ISBN 0 947993 74 6
416 pages

Acknowledgements; Foreword; Preface; photos; maps; drawings; Index

Appendices: Indian Ocean Shipping Losses from Enemy Action; Anti-submarine Squadrons in Indian Ocean, 1939-1945; Far East U-Boats; Japanese Submarines Based on Penang; Glossary; Bibliography; The Japanese Letter to Birchall

   When this book first appeared there was some indication it might be the long-awaited definitive history of operations in the Indian Ocean during the war, but that turns out not to be the case. Rather, it's more in the line of a somewhat rambling but good-natured assemblage of anecdotes, first-hand accounts, drawings and cartoons, photos of friends and brides and comrades, and informal recollections. It might almost be described as a cross between a unit history and family reunion-- and a rather large family at that, considering that it covers British bases, RAF squadrons, Fleet Air Arm units, miscellaneous Royal Navy types, WAAFs and WRENs, POWs, and even U-boat sailors, all operating from Java to Penang to Ceylon to Aden to Madagascar and Cape Town.
   Early on, the action includes the Japanese carrier-based air strikes against Ceylon and the British invasion of Madagascar. Most of the pages, though, are filled with anti-submarine missions by RAF ASW squadrons. These constant patrols are anything but dull, as the many stories soon make clear. In addition to combat against German surface vessels, U-boats (operating off the coast of South Africa, as far north as the Arabian peninsula, and as far east as Penang and Java), and Japanese submarines (similarly operating as far west as the coast of Africa), the pilots, aircrew, and ground personnel must withstand monsoons, accidents, poisonous snakes, lion attacks, constant shortages of supplies and spare parts, and the strain of long, numbing flights across empty expanses of ocean.
   For the most part these difficulties seem to have been met with equal doses of the British stiff upper lip and boyish good humor. Banks, who was there, tells the stories (and often allows the participants to speak in their own words, for he has interviewed many of them) of patrol aircraft shot down into the sea by Japanese fighters, of flaming planes attempting to crash into enemy submarines, of rescues from rafts and lifeboats and islets of survivors from U-boat attacks, as well as Arctic supplies mistakenly shipped to the tropics, avoiding unruly elephants, a pet lion who had to be awakened from his favorite resting place on the runway whenever a flight was returning, and the effects of bit too much booze and humidity.
   Many interesting and obscure events are recounted, such as the Fort Stikine explosion in Bombay harbor, the capture of the shipwrecked crew of Heinz Eck's U-852 on the rocky coast of Italian Somaliland, the exploits of Japanese midget subs in Diego Suarez harbor, and operations in the Mozambique Channel. While it's always interesting to hear the stories of men who were actually in the middle of these kinds of events, it's also important to keep in mind while reading some of these tales that memories are not always infallible after fifty years or more. Banks endeavors to balance the RAF perspective with comments from Axis sailors and steers the recollections toward documented accounts, pointing the reader for further historical illumination toward titles by the likes of Rohwer, Shores, Probert, Winton, Sturtivant, Roskill, and Turner. From those sources and others Banks has also compiled some impressive tables and appendices.
   While not written or researched in an academic fashion, Wings of the Dawning is comfortable as a salty tropical breeze, and certainly a pleasant and educational compilation, especially for anyone who believes the Indian Ocean to have been a distant, quiet front during the war.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Malvern.
   Thanks to Malvern Publishing for providing this review copy.