
A collection of breathtaking photographs have revealed the pivotal role that aerial battles played in World War Two in vibrant colour.

A new book, curated by the Imperial War Museums (IWM), features photographs of aircraft and pilots from a number of Allied nations as they soar through blue skies or prepare to take off.

War in the Air: The Second World War in Colour includes images of planes and the lives of people who flew them - from night bombing raids over Germany to protecting Britain, desert warfare, training and squadron celebrations.

Colour photography was a rarity at the time, and the images, all of which are sourced from the IWM's collections, have been carefully restored by the museums' experts.

Kittyhawk IIIs of the Royal Air Force No 112 Squadron preparing to take off at a desert airstrip in Tunisia in April 1943. The unit, nicknamed the 'shark squadron', was the first Allied air force squadron to use the sharkmouth nose art on its Curtiss P-40s. The design was copied from Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 110s. The squadron, which was initially formed in Throwley as a home defence unit in July 1917, flew Kittyhawk mark I, III and IV aircraft between 1941 and 1944

Sub-lieutenant Harold Salisbury prepares for a sortie - a deployment of a military unit from a strongpoint - in Supermarine Seafire Mk Ib NX942 'AC-E' of No 736 Naval Air Squadron at RNAS Yeovilton, in September 1943. The Supermarine Seafire was a naval adaptation of the Supermarine Spitfire. It was created to serve as an interim naval fighter before the arrival of a purpose-built model. The model entered service for a short time from June 1942

Martin B-26 Marauders of the No 441 Squadron, 320 Bombardment Group in 1945. The plane, nicknamed the 'widow maker' or the 'Flying Torpedo', was a twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company in Middle River, Maryland between 1941 and 1945. The 5,288 aircraft were flown by the Royal Air Force, the South African Air Force, the United States Army Air Corps and the Free French Air Forces

They are grouped into themes such as 'fighter boys', 'Mediterranean air war' and 'training and transport' to illustrate the range of British, Commonwealth and US air force operations in Europe and the Mediterranean.

The new volume follows The Second World War in Colour, published by the IWM in 2017, which brought to life a range of aspects of the conflict with colour images from the archives.

Ian Carter, author of War in the Air and senior curator at IWM, said: 'Colour photography was a rarity during the Second World War; film was scarcely available and images were expensive to print.

A unit of Hurricane MK IIDs preparing for take-off from Gabes in Tunisia in April 1943. Hawker Hurricanes were a ground attack, single-seat aircraft. The MK IID was an anti-tank model fitted with a Vickers ’S’ 40mm cannon under each wing. This particular aircraft was largely used throughout the North African campaign which took place between 1940 and 1943. The ‘tank buster’ model was used by the No 6 squadron in the Battle of Bir Hakeim in Libya in May and June 1942

Three Avro Lancasters of the 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron in September 1942. The Avro Lancaster was a four-engined heavy bomber designed by British aircraft manufacturer Avro. The plane was adopted for operational service in February 1942 and used by the Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force throughout the Second World War. The 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, which employed 24 per cent of its air and ground crew from Southern Rhodesia, used the aircraft in 4,362 sorties. The bomber squadron lost 149 of the planes in combat and a further 22 were destroyed in flying accidents

Instructors and pupils of the No 20 Service Flying Training School posing with their North American Harvard Mk IIAs at Cranbourne, Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1943. The school was one of more than a dozen South Rhodesian facilities which formed part of the Commonwealth Joint Air Training Plan. The facilities prepared pilots for the South African Air Force, the Royal Air Force and Allied air crews during World War Two. The No 20 school, which opened in July 1940 and closed its doors in September 1945, operated with North American Harvard I, II, IIA, III and Airspeed Oxford training aircraft

Wellington GR Mk XIII JA412 'S' of No 221 Squadron over the Aegean in March 1945. The Royal Air Force unit was formed in April 1918 and saw service in both the First and Second World Wars. The squadron initially engaged in anti-submarine warfare in the Aegean before being sent to Russia in December 1918 to support the White Army against the Bolsheviks. The unit was reformed at RAF Bircham Newton as a maritime reconnaissance unit in November 1940

'The subjects covered in this book are presented in a vivid clarity not typically associated with imagery of the war.

'Each photograph has been carefully optimised by IWM's team of expert restorers to bring back colour accuracy and detail which over the years have faded from both paper and memory.'

Surviving photographs from the very small number taken by official photographers during the Second World War were passed to IWM for preservation in 1949, where they form part of an archive of 11 million images of conflict from the First World War to the present day.

The collection features a stunning photograph of three ferocious Kittyhawks preparing to take off at a desert airstrip in Medenine, Tunisia in April 1943.

Other images capture the Royal Australian Air Force squadron 467 as they gather in celebration of a Lancaster R5868 (S-Sugar) aircraft reaching 100 missions with the unit in May 1944.

British airmen training with the Embry-Riddle Company at Carlstrom Field near Arcadia in Florida in 1941. Embry-Riddle was one of the first five air training schools in the US to be certified under the Department of Commerce's newly-minted Air Commerce Act in 1929. During the war, the company expanded to train World War Two pilots and mechanics from the Army Air Corps and the Royal Air Force across four sites. Five hundred cadets could be trained at once during a nine-week course in which they clocked 60 flight hours

Captain Edwin 'Bill' Fisher of the No 377 Fighter Squadron, 362 Fighter Group, atop his P-47D Thunderbolt Shirley Jane III at a landing ground in France in summer 1944. The unit was a United States Air Force active duty unit stationed at Montgomery Air National Guard Base in Alabama from February 1943 to August 1946