In the late 1980s, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) commissioned Chris Coulthard-Clark to write the first volume of the Service’s official history. In 1991, Coulthard-Clark published The Third Brother, which examined the RAAF’s early development from the end of the First World War to the outbreak of the Second World War. Now, 35 years after Coulthard-Clark published The Third Brother, this proposed volume seeks to re-examine the RAAF’s early development in light of new research. In doing so, it will build on themes Coulthard-Clark originally examined, bookending them by exploring the development of Australian air power during the First World War and considering the impact of inter-war developments on the RAAF’s role during the Second World War. The projected volume will be divided into three sections covering the First World War era, the inter-war years, and the Second World War, and it will seek to address subjects Coulthard-Clark does not cover.
As such, the editors are seeking contributions from historians working on the history of the RAAF and Australian air power for a volume to be proposed to a leading publisher. Chapters might, for
example, explore the politics behind the RAAF’s formation, organisational developments during the inter-war years, or the RAAF’s support for the Strategic Air Offensive against Germany in the Second World War. Possible themes to be explored include, but are not limited to:
Strategy | Policy | Operations | Doctrine | Culture | Ethos | Training | Education | Recruitment
Imperial Defence | Inter- and Intra-Service Rivalry Multinational Operations | Intelligence | The Experience of War
Air Power and Australian Society | Technology and Industry | Historiography | Representation
The editors welcome and encourage submissions from academics, policymakers, service personnel, and other relevant professionals. Chapters will be approximately 6-8,000 words in length, excluding notes. Each chapter will include a brief bibliographical note outlining key works on the subject.
If you are unsure whether your idea meets our requirements, please email Dr Ross Mahoney with ‘POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTION – The Third Brother Revisited’ in the subject line to discuss it.
If you are interested in contributing, please email drrossmahoney@gmail.com by 31 October 2026 with a title, a 300-word abstract and a 100-word biography.
Editors
Ashleigh Brown, Dr Lewis Frederickson and Dr Ross Mahoney
Editor biographies
Ashleigh Brown is an Associate Lecturer (War Studies) at UNSW Canberra. She also serves as a historian at the Australian War Memorial, working on the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and on Australian Peacekeeping Operations in East Timor. Ashleigh is completing her PhD at UNSW Canberra, focusing on Australian military aviation in the interwar period.
Dr Lewis Frederickson is the Air Force Historian for the RAAF and has published three books on air and land warfare. A retired RAAF officer, Lewis previously lectured on the history and strategy of air power as the Chief of Air Force Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Canberra.
Dr Ross Mahoney is an independent scholar specialising in the history of war, with publications in English and French. He is the editor-in-chief of From Balloons to Drones, an online scholarly platform that analyses the history, theory, and contemporary operations of air power in its broadest sense, including space and cyber power. He has held various positions in the UK and Australia, including serving as the inaugural Historian at the Royal Air Force Museum from 2013 to 2017.
Contact MHHV Friend about this article.
