Man Who Took Rap

Peter Dye is a graduate of Imperial College and Birmingham University. He served in the Royal Air Force for over 35 years and was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his work in support of the Jaguar Force during the First Gulf War, retiring as an Air Vice-Marshal. He was appointed Director General of the Royal Air Force Museum in 2008, before retiring six years later to concentrate on lecturing, research and writing on airpower topics. He is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham.

“Peter Dye's excellent biography on Sir Robert Brooke-Popham is a much needed addition to the air power historiography and to the history of the Royal Air Force. It is immaculately researched and beautifully written. It is a must read for all military historians whether their interest is in the inter-war years, the Second World War or in particular, the fall of Singapore.” — Dr Peter Gray, Senior Research Fellow in Air Power Studies, University of Birmingham“Peter Dye is both a professional disciple of Sir Robert Brooke-Popham and a meticulous historian who writes clearly and with great authority. This book leaves no doubt about his admiration for his subject whom he sees as having been unfairly treated but, at the same time, is balanced and objective.” — Air Vice-Marshal Sandy Hunter CBE AFC DL Former Commandant RAF Staff College, Editor with Professor Brian Farrell of Sixty Years On and A Great Betrayal“This well titled book makes important points that deserve to be noted: a long and productive life should not be reduced to one sad episode, particularly not when that story is more complicated than simple scapegoating. Dye rescues an RAF pioneer from scapegoating obscurity with this fine thoughtful biography.” — Brian P Farrell, Professor of Military History, National University of Singapore“Robert Brooke-Popham is remembered, if he is remembered at all, for one thing: the fall of Singapore in 1942. But as Peter Dye shows in this excellent biography, there was much more to the career of this leading British airman than that. Dye’s judicious scholarship sets the record straight.” — Gary Sheffield, Professor of War Studies, University of Wolverhampton, UK"This is a well researched and well written book on the life of the man who would be best known for a nation’s failure, the loss of Singapore in the face of a Japanese tidal wave, rather than in terms of his distinguished career in the RAF and in the British Armed Forces." — Defense.info"Mr. Dye challenges longstanding views about performance as Commander-in-Chief Far East and, based on new evidence, offers a more nuanced narrative that sheds light on British and Allied preparations for the Pacific War, inter-service relations and the reasons for the disastrous loss of air and naval superiority that followed the Japanese attack. “The Man Who Took the Rap” hones in on the misguided attempts at deterrence, in the absence of a co-ordinated information campaign, and the unprecedented security lapse that betrayed the parlous state of the Allied defences." — This is the West Country