terrorists in Malaya, the Mau Mau in Kenya and the Egyptians at Suez, and the call to suppress violence everywhere from Aden to Cyprus, Hong Kong to the West indies, the ten - year period from 1957 to 1967 was marked by such disastrous decisions and indecision by successive governments that the R.A.F. was deprived of most of the aircraft on which its viability depended.
The mighty V - bombers, backed up by world - beating types such as the Hunter fighter, helped to sustain the R.A.F. through its lean years. Where does it stand today ? The answer is given in the last chapter of this book, which represents the only complete history of Britain's air force during the second half of its turbulent life.

John William Ransom Taylor O.B.E., Hon. D.Eng., F.R.Ae.S., F.R.Hist.S., A.F.I.A.A. ( June 8th, 1922 - December 12th, 1999 ) was educated at Ely Cathedral Choir School ( King's School, Ely ) and Soham Grammar School ( both in Cambridgeshire, England ). He trained as a draughtsman and joined Hawker Aircraft in 1941. There he worked on the development of the Hurricane fighter and its successors. His specialisation was rectifying design defects.
He joined Jane's as editorial assistant on Jane's All the World's Aircraft in 1955 and four years later he took over as editor. Until the late 1960's he edited this volume with virtually no editorial support but his love of aviation was such that this was a challenge he enjoyed. He retired as editor in 1989, just as the Iron Curtain obscuring the Soviet Bloc's technology started to lift. John W.R. Taylor, who lived to the age of 77, was a master of a parallel art to Kremlinology, he could deduce the performance of Soviet military equipment from blurred photographs.
( source : Wikipedia )