Airpower exercised a decisive influence over military operations throughout World War II. In 1940 the close integration of their air and land forces enabled the Germans to achieve stunning victories in France and the Low Countries. Four years later, the Allied air forces dominated the skies above Normandy, and Operation Overlord succeeded. The German response was handicapped by sustained air attacks on the European rail network. Tactical airstrikes prevented German mechanised forces from exploiting their full mobility, starving them of supplies and destroying their transport columns. Naval warfare came to be even more dominated by airpower, and aircraft carriers superseded battleships. At the Battle of the Coral Sea, hostile fleets engaged without the surface forces ever seeing the enemy. At Taranto and Pearl Harbor, naval aircraft demonstrated their ability to destroy a fleet in its base. The Tragic fate of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse exposed the limitation of traditional naval power in this revolutionary era. Before the War, the advocates of strategic bombing claimed that bomber aircraft could win wars on their own. The true impact of strategic bombing campaigned continues to be debated today, but the 1945/6 edition of Jane's ' All the World's Aircraft' opened the discussion with a comprehensive overview of air operations from 1944-45. This edition of the classic Jane's 'All the World's Aircraft' was the first to escape wartime censorship. Publication was delayed until the last possible moment to incorporate the wealth of new information from Germany and Japan. With over 1000 photographs and recognition drawings, it provides technical data for more than 800 aircraft. Yet it is much more than an encyclopaedia: it is a fascinating snapshot of the aviation world in transition. This is the dawn of the jet age, the end of one era and the beginning of the next. Fred T. Jane started Jane's ' All the World's Aircraft' in 1909, ten years after he created Jane's 'All the World's Fighting Ships'. His passion for aviation matched his passion for warships, and he was one of the first private individuals in the UK to own his own aircraft. In days when pilots were largely self-taught, he was lucky to escape serious injury when he crashed on take-off in his latest aquisition. By the time of his death in 1916, aircraft had proved themselves to be a useful military weapon and what had been little more than a cottage industry had been transformed. Mass production methods were delivering thousands of machines to airforces fighting for control of the skies above the Western Front. By World War II, Jane's ' All the World's Aircraft' was the established authority on military and civil aviation. It charted the remarkable technological advances of the 1930s, the implications of which only became apparent after the outbreak of war. After 1945 its coverage became unrivalled and Jane's became a byword for accuracy. Today, it is internationally recognised as the professionals guide to aviation.