Auster

This book is a largely pictorial volume tracing the history and development of the various marks of Auster light aircraft and its influence upon the birth and development of British Army aviation in, and after, World War II. Never a glamorous machine, but to the British and Canadian troops slogging their way through France and Germany in 1944 and 1945, the sight of an Auster dodging the flak and the trees meant that artillery support was close by. To the German troops it meant imminent death and destruction and severely handicapped their defenses. Post-war, the usefulness of army aviation could not be denied, consequently the success of the Auster aircraft led directly to the birth of the British Army Air Corps. Today, operations by the army without its own air component would be unthinkable.