The fourth book in the seven volume official history of the RAF in the Great War covers naval air developments and operations in home waters throughout 1917 and for the first quarter of 1918. It includes a narrative of the anti-submarine work of the various types of aircraft during the period of unrestricted U-boat warfare, and of the diverse operations undertaken by naval aircraft based at or near Dunkirk. The remainder of the volume deals with air warfare on the Western Front, beginning with the battle of Messines in June 1917 and ending with the German offensives on the Somme and on the Lys in March and April 1918.

This official history of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force is based chiefly on the records of the Air Ministry, collected and preserved by the historical section, supplemented by the contributions of many military and naval officers and civilian experts, as well as accounts of eyewitnesses. In all there are six volumes of text plus a supporting volume of appendices, published between 1922 and 1937.

With our 2020 reprint of the six text volumes of WAR IN THE AIR all bound in colour maps are present and correct where appropriate, an A4 printing size has been adopted to allow little or no reduction to this colour mapping, this larger format has also allowed a 20% increase in type sizing to the text pages that was previously rather small in the original editions.