Boys in blue

James Hollands comprehensive and readable history of the battle of Britain exemplifies the particular British blend of

amnesia and nostalgia that the war arouses.

Yet in any terms,this is a tremendous story. In September 1939,Britain was fighting a phoney war alongside a seemingly powerful ally,France. Less than a year later,the countrys survival depended on whether a fragile array of a few hundred fighter planes,flown by exhausted young men,could prevent Hitlers Luftwaffe from gaining the air superiority necessary for Operation Sealion: the first invasion of England since 1066.

The happy combination of youthful gallantry triumphing against overwhelming odds with brainy boffins giving the vital technological edge through radar,and the brilliantly designed Spitfires and Hurricanes,as well as inspirational leaders using flawless tactics and matchless rhetoric,is irresistible. The author has an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject,weaving together reminiscences from both sides,statistics and technical details into the broader picture.

He describes the collapse in France and the near-miraculous rescue in

mid-1940 of nearly 340,000 British and French soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk. He also tells the story of the carnage of poorly protected merchant shipping in the early months of the war which threatened to strangle Britains supply lines. He ends with Hitlers fateful decision to postpone Sealion in September of the same year. The Luftwaffe had lost too many planes and pilots to the RAFs fighters,while Bomber Command had punctured Germanys myth of invincibility. It was,as Winston Churchill said,not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning.

Published to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle of Britain,this book should sell well. But it will leave many readers unsatisfied. One problem is its glibness. Hitler can rightly be criticised for his many disastrous mistakes. But to write of the Nazi leaders almost complete lack of military understanding is wrong: his problem was too much self-taught military knowledge,not too little. Similarly,to call the German general Gerd von Rundstedt a pigheaded fool is lazy language that would be out of place in a schoolboy essay,let alone in something that purports to be the work of a professional historian. Throughout the book,the language is unsettlingly colloquial and anachronistic. Confusingly,Mr Holland calls the pilots by their first names,though they refer to each other in diaries and memoirs by their surnames.

A bigger problem is that the authors enthusiasm for his subject is not matched by his grip of history. He peddles the Anglocentric myth that Britain was alone in the summer of 1940 insultingly forgetting Greece,Poland and the entire British empire. Too many characters appear,with annoyingly similar potted biographies. Their tinnily-told stories swamp the rather skimpy treatment of the underlying war-winning narrative,such as the innovative tactics of a brilliant New Zealander,Keith Park,and the way that Max Aitken revolutionised aircraft production. Heroism is indeed captivating. But it was more than heroism that kept Britain out of Nazi captivity.

The Economist Newspaper Limited 2010