War in the Air: The Second World War in Colour

Though World War II took place after the development of color photography, nearly all of the familiar images of it are in black and white—which tends to make the conflict feel more distant, more removed from our own lives and history, than it actually is.

War in the Air changes that. Following the success of IWM’s The Second World War in Colour, this book focuses on an aspect of the war that was unquestionably key to the Allied victory: the war in the air. In these pages, we see aircraft and pilots from a number of Allied nations, brought to life again in vibrant color that makes the heroism and sacrifice of the era more palpable than ever. Alongside these rarely seen images, Ian Carter, Senior Curator at IWM, examines how crucial aviation was to winning the war, from protecting the skies and waters of Britain and the Mediterranean to the roles of Bomber Command and the USAAF’s nighttime strikes over Germany. Offering perspectives from the ground and from the air, these powerful images are an incredible document of World War II.