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I received my PhD in history from the University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia in 2014 and an MA (1993) and Honours BA (1991) from Wilfrid Laurier University.
In addition to teaching courses at WLU, I work as a historian with the Royal Canadian Air Force History and Heritage Office.
Prior to that, I served as the executive director of the Juno Beach Centre Association, production coodinator at WLU Press, and I spent 22 years as the Communications Director of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies and the Managing Editor of Canadian Military History, an academic quarterly journal.
I have published 12 books and numerous articles in the fields of military air power (especially tactical air operations in the First and Second World Wars), the Canadian army in Normandy and Northwest Europe, and the Canadian Corps in the Great War.
I am currently working on a narrative on the RCAF in the Cuban Missile Crisis for volume 4 of the RCAF official history as well as a biography of Canadian Great War ace Raymond Collishaw.
- Mike Bechthold, Flying to Victory: Raymond Collishaw and the Western Desert Campaign, 1940-1941 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017).
- Mike Bechthold (ed), Airpower and the Normandy Campaign, sole editor (Annapolis, Maryland: US Naval Institute Press, 2025).
- Richard Mayne and Mike Bechthold (eds.), The Air Marshals: RCAF Chiefs of the Air Staff, 1938 to 1964 – Leadership in War and Peace (University of British Columbia Press, 2026).
- Mike Bechthold, Richard Mayne, and Brad St Croix, 100 Objects for 100 Years: A Centennial History of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF Aerospace Warfare Centre Productions, 2024).
- Geoff Hayes and Mike Bechthold (eds.) Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012).
- Geoff Hayes, Mike Bechthold, and Andrew Iarocci (eds.) Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, March 2007).
- Mike Bechthold and William March (eds.), Sic Itur Ad Astra: Canadian Aerospace Power Studies, vol.6: Historical Dimensions of the Royal Canadian Air Force (Trenton, ON: Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre, 2017).
- Terry Copp and Mike Bechthold, The Canadian Battlefields in Normandy, with Terry Copp, 3rd ed. (Waterloo: LCMSDS, 2008).
- Terry Copp and Mike Bechthold, The Canadian Battlefields of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (Waterloo: LCMSDS, 2011).
- Terry Copp and Mike Bechthold, The Canadian Battlefields of Northern France: Dieppe and the Channel Ports (Waterloo: LCMSDS, 2011).
- "It is better to mend the breach in the dyke than to spend your efforts pumping out the flood": Army–Air Cooperation in the Scheldt and the relationship between First Canadian Army and the Royal Air Force," contained in Nicholas Wheeler et al, Canada and the Liberation of the Netherlands, 1944-1946 (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, forthcoming 2026).
- "The Bombers: The Strategic Bombing of Germany and Japan," with Randall Wakelam, contained in Thomas W. Zeiler and Daniel M. DuBois, eds., A Companion to World War II, 2 vols. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, March 2026).
- "Airpower in a Set-Piece Attack: US 9th Air Force and the Capture of Cherbourg, 22-30 June 1944," contained in Mike Bechthold, ed., Airpower in Normandy 1944 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2025).
- "The Royal Canadian Air Force and 2021 Kabul Air Evacuation: Lessons from an ad hoc mission," Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 23, no. 1 (2024), 71-96.
- "Spitfires, Typhoons, and Mustangs: RCAF Fighters in Normandy," Royal Canadian Air Force Journal 8, no. 2 (Spring 2019), 48-67.
- "Bloody April Revisited: The Royal Flying Corps at the Battle of Arras, 1917," British Journal of Military History 4, no. 2 (2018), 50-69.
- "Culture and National Character on the Great War Battlefield: The Experience of the Australian, British and Canadian Armies during the Battle of Arras, 1917," War & Society 32, no.2 (August 2013).
- "Defending the Normandy Bridgehead: The Battles for Putot en Bessin, 7 9 June 1944," contained in Geoffrey Hayes, Mike Bechthold and Matt Symes, eds., Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press (2012)).
- "Lost in Normandy: The Odyssey of Worthington Force, 9 August 1944," Canadian Military History 19, no.2 (Spring 2010), pp.5-24.
- "'One of the greatest moments in my life': Lessons Learned on the Canadian Battle of Normandy Foundation Study Tour," Defence Studies (UK), 5, no. 1 (Mar 2005), pp.27-36.
- "A Question of Success: American Tactical Air Doctrine and Practice in North Africa, 1942-1943," Journal of Military History, July 2004, pp.821-851.
- "'The Development of an Unbeatable Combination': US Close Air Support in Normandy," Canadian Military History, Winter 1999, Volume 8, Number 1, pp.7-20.