Reddit reviews Israeli Air Force Operations in the 1956 Suez War: 29 October-8 November 1956 (Middle East@War)

I doubt anybody's going to 'like' this answer, but here you are...

Obvious question would be what do you consider 'good histories' of the IDF/AF (i.e. IASF, since 2004)?

There's plenty of 'popular science' and 'there I was...' style of narratives available in English. Whoever is happy with that, fine. I'm not.

Namely, with less than a handful of exceptions, there is actually not one serious history of the Israeli air force: at least next to none based on official documentation, and none containing any kind of serious study and critique. At least not in English. In essence, everything available is following the official line ('Arabs always lie, Israelis never'), and that's it.

One exception from this 'rule' would be Shlomo Aloni's 'The June 1967 Six Day War, Volume A: Operation Focus'* - which one can't find even on Amazon.com.

That book is actually based on the book titled 'Like a Bolt out of Blue' - the official account of air warfare during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War ('Six Days War'). However, to the best of my knowledge, that one was published in Hebrew only, already decades ago.

It's an extremely precise account (really: there is absolutely nothing offering anything even distantly similar) of the Israeli opening air strike on Arab air bases on 5 June 1967. It offers a full discussion of strategy and tactics, plus weapons deployed, and then really breaks down the Operation Focus to every single mission flown (plus serials of the aircraft involved, plus their warloads, pilots, take-off times etc.). You're going to learn more about how the IDF/AF fought that day than from 50 other books (supposedly) covering that topic.

Now, there is little doubt that this title is largely based on official documentation. However, not a single document is cited as such, and not one source of reference is mentioned. There are only a few statements indicating the author actually interviewed some of participants (i.e. one needs to read a lot more publications by that author in order to actually find out - he did). Instead, the author kind of considers it 'self-understanding' that all the readers are going to take his work as 'based on Israeli documentation', and 'the only truth', and that's it.

This is quite a shame, then not only the author admits that 'even' the Israeli documentation does contain mistakes: the handful of people to have ever put their eyes on any kind of IDF/AF's official documents about certain of its wars, can only wonder about various 'descriptions' and 'expressions' used there - particularly in regards of 'reasons for losses'.

(That all aside, that book was published in reaction to the appearance of the book series 'Arab MiGs' [Harpia Publishing, Houston, 2009-2015], i.e. was a 'mine is bigger than yours' effort, which, IMHO, puts Aloni's methods of work under quite some doubt.)

Slightly better is Aloni's Israeli Air Force Operations in the 1956 Suez War. This is 'confirmed' as based on official documentation. Indeed, it contains lengthy citations of the same - but then offering de-facto no 'commentary'. The latter is shame because while the author continuously points out only the success of the IDF/AF, RUMINT has it that its top commanders were actually not the least pleased by their performance during that war...

Those with Hebrew skills (or somebody on their side with Hebrew skills and then the patience to help them translate at least the most interesting excerpts) are going to have it much better. Here I would point out books like (rough translations of titles) 'Phantoms over Cairo' (about War of Attrition), '30 Hours in October' (excellent work by Shmuel Gordon, covering the IDF/AF in the first 30 hours of the 1973 War), 'Days of Reckoning' (by Benjamin Peled, C-in-C IDF/AF of 1973), or even 'Straightforward' (by Dani Haloutz).

The more we move into more recent history, the less there is. There are few minor works that could be described as 'aircraft monographies' by the same author (others by his colleague Ra'anan Weiss). Most are actually aiming modellers, but some do offer at least some details in form of more of 'there I was...' kind of stories. However, and for example, until today there's not one complete, in-depth account of the Israeli strike on Iraq, in 1981, or aerial warfare over Lebanon (1979-1985): nothing offering really good insights into the tactics, and even less so examining precisely what happened in which case.

This is pity, actually, then, private chat with veterans turns out 'half the IDF/AF was airborne' during the strike on Iraq - while usual publications to this topic only cite 14-16 aircraft...

**

Volume B was never published.