Hugh Dolan has reviewed the reports of the more than 2000 missions flown by both sides in the conflict. With their fragile bits of wood tied together with string, or baskets slung under balloons, they had a bird's-eye view. Whether they are seen in retrospect as incredibly brave or just foolhardy, they enjoyed a unique perspective.
Dolan himself had experience as an air intelligence officer in the Iraq War, so he knows what he is talking about. Whether the pilots and observers over Gallipoli flew reconnaissance missions, acted as spotters for the guns of their navies, or just bombed available targets, they had, or could have had, an impact on the campaign, which is only now being acknowledged.
Yet the appalling mismanagement of the campaign extended to their use as well. It was a campaign ''designed by a genius and implemented by fools'', to quote one observer at the time. Gallipoli has come to be seen in retrospect as a seminal moment in the development of New Zealand and Australia; it was also a ghastly botch-up.
These fragile box-kites generally flew off the heaving decks of the first Heath Robinson aircraft carriers. Both armies blazed away at them with massed riflefire without knowing or caring if they were enemy machines or their own. This came to be a feature of all future wars, too.
The aircraft were so simple their only really vulnerable component was the pilot himself, and a remarkable number actually survived. The machines fell to pieces before the pilots did.
Gallipoli failed because defensive weapons (for both sides) held sway over offensive ones. Taking the initiative ought to have benefited the Allies, but their leaders had no concept at all of perhaps the greatest military asset - surprise. So it was a bloodbath.
The aviators provided enough intelligence for the generals to know what was about to happen and what was happening, but were mainly ignored. Yet the thousands of patrol reports trawled through by Dolan present a clear picture, if only there had been someone with the wit to read them. Army officers of 1915 vintage were not trained to think laterally, and so take advantage of new technology.
The detail in the patrol reports is astonishing and riveting. No-one can read them without understanding what was happening on the ground. Yet in his self-serving account of the Gallipoli campaign, nowhere does the Allied commander (General Sir Ian Hamilton) acknowledge the value of the material or how useful it might have been.
Dolan spoils the readability of his book by his indisciplined use of first and nicknames of everyone in it. He says this is to make it more colloquial and replicate the casualness of the combatants. But it will have effect of confusing readers, and make them wonder constantly who ''Arthur'' or ''Charles'' are.
Also, Dolan says some strange things. For example, he says ''aviators are like Japanese schoolgirls''. Excuse me? This begs so many questions there is not room in this review to pursue it.
This is a fascinating account of what it was like to be there. Properly used, air intelligence could have won at Gallipoli. But maybe a counsel of perfection is too much to ask of new military technology. It took nearly 30 years, until the D Day landings in Normandy in 1944, before the lessons were learned.
- Oliver Riddell is a retired journalist in Wellington.
