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Bomber Command
Bomber Command’s air offensive against the cities of Nazi Germany was one of the most epic campaigns of World War II. More than 56,000 British and Commonwealth aircrew and 600,000 Germans died in the course of the RAF’s attempt to win the war by bombing. The struggle in the air began meekly in 1939 with only a few Whitleys, Hampdens, and Wellingtons flying blindly through the night on their ill-conceived bombing runs. It ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes, equipped with the best of British wartime technology, razing whole German cities in a single night. Bomber Command, through fits and starts, grew into an effective fighting force.
In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the U.K., famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Now back in print in the U.S., this book is an essential addition to any history reader’s bookshelf.
In Bomber Command, originally published to critical acclaim in the U.K., famed British military historian Sir Max Hastings offers a captivating analysis of the strategy and decision-making behind one of World War II’s most violent episodes. With firsthand descriptions of the experiences of aircrew from 1939 to 1945—based on one hundred interviews with veterans—and a harrowing narrative of the experiences of Germans on the ground during the September 1944 bombing of Darmstadt, Bomber Command is widely recognized as a classic account of one of the bloodiest campaigns in World War II history. Now back in print in the U.S., this book is an essential addition to any history reader’s bookshelf.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
255 people are currently reading
2187 people want to read
About the author
Max Hastings
100books1,614followersSir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL, FRHistS is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. His parents were Macdonald Hastings, a journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.
Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard.
Among his bestselling books Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.
After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. He has won many awards for his journalism, including Journalist of The Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year for his work in the South Atlantic in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988.
He stood down as editor of the Evening Standard in 2001 and was knighted in 2002. His monumental work of military history, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 was published in 2005.
He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Sir Max Hastings honoured with the $100,000 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard.
Among his bestselling books Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.
After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. He has won many awards for his journalism, including Journalist of The Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year for his work in the South Atlantic in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988.
He stood down as editor of the Evening Standard in 2001 and was knighted in 2002. His monumental work of military history, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 was published in 2005.
He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Sir Max Hastings honoured with the $100,000 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
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February 5, 2022
“The raid on Darmstadt lasted fifty-one minutes, from the fall of the first Target Indicators to the release of the last Mosquito incendiary load. In the cellars and shelters of the city, almost a hundred thousand people lay numbed by the continuous concussions, the dust swirling in and through the ventilators, the roar of falling masonry all around them. The lighting system collapsed almost immediately, and as foundations trembled cellar-doors buckled, brickwork began to fall. The civil defense organization disintegrated as streets were blocked and bombs cut the vital cable links to the control center on Hugelstrasse and the emergency control on lower Rheinstrasse. The firemen were thenceforth without orders. The fire-watching center behind the city church was itself ablaze. Gas, water and power mains were severed. In the first minutes of the attack, Darmstadt lost its identity as a coherent body of citizens, capable of mutual assistance. It became a splintered, blazing, smoking battlefield…�
- Max Hastings, Bomber Command
The Allied victory over Germany, Italy, and Japan in World War II did not occur without controversies. Even at the time, Allied methods were criticized. This was especially true with regard to America’s fight with Japan, in which the United States firebombed Japanese cities and ultimately dropped two atomic bombs.
No less devastating � and perhaps even more costly � however, was the air war over Germany, especially the nighttime strategic bombing campaigns conducted by the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command. Starting with ineffectual raids against strictly military targets in 1939, and ending with the complete � and some argue completely unnecessary � razing of cities in 1944 and 1945, British heavy bombers killed thousands of civilians (with total civilian deaths due to bombing somewhere between 300,000 to 600,000).
Great Britain’s bombing operations are the subject at the heart of Max Hastings’s Bomber Command. Originally published in 1979, it has a couple advantages over other books on the same topic. First, Hastings was able to talk to many of the participants, including Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris himself, the head of Bomber Command. This type of top-of-the-hierarchy interviewing is no longer possible, as men of high rank during the Second World War have long since passed away.
The second advantage is Hastings himself. One of the premier author-historians of World War II, Hastings can be depended upon to deliver a bracing narrative peppered with his own candid, blunt judgments. Indeed, Sir Arthur Harris was encouraged to sue Hastings for libel upon Bomber Command’s release. Even if you do not agree with him � and he can be disagreeable � he always brings vim and vigor and a bit of vinegar to the debate.
***
Bomber Command spans the entirety of the war, from 1939-1945. Hastings employs an extremely effective hybrid approach to the material, interspersing wide-angled, strategy-focused chapters, with intimate, unit-based chapters that tell the tales of the flying men. By way of example, the first chapter of Bomber Command is an overview of British bombing strategy that starts in the waning days of the First World War and shows the evolution of operational thinking. The very next section drops us into the midst of 82 Squadron, based out of Norfolk. We meet the men of the squadron, follow them on their missions, learn what they saw and felt and suffered.
There were times when this method meant that certain concepts were introduced without explanation, only to be discussed later. Mainly, though, I loved how Hastings toggled between the tactics and the execution, the technical details and the visceral ones. There are the cold-blooded discussions in the high command about “de-housing� efforts and the relationship between tonnage of bombs, square miles devastated, and lost-work-hours in German factories. Hastings also presents the cat-and-mouse game between Bomber Command and German air defenses: about how the British vectored their planes with radio beacons, and how the Germans tried to jam it; about how the British employed German-speakers to issue false commands, launched spoof raids to distract from the real targets, and used a precise mixture of high-explosive and incendiaries to create the most damage; about how the Germans countered by lighting fires away from population centers � to mimic a dying city � used fake Target Indicators to lead bombers astray, and placed cannon on top of their night-fighters to tear open the bottom of British planes.
Then you get the terrifying details of what it was like for extremely young men to put these plans into motion. I have often thought that being in a submarine � combining the primitively fear-inducing elements of depth, confined spaces, and darkness � would be the worst wartime posting. But Hastings makes a case for night bombing, in which you have height, darkness, and cold, and the reality that if your plane got hit, your last minutes of life would be spent in a blind, nauseatingly-corkscrewing ride into the ground.
***
Hastings is known for a pugnacious style. Early in his career he tended to overpraise the Germans, give all credit for victory to the Russians, and deprecate Great Britain and the United States to the point of insult. Some of that is at play here, as he presents Bomber Command as initially ineffectual and ultimately misguided.
Broadly speaking, area bombing can be judged by the metrics of ethics and effectiveness.
As to morality, my take on Hastings is that he does not put much stock in purely moral arguments. With the exception of certain late-stage missions, such as Dresden (which he deplores), he does not expressly blame the Allies for a policy that would necessarily � even purposefully � kill civilians. In his view, context matters, and beginning in 1939, Great Britain was at war for its very life, against an annihilationist enemy bent on a conquest of such a vast scope it is almost cartoonish in its villainy. Whether or not you ultimately agree, it’s important to remember � as the Second World War recedes further into the past � that Great Britain and Germany had sharply different war aims. Seventy-six years later, with Germany (and Japan) fully reintegrated into the family of nations, the bombing campaign seems like pure murder. Viewed in a vacuum, it was. But the bombings did not occur in a vacuum, they occurred in a framework of aggressive war in which Germany caused incalculable devastation through systematized mass murder, deportations, slave labor, territorial occupation, and theft, and the Allies had to scramble to respond in real time.
According to Hastings, that does not mean the bombings should have been carried out. Purportedly unleashed to break German morale (thus ending hostilities), they pointedly failed to bring about the collapse envisioned by the architects of area bombing. To the contrary, a famed study � the United States Strategic Bombing Survey � showed German civilian morale to be remarkably steady. Partially this was due to Nazi efforts in rushing supplies to afflicted areas, but a lot of it can be attributed to the human ability to endure.
In terms of slowing German industrial production, Hastings nearly mocks the claims made by Bombing Command. Relying heavily � and a bit too credulously � on the viperous Albert Speer, he argues that British area bombing made only a marginal dent on Germany’s ability to wage war, pointing to the fact that production continued to rise till almost the end (which is something that can be managed when you utilize near-unlimited slave labor, and then work those people to their literal deaths).
Hastings is absolutely right that bombing alone could not topple Germany, no matter what Arthur Harris believed. But I think he overstates the ineffectiveness of the bombers, while understating the side-effects of the aerial campaign. At least a million people were needed to staff German air defenses, and even if some of those slots were filled by non-combatants, it still took those people away from other war work. Furthermore, nearly 9,000 88mm guns were used as antiaircraft weapons, instead of being utilized on the Eastern Front, while the Luftwaffe was decimated trying to protect German cities from both British and American bombers.
Hastings's strongest point is the contention that Bomber Command should have spent far more time going after oil than burning homes. Though overlooked because it is not inherently dramatic, oil was the lynchpin of the Second World War. Had an overwhelming effort been made to destroy Germany’s oil stocks, it would not have mattered how many planes and tanks they built, or the level of morale among the civilian population.
***
Bomber Command can be clinical in its deconstruction of high-level thinking, yet it is remarkably empathetic towards the men and women, the bombers and the bombed, who were involved in this cataclysm. Hastings never blames the nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one-year-olds who manned the Wellingtons and Lancasters, who risked and sacrificed their lives, and who experienced things that simply cannot be translated to words. And though it is not the book’s focus, he devotes a chapter � a case study, of sorts � to the death of Darmstadt, vividly recreating a Boschian hellscape that is all the more chilling because other cities experienced far worse. At its best � and it is very good � Hastings puts you there, at the extreme margins of existence, where death and life were so close together they almost became one.
- Max Hastings, Bomber Command
The Allied victory over Germany, Italy, and Japan in World War II did not occur without controversies. Even at the time, Allied methods were criticized. This was especially true with regard to America’s fight with Japan, in which the United States firebombed Japanese cities and ultimately dropped two atomic bombs.
No less devastating � and perhaps even more costly � however, was the air war over Germany, especially the nighttime strategic bombing campaigns conducted by the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command. Starting with ineffectual raids against strictly military targets in 1939, and ending with the complete � and some argue completely unnecessary � razing of cities in 1944 and 1945, British heavy bombers killed thousands of civilians (with total civilian deaths due to bombing somewhere between 300,000 to 600,000).
Great Britain’s bombing operations are the subject at the heart of Max Hastings’s Bomber Command. Originally published in 1979, it has a couple advantages over other books on the same topic. First, Hastings was able to talk to many of the participants, including Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris himself, the head of Bomber Command. This type of top-of-the-hierarchy interviewing is no longer possible, as men of high rank during the Second World War have long since passed away.
The second advantage is Hastings himself. One of the premier author-historians of World War II, Hastings can be depended upon to deliver a bracing narrative peppered with his own candid, blunt judgments. Indeed, Sir Arthur Harris was encouraged to sue Hastings for libel upon Bomber Command’s release. Even if you do not agree with him � and he can be disagreeable � he always brings vim and vigor and a bit of vinegar to the debate.
***
Bomber Command spans the entirety of the war, from 1939-1945. Hastings employs an extremely effective hybrid approach to the material, interspersing wide-angled, strategy-focused chapters, with intimate, unit-based chapters that tell the tales of the flying men. By way of example, the first chapter of Bomber Command is an overview of British bombing strategy that starts in the waning days of the First World War and shows the evolution of operational thinking. The very next section drops us into the midst of 82 Squadron, based out of Norfolk. We meet the men of the squadron, follow them on their missions, learn what they saw and felt and suffered.
There were times when this method meant that certain concepts were introduced without explanation, only to be discussed later. Mainly, though, I loved how Hastings toggled between the tactics and the execution, the technical details and the visceral ones. There are the cold-blooded discussions in the high command about “de-housing� efforts and the relationship between tonnage of bombs, square miles devastated, and lost-work-hours in German factories. Hastings also presents the cat-and-mouse game between Bomber Command and German air defenses: about how the British vectored their planes with radio beacons, and how the Germans tried to jam it; about how the British employed German-speakers to issue false commands, launched spoof raids to distract from the real targets, and used a precise mixture of high-explosive and incendiaries to create the most damage; about how the Germans countered by lighting fires away from population centers � to mimic a dying city � used fake Target Indicators to lead bombers astray, and placed cannon on top of their night-fighters to tear open the bottom of British planes.
Then you get the terrifying details of what it was like for extremely young men to put these plans into motion. I have often thought that being in a submarine � combining the primitively fear-inducing elements of depth, confined spaces, and darkness � would be the worst wartime posting. But Hastings makes a case for night bombing, in which you have height, darkness, and cold, and the reality that if your plane got hit, your last minutes of life would be spent in a blind, nauseatingly-corkscrewing ride into the ground.
***
Hastings is known for a pugnacious style. Early in his career he tended to overpraise the Germans, give all credit for victory to the Russians, and deprecate Great Britain and the United States to the point of insult. Some of that is at play here, as he presents Bomber Command as initially ineffectual and ultimately misguided.
Broadly speaking, area bombing can be judged by the metrics of ethics and effectiveness.
As to morality, my take on Hastings is that he does not put much stock in purely moral arguments. With the exception of certain late-stage missions, such as Dresden (which he deplores), he does not expressly blame the Allies for a policy that would necessarily � even purposefully � kill civilians. In his view, context matters, and beginning in 1939, Great Britain was at war for its very life, against an annihilationist enemy bent on a conquest of such a vast scope it is almost cartoonish in its villainy. Whether or not you ultimately agree, it’s important to remember � as the Second World War recedes further into the past � that Great Britain and Germany had sharply different war aims. Seventy-six years later, with Germany (and Japan) fully reintegrated into the family of nations, the bombing campaign seems like pure murder. Viewed in a vacuum, it was. But the bombings did not occur in a vacuum, they occurred in a framework of aggressive war in which Germany caused incalculable devastation through systematized mass murder, deportations, slave labor, territorial occupation, and theft, and the Allies had to scramble to respond in real time.
According to Hastings, that does not mean the bombings should have been carried out. Purportedly unleashed to break German morale (thus ending hostilities), they pointedly failed to bring about the collapse envisioned by the architects of area bombing. To the contrary, a famed study � the United States Strategic Bombing Survey � showed German civilian morale to be remarkably steady. Partially this was due to Nazi efforts in rushing supplies to afflicted areas, but a lot of it can be attributed to the human ability to endure.
In terms of slowing German industrial production, Hastings nearly mocks the claims made by Bombing Command. Relying heavily � and a bit too credulously � on the viperous Albert Speer, he argues that British area bombing made only a marginal dent on Germany’s ability to wage war, pointing to the fact that production continued to rise till almost the end (which is something that can be managed when you utilize near-unlimited slave labor, and then work those people to their literal deaths).
Hastings is absolutely right that bombing alone could not topple Germany, no matter what Arthur Harris believed. But I think he overstates the ineffectiveness of the bombers, while understating the side-effects of the aerial campaign. At least a million people were needed to staff German air defenses, and even if some of those slots were filled by non-combatants, it still took those people away from other war work. Furthermore, nearly 9,000 88mm guns were used as antiaircraft weapons, instead of being utilized on the Eastern Front, while the Luftwaffe was decimated trying to protect German cities from both British and American bombers.
Hastings's strongest point is the contention that Bomber Command should have spent far more time going after oil than burning homes. Though overlooked because it is not inherently dramatic, oil was the lynchpin of the Second World War. Had an overwhelming effort been made to destroy Germany’s oil stocks, it would not have mattered how many planes and tanks they built, or the level of morale among the civilian population.
***
Bomber Command can be clinical in its deconstruction of high-level thinking, yet it is remarkably empathetic towards the men and women, the bombers and the bombed, who were involved in this cataclysm. Hastings never blames the nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one-year-olds who manned the Wellingtons and Lancasters, who risked and sacrificed their lives, and who experienced things that simply cannot be translated to words. And though it is not the book’s focus, he devotes a chapter � a case study, of sorts � to the death of Darmstadt, vividly recreating a Boschian hellscape that is all the more chilling because other cities experienced far worse. At its best � and it is very good � Hastings puts you there, at the extreme margins of existence, where death and life were so close together they almost became one.
December 15, 2023
Bomber Command is a wonderfully written book which is even-handed in dealing with all parties involved, and is rightly severe in its final judgment of the British (and to a lesser degree, US) bombing campaign against Germany. Max Hastings pays tribute to the courage and stamina of the young men who were sent by their country to attack Germany, against bitter odds, while condemning large parts of what the senior commanders, and particularly Arthur Harris, ordered them to do. As Hastings says, no one excuses the guilt of the Germans in World War II, but no country deserves to have 600,000 civilians, mostly women and children, incinerated by bombing, even if that country is incinerating Jews and other minorities. The argument that this was retribution for the Blitz, which killed about 40,000 UK civilians does not stand up to scrutiny, because the area bombing campaign was out of all proportion to the damage and death inflicted by the Blitz, and the campaign against cities intensified in late 1944 and early 1945, when Germany was clearly losing the war. The fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945 finally shocked the US and UK public into a realization that this was terror bombing, full stop, and the backlash induced Churchill to direct Harris to stop, an order which Harris found ways to evade. Finally, the military value of area bombing of cities was close to nil; what actually sped the war's end, at least a bit, was General Spaatz' attack on German oil production, and to a lesser extent, ammunition production.
An important aspect of the Allied strategic bombing campaign is the massive amount of industrial capacity that was devoted to building bombers. Hastings estimates, and other experts mostly agree, that at least a third of British manufacturing output in WW2 went to building bombers, at the expense of the Army and Navy, and even fighters for the RAF. Harris believed that incessant bombing would "break the will" of the Germans and compel their surrender, and it is on the basis of this belief, based on nothing more than intuition, that so much effort was put into building bombers, training pilots and crews, and bombing Germany. The German will did not break, and in fact it appears from the evidence that Allied bombing angered the German populace to such an extent that they became more productive than before. Something that was not understood by the British was how much slack there was in the German economy; early in the war, the Germans were still working only one shift in most factories, so when the bombing started they went to two shifts and finally three, and their output of most arms and equipment actually increased until about the last five months of the war. They ultimately had more aircraft than they had trained pilots to fly them, thanks to the destruction of the Luftwaffe fighters by the P-51's in 1944.
Early in the war, from 1940 to early 1943, one could make the argument that bombing was the only way for Britain to hit back at Germany directly, but after about September 1944, and probably several months earlier, there was absolutely no justification for area bombing. Interestingly, the Germans came quite close to defeating the Allied bombing campaign by their very effective air defense (flak) and fighter attacks on the bombers, which for a time in 1943 and early 1944 was destroying as much as 10% of each bomber force sent against German targets, a level of attrition which could not have been sustained by the Allies. Only the appearance of the long-range P-51 fighter allowed the bombing to continue by offering effective protection of the bombers en route to their targets. In fact, the major contribution of the USAAF in February to September 1944 was not the effects of the bombing raids, it was the the destruction of the Luftwaffe fighter force as they rose to attack the bombers. If not for the P-51, the war might have lasted months longer, and D-Day might have had a different outcome.
British night bombing was wildly inaccurate in the years prior to the adoption of "Pathfinder" units to mark the bombing area. In 1942, for example, less than 50% of bomb loads were dropped within three miles of the target. This is perhaps part of the reason Harris resisted orders to strike oil production facilities or V-2 missile sites, because generally speaking, his aircrews were not capable, with the training and equipment they had, of hitting such a precise target.
Hastings does a wonderfully concise summation of his entire argument in the last chapter of the book. By May 1945, Bomber Command had been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the leaders of the Army and Navy, who rightly said that enormous resources had been denied to the real war effort to satisfy Harris' misguided pursuit of his theory of air war. Sadly, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent surrender of Japan seemed to bear out, albeit belatedly and in a different country, Harris' theory. And unfortunately for US policy, the airmen achieved an exalted status that has largely continued until the present day. Just as bombing did not break the Germans, it did not break the North Vietnamese. Although the US Army Air Force in Europe officially rejected area bombing as immoral / illegal, the inaccuracy of their bombing often meant that in reality they were also area bombing cities, and the participation of the 8th Air Force in the Dresden raid had no real military justification. Ultimately, area bombing was a good way to kill civilians and destroy cities and culture, but it was the least effective and most expensive way to defeat Germany.
An important aspect of the Allied strategic bombing campaign is the massive amount of industrial capacity that was devoted to building bombers. Hastings estimates, and other experts mostly agree, that at least a third of British manufacturing output in WW2 went to building bombers, at the expense of the Army and Navy, and even fighters for the RAF. Harris believed that incessant bombing would "break the will" of the Germans and compel their surrender, and it is on the basis of this belief, based on nothing more than intuition, that so much effort was put into building bombers, training pilots and crews, and bombing Germany. The German will did not break, and in fact it appears from the evidence that Allied bombing angered the German populace to such an extent that they became more productive than before. Something that was not understood by the British was how much slack there was in the German economy; early in the war, the Germans were still working only one shift in most factories, so when the bombing started they went to two shifts and finally three, and their output of most arms and equipment actually increased until about the last five months of the war. They ultimately had more aircraft than they had trained pilots to fly them, thanks to the destruction of the Luftwaffe fighters by the P-51's in 1944.
Early in the war, from 1940 to early 1943, one could make the argument that bombing was the only way for Britain to hit back at Germany directly, but after about September 1944, and probably several months earlier, there was absolutely no justification for area bombing. Interestingly, the Germans came quite close to defeating the Allied bombing campaign by their very effective air defense (flak) and fighter attacks on the bombers, which for a time in 1943 and early 1944 was destroying as much as 10% of each bomber force sent against German targets, a level of attrition which could not have been sustained by the Allies. Only the appearance of the long-range P-51 fighter allowed the bombing to continue by offering effective protection of the bombers en route to their targets. In fact, the major contribution of the USAAF in February to September 1944 was not the effects of the bombing raids, it was the the destruction of the Luftwaffe fighter force as they rose to attack the bombers. If not for the P-51, the war might have lasted months longer, and D-Day might have had a different outcome.
British night bombing was wildly inaccurate in the years prior to the adoption of "Pathfinder" units to mark the bombing area. In 1942, for example, less than 50% of bomb loads were dropped within three miles of the target. This is perhaps part of the reason Harris resisted orders to strike oil production facilities or V-2 missile sites, because generally speaking, his aircrews were not capable, with the training and equipment they had, of hitting such a precise target.
Hastings does a wonderfully concise summation of his entire argument in the last chapter of the book. By May 1945, Bomber Command had been thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the leaders of the Army and Navy, who rightly said that enormous resources had been denied to the real war effort to satisfy Harris' misguided pursuit of his theory of air war. Sadly, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent surrender of Japan seemed to bear out, albeit belatedly and in a different country, Harris' theory. And unfortunately for US policy, the airmen achieved an exalted status that has largely continued until the present day. Just as bombing did not break the Germans, it did not break the North Vietnamese. Although the US Army Air Force in Europe officially rejected area bombing as immoral / illegal, the inaccuracy of their bombing often meant that in reality they were also area bombing cities, and the participation of the 8th Air Force in the Dresden raid had no real military justification. Ultimately, area bombing was a good way to kill civilians and destroy cities and culture, but it was the least effective and most expensive way to defeat Germany.
May 28, 2021
In Bomber Command Max Hastings provides a definitive account on the strategy and policies from Bomber Command, which in the course of 4 years was able to lay waste to many German cities. It was computed after the war that 593,000 German civilians died and 3,37 million dwellings were destroyed.
It gives a good description from the initial strategy, based on the Trenchard doctrine, to precision-bomb German installations. Pinpoint attacks were directed to German targets, with heavy losses and minimal results. After the Butt Report, which showed that a large number of bombs never hit the target, Great Britain still continued the bombing raids, for the simple fact that in the beginning phase of the war there was simply no other means of taking the war to Germany.
However, with the growing number of bombers and the introduction of more and more effective bombers, the decision was taken at the end of 1941 that, since a city was the highest common factor which most crews could identify on a given night under average conditions, Bomber Command would abandon its efforts to hit precision industrial targets and address itself simply to attacking the urban areas of Germany.
But how effective was the bombing? Harris points out that German production actually grew during the later war years, despite the heavy bombing attacks. According to him, the only way to hit the German armies was by focussing on the oil refineries. Only by September 1944 the Allies started focussing on the oil refineries, which should have been done much earlier. The Oil Plan will be remembered by history as one of the Allies� great missed opportunities.
How was it at the receiving end? According to Harris, the Germans should have focussed on their night-fighter capabilities. Had they done so, had they lavished a fraction of the resources devoted to futile aircraft development or even ground defences upon the night-fighters of the Reich, had Jeschonnek or Goering forcefully supported Speer and Milch in their efforts to gain priority for home-fighter defence, Bomber Command might by the winter of 1943 have suffered losses that would have brought its offensive against Germany to an abrupt conclusion.
While reading the book, you might forget how it was in the ground for Germans themselves, who had to endure the bombing for so many years. Hastings gives the example of Darmstadt, a city relatively unmolested. Until 11/12 September 1944 that is, when a bombing raid destroyed large parts of the city. Hastings paints a vivid description of the horrors that fell on the population, which will haunt me forever to come.
All in all, the bombers made an important, perhaps critical contribution in 1941 and 1942 to keeping alive the morale of the British people, and to deterring the Americans from a premature second front. When they possessed the strategic justification � in 1942 and 1943 � they lacked the means. By the winter of 1944, when they had gained the means, the justification was gone.
How could anyone not like a book written by Max Hastings?
It gives a good description from the initial strategy, based on the Trenchard doctrine, to precision-bomb German installations. Pinpoint attacks were directed to German targets, with heavy losses and minimal results. After the Butt Report, which showed that a large number of bombs never hit the target, Great Britain still continued the bombing raids, for the simple fact that in the beginning phase of the war there was simply no other means of taking the war to Germany.
However, with the growing number of bombers and the introduction of more and more effective bombers, the decision was taken at the end of 1941 that, since a city was the highest common factor which most crews could identify on a given night under average conditions, Bomber Command would abandon its efforts to hit precision industrial targets and address itself simply to attacking the urban areas of Germany.
But how effective was the bombing? Harris points out that German production actually grew during the later war years, despite the heavy bombing attacks. According to him, the only way to hit the German armies was by focussing on the oil refineries. Only by September 1944 the Allies started focussing on the oil refineries, which should have been done much earlier. The Oil Plan will be remembered by history as one of the Allies� great missed opportunities.
How was it at the receiving end? According to Harris, the Germans should have focussed on their night-fighter capabilities. Had they done so, had they lavished a fraction of the resources devoted to futile aircraft development or even ground defences upon the night-fighters of the Reich, had Jeschonnek or Goering forcefully supported Speer and Milch in their efforts to gain priority for home-fighter defence, Bomber Command might by the winter of 1943 have suffered losses that would have brought its offensive against Germany to an abrupt conclusion.
While reading the book, you might forget how it was in the ground for Germans themselves, who had to endure the bombing for so many years. Hastings gives the example of Darmstadt, a city relatively unmolested. Until 11/12 September 1944 that is, when a bombing raid destroyed large parts of the city. Hastings paints a vivid description of the horrors that fell on the population, which will haunt me forever to come.
All in all, the bombers made an important, perhaps critical contribution in 1941 and 1942 to keeping alive the morale of the British people, and to deterring the Americans from a premature second front. When they possessed the strategic justification � in 1942 and 1943 � they lacked the means. By the winter of 1944, when they had gained the means, the justification was gone.
How could anyone not like a book written by Max Hastings?
May 31, 2019
Max Hastings is arguably the top British war historian working today. He has also contributed mightily to work on the histories of the 20th century’s great wars in a variety of media, for example at the Imperial War Museum in London. Bomber Command was one of his first books. I read it in preparation for an upcoming trip to Lincolnshire, where there is a museum on Bomber Command.
Hastings has a particular skill at weaving together the different aspects of a war such that one can see both the broad strategic dimensions of the conflict as well as the particular and gritty reality for those fighting on the ground. This is a real gift that will become more important as time passes and the people with direct experience of WW2 grow old and leave the scene, as with WW1.
With the bombing campaigns of WW2, there is much to cover and conflicts around strategies and results that continue today, for example in continuing debates about the role of American air power during the Vietnam War. While Slaughterhouse-Five was first published in 1969, it is still widely read today. Jorg Friedrich’s Der Brand (The Fire) presents a view of strategic bombing from the ground up and was important in Germany before it was translated. Those who paid attention in the more recent Gulf Wars will surely remember accounts of “smart bombs� and how they have improved warfare. I suspect the debates will not be resolved anytime soon.
Hastings builds the story of Bomber Command and its leader, “Bomber� Harris, with these issues squarely in mind. He is exceptional at weaving in the strategic versus tactical issues of bombing with differences between British and American approaches, the evolution of technological capabilities during the war, the role of the Germans in responding to bomber operations, and the role of the bombing campaigns in the overall course of the war in Europe. Hastings adds to his account the role of organization and personalities in the evolution of the bomber war, especially the problem of getting strong leadership within the context of a complex war effort that required a team perspective.
Hastings has strong and often critical perspectives on the bomber war, but he is careful to balance it with a nuanced account of the value of the bombers to the British and overall allied war effort. This struck me as an honest effort to tally up the costs and benefits of the war, although it may frustrate some readers. Hastings� account is superb in highlighting the difficulties in figuring out just what to do with a branch of the services and what the overall objectives are upon which so many lives and resources depend. Strategy is not just lip service but is hard to conceive of and harder still to implement consistently and effectively. If anything, he could have spent more time discussing such issues of management and direction along with the issues of area versus pinpoint bombing. The latter issues are not going away anytime soon. The murkier issues of management and direction also remain with us and are likely to get more important as the stakes get higher.
This is a fine book and well worth the time.
Hastings has a particular skill at weaving together the different aspects of a war such that one can see both the broad strategic dimensions of the conflict as well as the particular and gritty reality for those fighting on the ground. This is a real gift that will become more important as time passes and the people with direct experience of WW2 grow old and leave the scene, as with WW1.
With the bombing campaigns of WW2, there is much to cover and conflicts around strategies and results that continue today, for example in continuing debates about the role of American air power during the Vietnam War. While Slaughterhouse-Five was first published in 1969, it is still widely read today. Jorg Friedrich’s Der Brand (The Fire) presents a view of strategic bombing from the ground up and was important in Germany before it was translated. Those who paid attention in the more recent Gulf Wars will surely remember accounts of “smart bombs� and how they have improved warfare. I suspect the debates will not be resolved anytime soon.
Hastings builds the story of Bomber Command and its leader, “Bomber� Harris, with these issues squarely in mind. He is exceptional at weaving in the strategic versus tactical issues of bombing with differences between British and American approaches, the evolution of technological capabilities during the war, the role of the Germans in responding to bomber operations, and the role of the bombing campaigns in the overall course of the war in Europe. Hastings adds to his account the role of organization and personalities in the evolution of the bomber war, especially the problem of getting strong leadership within the context of a complex war effort that required a team perspective.
Hastings has strong and often critical perspectives on the bomber war, but he is careful to balance it with a nuanced account of the value of the bombers to the British and overall allied war effort. This struck me as an honest effort to tally up the costs and benefits of the war, although it may frustrate some readers. Hastings� account is superb in highlighting the difficulties in figuring out just what to do with a branch of the services and what the overall objectives are upon which so many lives and resources depend. Strategy is not just lip service but is hard to conceive of and harder still to implement consistently and effectively. If anything, he could have spent more time discussing such issues of management and direction along with the issues of area versus pinpoint bombing. The latter issues are not going away anytime soon. The murkier issues of management and direction also remain with us and are likely to get more important as the stakes get higher.
This is a fine book and well worth the time.
March 25, 2013
Let’s acknowledge the truth, the Royal Air Force was unfairly scorned at the end of WWII for their efforts. In fact, you could say they were Poorly served by their leaders, the RAF was never appropriately recognized for their lonely, bloody night fight against the Third Reich, for years the only way the western allies could take the war to Germany. Bomber Command gets 5 explosive-filled “Tall Boy”Stars for this clear-eyed accounting of the RAF over Europe in WWII. A complete understanding of the air war in the ETO has to start here.
In reality, the RAF was the victim of the politicians� refrain: “I was for it before I was against it.� Everybody, from Churchill on down to the man in the street was in favor of the bombing campaign. And “Bomber� Harris, the head of Bomber Command was the perfect choice, single-mindedly committed to the destruction of German cities, regardless of any other target desired by the allied commanders.
In the beginning, the Brits would take bombs home rather than have a potential miss and hit a civilian. They tried precision bombing during the day. Losses were tremendous and there was no way to continue. So they were confined to night and stayed there until almost the end of the war. Hastings jumps between telling the bomber crew stories by following various squadrons through their missions and then jumping to the command level to see why the airwar was fought as it was. The losses, even at night, are staggering and you get a look at the German defensive side as well. Hastings tells the story of Darmstadt, one German town that suffers a strike late in the war, when the allies had a sledgehammer in the USAAF and RAF air forces, smashing cities with incredible force.
In the end, the RAF does not get a campaign medal for their sacrifice and get blamed for carrying out their orders. A excellent history and highly recommended.
In reality, the RAF was the victim of the politicians� refrain: “I was for it before I was against it.� Everybody, from Churchill on down to the man in the street was in favor of the bombing campaign. And “Bomber� Harris, the head of Bomber Command was the perfect choice, single-mindedly committed to the destruction of German cities, regardless of any other target desired by the allied commanders.
In the beginning, the Brits would take bombs home rather than have a potential miss and hit a civilian. They tried precision bombing during the day. Losses were tremendous and there was no way to continue. So they were confined to night and stayed there until almost the end of the war. Hastings jumps between telling the bomber crew stories by following various squadrons through their missions and then jumping to the command level to see why the airwar was fought as it was. The losses, even at night, are staggering and you get a look at the German defensive side as well. Hastings tells the story of Darmstadt, one German town that suffers a strike late in the war, when the allies had a sledgehammer in the USAAF and RAF air forces, smashing cities with incredible force.
In the end, the RAF does not get a campaign medal for their sacrifice and get blamed for carrying out their orders. A excellent history and highly recommended.
January 3, 2012
Whether the intense bombing of Germany was crucial in advancing the allied cause and preventing wholesale slaughter as in World War I remains a controversial topic, still unresolved. The fact remains that many hundreds of thousands of Germans were killed in firestorm raids, whose sole intent, admitted by the British, was to demoralize the enemy. But at what cost. The British lost more officers to aircraft casualties than they had in all of WW I and the pitiful survival rate of a bomber crew was matched only by German U-boat crews. Was this decisive? Or merely catastrophic as Sir Henry Tizard feared already in 1942.
As early as 1920 J.F.C. Fuller, who later became an opponent of using the bomber as a strategic weapon, foresaw "Fleets of aeroplanes will attack the enemy's great industrial and governing centres. All these attacks will be made against the civil population in order to compel it to accept the will of the attacker." Despite the intense debate before the war on the value of attacking enemy cities (and publicly there was a great fear of being attacked from the air given the casualty projections of bomber attacks on English cities) the English bomber command, even two years into the war, was unable to find German cities at night in 1941, let alone bomb them. All of their preparations had been based on totally unrealistic training and false assumptions on the value of self-defending bomber formations.
Prior to the start of the war, there was no understanding of how best to destroy structures using explosives. The high command had preferred using-ten 200 lb. bombs instead of one 2000 lb bomb because at least that way there was a slight chance of hitting the target. Despite their public positions, everyone knew that in reality, bombing was about destroying morale, not buildings.
Attacks on civilians had been verboten for fear of German reprisals. They were even afraid to bomb anything that could be construed as private property. So at the beginning of the war, attacks had been limited to naval targets, objectives they were ill-equipped for, especially since they were directed to fly above 10,000 feet in order to avoid was was ill-conceived to be the principle danger: flak. In reality, it was German fighters who caused substantial damage, but in typical higher rank myopia, the losses were blamed on crew who did not keep tight enough formation. This, in spite of not providing self-sealing fuel tanks (a bullet hit often turned leaking fuel into an inferno) and rear turrets that failed to traverse more than eighty degrees (for fear of shooting their own tails off. Flying above 10,000 feet made the grease in the turrets so cold, thee turrets often failed to rotate, anyway.
The only thing that saved Britain was probably that a decision had been made by the German High Command to invest in light bombers which could be used to support ground troops during the Blitzkrieg. They had more and better planes, but the British emphasized larger strategic bombers although planes like the Blenheim were incredible flying coffins, especially since all the resources had gone toward self-defended bombers rather than any money toward fighter escorts. The Blenheims were sent out in droves. They were shot down by the dozens, often none in a mission returned. The average lifespan of a crew was barely a couple of weeks.
Mistakes were common. One crew that flew through a severe magnetic storm discovered to its horror after their return that they had mistaken the Thames estuary for that of the Rhine and had bombed “with unusual precision, one their own airfields. They were only marginally consoled to learn they had caused little damage, command staff learning more about the failures of their stick of bombs.
Flying one of the early bombers was appallingly difficult. “The flew layered in silk, wool, and leather, yet still their sandwiches and coffee froze solid as they ate and drank, vital systems jammed, limbs seized, wings iced-up for lack of de-icing gear.� "Amidst the hustle of aircrew pulling on flying clothes and seizing maps and equipment, they drew flying rations of sandwiches and chocolate to be returned intact if the exercise was for any reason uncompleted." This is the kind of detail that really brings home what it was like. The idea the crews would have to return sandwiches taken on a mission is so ludicrous as to be beyond Catch-22.
All for little in the way of results and at terrible cost. Reports of results went beyond hyperbole. Air Command noted after a comparison between aircrew reports and photographic results later, that, “the operation does not confirm that as a general rule, the average crews of our heavy bombers can identify targets at night, even under the best conditions, nor does it prove that the average crew can bomb industrial targets at night.� Nevertheless, communiques, completely untruthful, were issued reporting glowing successes.
Some very poignant material in this book. Clearly, Hasting empathizes with the little guy, the ones doing all the fighting and dying. He quotes a letter in its entirety from John Bufton to his girlfriend talking about his fatalism, his inability to plan with the only focus being on keeping his machine running and trying to get enough sleep. He talks about what she should do if he is killed, knowing what the odds are, "go and have a perm...and carry on," and why they shouldn't get married. He died a month later.
Hastings concludes that German industry was astonishingly resilient (their production of tanks almost doubled between 1943 and 1944) but that it was the defeat of the Luftwaffe, especially after the introduction of the Mustang P-51 and the attacks on German oilfields that made a greater difference. Ultimately, it came very late in the war. “It is gratifying to airmen, but historically irrelevant, that they would have destroyed the German economy granted another few months of hostilities. Many of their greatest feats of precision bombing such as the sinking of the Tirpitz -- which would have been a vital strategic achievement in 1941, 1942, even 1943--had become no more than marvelous circus-tricks by the time they were achieved in 1944 and 1945. The pace of the war had overtaken them [on the ground.]�
Hastings added numerous charts and tables showing German war production compared to British throughout the war, as well as some excellent line drawings of the various aircraft involved. It’s an excellent book, filled with with pertinent anecdotes, that deserves to be widely read as a caveat against hubris and arrogance.
As early as 1920 J.F.C. Fuller, who later became an opponent of using the bomber as a strategic weapon, foresaw "Fleets of aeroplanes will attack the enemy's great industrial and governing centres. All these attacks will be made against the civil population in order to compel it to accept the will of the attacker." Despite the intense debate before the war on the value of attacking enemy cities (and publicly there was a great fear of being attacked from the air given the casualty projections of bomber attacks on English cities) the English bomber command, even two years into the war, was unable to find German cities at night in 1941, let alone bomb them. All of their preparations had been based on totally unrealistic training and false assumptions on the value of self-defending bomber formations.
Prior to the start of the war, there was no understanding of how best to destroy structures using explosives. The high command had preferred using-ten 200 lb. bombs instead of one 2000 lb bomb because at least that way there was a slight chance of hitting the target. Despite their public positions, everyone knew that in reality, bombing was about destroying morale, not buildings.
Attacks on civilians had been verboten for fear of German reprisals. They were even afraid to bomb anything that could be construed as private property. So at the beginning of the war, attacks had been limited to naval targets, objectives they were ill-equipped for, especially since they were directed to fly above 10,000 feet in order to avoid was was ill-conceived to be the principle danger: flak. In reality, it was German fighters who caused substantial damage, but in typical higher rank myopia, the losses were blamed on crew who did not keep tight enough formation. This, in spite of not providing self-sealing fuel tanks (a bullet hit often turned leaking fuel into an inferno) and rear turrets that failed to traverse more than eighty degrees (for fear of shooting their own tails off. Flying above 10,000 feet made the grease in the turrets so cold, thee turrets often failed to rotate, anyway.
The only thing that saved Britain was probably that a decision had been made by the German High Command to invest in light bombers which could be used to support ground troops during the Blitzkrieg. They had more and better planes, but the British emphasized larger strategic bombers although planes like the Blenheim were incredible flying coffins, especially since all the resources had gone toward self-defended bombers rather than any money toward fighter escorts. The Blenheims were sent out in droves. They were shot down by the dozens, often none in a mission returned. The average lifespan of a crew was barely a couple of weeks.
Mistakes were common. One crew that flew through a severe magnetic storm discovered to its horror after their return that they had mistaken the Thames estuary for that of the Rhine and had bombed “with unusual precision, one their own airfields. They were only marginally consoled to learn they had caused little damage, command staff learning more about the failures of their stick of bombs.
Flying one of the early bombers was appallingly difficult. “The flew layered in silk, wool, and leather, yet still their sandwiches and coffee froze solid as they ate and drank, vital systems jammed, limbs seized, wings iced-up for lack of de-icing gear.� "Amidst the hustle of aircrew pulling on flying clothes and seizing maps and equipment, they drew flying rations of sandwiches and chocolate to be returned intact if the exercise was for any reason uncompleted." This is the kind of detail that really brings home what it was like. The idea the crews would have to return sandwiches taken on a mission is so ludicrous as to be beyond Catch-22.
All for little in the way of results and at terrible cost. Reports of results went beyond hyperbole. Air Command noted after a comparison between aircrew reports and photographic results later, that, “the operation does not confirm that as a general rule, the average crews of our heavy bombers can identify targets at night, even under the best conditions, nor does it prove that the average crew can bomb industrial targets at night.� Nevertheless, communiques, completely untruthful, were issued reporting glowing successes.
Some very poignant material in this book. Clearly, Hasting empathizes with the little guy, the ones doing all the fighting and dying. He quotes a letter in its entirety from John Bufton to his girlfriend talking about his fatalism, his inability to plan with the only focus being on keeping his machine running and trying to get enough sleep. He talks about what she should do if he is killed, knowing what the odds are, "go and have a perm...and carry on," and why they shouldn't get married. He died a month later.
Hastings concludes that German industry was astonishingly resilient (their production of tanks almost doubled between 1943 and 1944) but that it was the defeat of the Luftwaffe, especially after the introduction of the Mustang P-51 and the attacks on German oilfields that made a greater difference. Ultimately, it came very late in the war. “It is gratifying to airmen, but historically irrelevant, that they would have destroyed the German economy granted another few months of hostilities. Many of their greatest feats of precision bombing such as the sinking of the Tirpitz -- which would have been a vital strategic achievement in 1941, 1942, even 1943--had become no more than marvelous circus-tricks by the time they were achieved in 1944 and 1945. The pace of the war had overtaken them [on the ground.]�
Hastings added numerous charts and tables showing German war production compared to British throughout the war, as well as some excellent line drawings of the various aircraft involved. It’s an excellent book, filled with with pertinent anecdotes, that deserves to be widely read as a caveat against hubris and arrogance.
June 11, 2022
Truly breathtaking book tackling the sheer scale as well as the intimacy of the Bomber Division of the RAF during WW2. Max Hastings at his best.
Read
July 26, 2011One of the best books yet written about Bomber Command, Hastings clearly and critically differentiates between the political manouvrings and ambitions of the upper levels of the command structure and the experiences of the men who flew over occupied Europe every night to fulfill the orders of men who had only ever flown a desk. Hastings is clearly sympathetic to the ordinary airmen, expressing his disgust that there has never been a Bomber Command campaign medal (so richly deserved by these brave young men), and the chapters covering the operational experiences of the various squadrons and groups are the best written and most interesting in the book, as is the vivid chapter retelling the Allied bombing of the German city of Darmstadt from the perspective of the German civilians on the recieving end of this raid. This is a good introduction to the story of the bomber war, its arguable effectiveness, and the political, ethical and military wrangling surrounding it that probably cost the lives of many RAF aircrews.
February 13, 2013
Max Hasting delivers yet another well researched and insightful book. In this offering he looks at Britains Bomber Command and follows it through it's conception to the end of the war. The writing is just the right mix, giving a great overview of Bomber Command. As well as allowing the reader to get a feel for what it was like for those who flew the missions and those who were on the receiving end of it. Hasting does not shy away from the difficult questions raised by the tactics used by Bomber Command and delivers a insightful look at the reasoning behind them.
September 15, 2019
Hastings nagymonográfiája a brit bombázókról a téma klasszikusa. Biztosan, mi több, élvezetesen hozza a kötelezőket, úgymint a technikai háttér felvázolását, a repülőszemélyzet hányattatásait, vagy a bombázás civilekre gyakorolt hatásait. Engem leginkább az ragadott meg, milyen tűpontosan rajzolja fel azt az irreális mentális kötődést, amivel a bombázóbárók a saját stratégiájukhoz viszonyultak. Ezek a fickók mélyen hittek magukban, és minden nyilvánvaló kudarc ellenére rá tudták venni hadvezetőségüket, hogy összes erőforrásaik harmadát (A. J. P. Taylor szerint) egy olyan hadműveletbe fektessék, ami nem járt arányos haszonnal. Mert a brit nehézbombázók hadjárata kudarc volt, ezen nincs mit szépíteni. Két kimondott közvetlen célja volt: az egyik a német ipari potenciál megsemmisítése, a másik a német állampolgárok lelkierejének megtörése � és egyiket sem sikerült elérnie. A Wehrmacht még az háború utolsó hónapjaiban sem szenvedett komolyabb fegyverhiányban (benzin- és emberhiányban annál inkább), ami pedig a városok bombázásai miatt fellázadó német lakosságot illeti � ez csak álom maradt. Bizonyos közvetett célok persze teljesültek, mintegy mellékesen: például a 88-as lövegeket és személyzetüket a nácik kénytelenek voltak otthon tartani, ezzel bizonyosan sok szovjet tanklovag életét mentették meg, de a belefektetett energia és az elkövetett bűnök fényében ez alighanem édeskevés*.
Az érthető, hogy még a háború előtt mi ragadta meg az angolok fantáziáját a bombázókban: tökéletes eszköznek tűntek arra, hogy egy izolált szigetország képes legyen rettegésben tartani a kontinenst anélkül, hogy azon kelljen tépelődnie, hogyan tegye partra gyalogosait Európában. Csináltak is maguknak egy légi haderőt, és aztán örültek neki, hogy van. Azt, hogy a gyakorlatban mire is lesz majd jó, nem tették vizsgálat tárgyává � biztos nem nagyon érdekelte őket. A világháború korai szakaszában rá kellett jönniük, hogy gépeik egyáltalán nem alkalmasak arra, hogy eredményesen visszaüssenek a náciknak, de akkor már késő volt, beszorultak a szigetükre, és tulajdonképpen ez az egy eszközük maradt. Nem az volt a kérdés, hogy tudnak-e csinálni vele valami értelmeset, hanem hogy tudnak-e csinálni egyáltalán bármit. Megjegyzendő, hogy levelei tanulsága szerint Churchill is átlátta ezt a problémát, ám számára lényegesebb volt a bombázó-hadviselés politikai oldala: a gigászi repülőszázadok németországi kirándulásait fel tudta mutatni a hazai közvéleménynek és a szövetségeseknek, mint háborús aktivitást. A porrá égetett Kölnről készített képek a londoni polgárt még akkor is megnyugtatták, amikor a többi fronton kutyául állt a széna � ahhoz, hogy leállítsa vagy visszanyesse a területbombázásokat, Churchillnek először is ki kellett volna találnia valamit helyettük. Csak épp nem igen lehetett mit.
A bombázóbárók malmára hajtotta a vizet az is, hogy a légi hadjáratokban szinte lehetetlen volt felmérni az elért eredményeket. Míg egy szárazföldi offenzíva esetén világos volt, hogy egy adott dombot elfoglaltak-e, vagy sem, addig egy megbombázott városban vagy ipari létesítményben okozott kárral kapcsolatban tulajdonképpen azt hazudtak be, amit nem szégyelltek. Úgysem képes senki odamenni, hogy leellenőrizze. Egy idő után pedig a tehetetlenségi erő is közrejátszott: minél több pénzt és technikát invesztáltak bele a nehézbombázókba, annál súlyosabb döntés lett volna megnyesegetni őket � így nőtt a légi hadsereg egy iszonytató nagy gépezetté, aminek kimondva-kimondatlanul egyetlen célja volt: elvinni a poklot Németországba. Ehhez megtalálták a tökéletes vezetőt Sir Arthur Harris személyében, aki a világháború talán legvitatottabb szövetséges tábornoka � ám olyannyira sikerült felfényeznie saját renoméját, hogy senki nem mert szembeszállni vele. Jól jellemzi a bombázóparancsnokság gondolkodását, hogy Harris még a partraszállás előestéjén is arról elmélkedett, hogy az Overlord csak egy költséges mellékszál a háborúban, valójában hagyni kéne őt, hogy elrendezze a dolgokat. Picit az az érzésem, nem is annyira a háború gyors lezárása érdekelte, mint hogy szépen, nyugodtan, az utolsó kerti fészerig lebombázhassa az összes helyet, ahol ki tudják ejteni az umlautot.
* Ismét hangsúlyozni kell, hogy az amerikai és a brit bombázó-hadviselés nem ugyanarra a stratégiára épült. Donald L. Miller A levegő urai c. munkája kiválóan veszi végig az előbbit � annak is megvoltak a maga tragikus bűnei mind saját repülőseivel**, mind a német civilekkel szemben, de összességében sokkal inkább törekedett arra, hogy megtalálja az ipari jelentőségű célpontokat***. Ráadásul sokkal gyakorlatibb eredményeket tudott felmutatni: a krónikus német üzemanyaghiány elsősorban az amerikai bombázók olajipari célpontok elleni berepüléseinek köszönhető, és a Luftwaffét is elsősorban az amerikaiak Mustang vadászgépei amortizálták le.
** Hajlok arra, hogy elfogadjam Hastings megállapítását, hogy a légi háborúknak nem csak a civilek az áldozatai, hanem azok a hajózók is, akiket elégtelen eszközökkel küldtek be irreális és felesleges bevetésekre Németország felé.
*** Amivel persze nem felmenteni akarom őket, egyszerűen egy stratégiai különbségre kívánok rámutatni.
Az érthető, hogy még a háború előtt mi ragadta meg az angolok fantáziáját a bombázókban: tökéletes eszköznek tűntek arra, hogy egy izolált szigetország képes legyen rettegésben tartani a kontinenst anélkül, hogy azon kelljen tépelődnie, hogyan tegye partra gyalogosait Európában. Csináltak is maguknak egy légi haderőt, és aztán örültek neki, hogy van. Azt, hogy a gyakorlatban mire is lesz majd jó, nem tették vizsgálat tárgyává � biztos nem nagyon érdekelte őket. A világháború korai szakaszában rá kellett jönniük, hogy gépeik egyáltalán nem alkalmasak arra, hogy eredményesen visszaüssenek a náciknak, de akkor már késő volt, beszorultak a szigetükre, és tulajdonképpen ez az egy eszközük maradt. Nem az volt a kérdés, hogy tudnak-e csinálni vele valami értelmeset, hanem hogy tudnak-e csinálni egyáltalán bármit. Megjegyzendő, hogy levelei tanulsága szerint Churchill is átlátta ezt a problémát, ám számára lényegesebb volt a bombázó-hadviselés politikai oldala: a gigászi repülőszázadok németországi kirándulásait fel tudta mutatni a hazai közvéleménynek és a szövetségeseknek, mint háborús aktivitást. A porrá égetett Kölnről készített képek a londoni polgárt még akkor is megnyugtatták, amikor a többi fronton kutyául állt a széna � ahhoz, hogy leállítsa vagy visszanyesse a területbombázásokat, Churchillnek először is ki kellett volna találnia valamit helyettük. Csak épp nem igen lehetett mit.
A bombázóbárók malmára hajtotta a vizet az is, hogy a légi hadjáratokban szinte lehetetlen volt felmérni az elért eredményeket. Míg egy szárazföldi offenzíva esetén világos volt, hogy egy adott dombot elfoglaltak-e, vagy sem, addig egy megbombázott városban vagy ipari létesítményben okozott kárral kapcsolatban tulajdonképpen azt hazudtak be, amit nem szégyelltek. Úgysem képes senki odamenni, hogy leellenőrizze. Egy idő után pedig a tehetetlenségi erő is közrejátszott: minél több pénzt és technikát invesztáltak bele a nehézbombázókba, annál súlyosabb döntés lett volna megnyesegetni őket � így nőtt a légi hadsereg egy iszonytató nagy gépezetté, aminek kimondva-kimondatlanul egyetlen célja volt: elvinni a poklot Németországba. Ehhez megtalálták a tökéletes vezetőt Sir Arthur Harris személyében, aki a világháború talán legvitatottabb szövetséges tábornoka � ám olyannyira sikerült felfényeznie saját renoméját, hogy senki nem mert szembeszállni vele. Jól jellemzi a bombázóparancsnokság gondolkodását, hogy Harris még a partraszállás előestéjén is arról elmélkedett, hogy az Overlord csak egy költséges mellékszál a háborúban, valójában hagyni kéne őt, hogy elrendezze a dolgokat. Picit az az érzésem, nem is annyira a háború gyors lezárása érdekelte, mint hogy szépen, nyugodtan, az utolsó kerti fészerig lebombázhassa az összes helyet, ahol ki tudják ejteni az umlautot.
* Ismét hangsúlyozni kell, hogy az amerikai és a brit bombázó-hadviselés nem ugyanarra a stratégiára épült. Donald L. Miller A levegő urai c. munkája kiválóan veszi végig az előbbit � annak is megvoltak a maga tragikus bűnei mind saját repülőseivel**, mind a német civilekkel szemben, de összességében sokkal inkább törekedett arra, hogy megtalálja az ipari jelentőségű célpontokat***. Ráadásul sokkal gyakorlatibb eredményeket tudott felmutatni: a krónikus német üzemanyaghiány elsősorban az amerikai bombázók olajipari célpontok elleni berepüléseinek köszönhető, és a Luftwaffét is elsősorban az amerikaiak Mustang vadászgépei amortizálták le.
** Hajlok arra, hogy elfogadjam Hastings megállapítását, hogy a légi háborúknak nem csak a civilek az áldozatai, hanem azok a hajózók is, akiket elégtelen eszközökkel küldtek be irreális és felesleges bevetésekre Németország felé.
*** Amivel persze nem felmenteni akarom őket, egyszerűen egy stratégiai különbségre kívánok rámutatni.
March 31, 2025
This was a terrible book to read, I didn’t have many illusions about the bombing offensive in WW2, and this book confirms that it was a waste of lives and resources. I’ve read about the RAF fighter pilots getting sent to war in Hawker Hurricanes, they were the lucky ones; imagine bombing Germany in a Whitley or a Blenheim. And to no point at all, the Germans hardly noticed the British bombing in the early part of the war, since they rarely hit anything of military value. Even when they had learnt how to, later in the war, most of the bombs were concentrated on civilians.
We’ve heard all about Dresden, but that wasn’t the worst, the bombing of Hamburg and Darmstadt were equally horrifying. I visited Dresden in the early 80’s and part of the city centre was still in ruins, I’ve heard that it’s been rebuilt since Germany’s re-unification. It certainly was an awful sight then.
This book is getting on, and newer books seem to be kinder to the RAF upper ranks, I’m not sure if it matters, the bombing campaign was all about revenge, I don’t care who’s fault it was, but I’m proud that my parents went to Germany after the war as volunteers to work on repairing bomb damage.
It wasn’t a book I enjoyed, the operational parts, and the flying was interesting, the placing blame was a chore to get through.
Finally to finish on a very banal point, the photo captions are out of synch on the Kindle edition that I read.
We’ve heard all about Dresden, but that wasn’t the worst, the bombing of Hamburg and Darmstadt were equally horrifying. I visited Dresden in the early 80’s and part of the city centre was still in ruins, I’ve heard that it’s been rebuilt since Germany’s re-unification. It certainly was an awful sight then.
This book is getting on, and newer books seem to be kinder to the RAF upper ranks, I’m not sure if it matters, the bombing campaign was all about revenge, I don’t care who’s fault it was, but I’m proud that my parents went to Germany after the war as volunteers to work on repairing bomb damage.
It wasn’t a book I enjoyed, the operational parts, and the flying was interesting, the placing blame was a chore to get through.
Finally to finish on a very banal point, the photo captions are out of synch on the Kindle edition that I read.
December 28, 2013
Max Hastings' Bomber Command is a rare achievement. This book explores a broad, complex subject with depth and balance, all within a relatively brief number of pages. On top of that, it's very readable and entertaining.
Hastings explores the history of the RAF's Bomber Command in World War II, beginning with it's origins, tracing it's evolution throughout the conflict, and concluding with it's legacy. The narrative alternates between focusing on command and political discussions, and historical vignettes of particular squadrons at particular times of the war. In this manner, Hastings gives us a pretty complete picture of Bomber Command's war without getting drawn out into a lengthy, repetitive account.
Hastings analysis of the achievements of Bomber Command is tough, but fair and evidence based. While they contributed considerably to Britain's morale at key points, and provided important support for the Allied invasion of Normandy, their overall strategic goals were largely a failure. This comes down partly to a lag in technological capability, partly to lack of reliable intelligence analysis of bombing results, and partly from poor decisions by the upper leadership of Bomber Command and the Air Ministry.
My only complaint about this book, and the only reason I docked it a star, is that some of it's information is a little dated. Hastings buys into some of the mythology surrounding the German economy and Albert Speer that has been challenge by more recent works, such as Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction. This isn't enough to hurt the overall quality of Hastings' arguments and analysis in this book, but it's something of which the reader should be aware.
Hastings explores the history of the RAF's Bomber Command in World War II, beginning with it's origins, tracing it's evolution throughout the conflict, and concluding with it's legacy. The narrative alternates between focusing on command and political discussions, and historical vignettes of particular squadrons at particular times of the war. In this manner, Hastings gives us a pretty complete picture of Bomber Command's war without getting drawn out into a lengthy, repetitive account.
Hastings analysis of the achievements of Bomber Command is tough, but fair and evidence based. While they contributed considerably to Britain's morale at key points, and provided important support for the Allied invasion of Normandy, their overall strategic goals were largely a failure. This comes down partly to a lag in technological capability, partly to lack of reliable intelligence analysis of bombing results, and partly from poor decisions by the upper leadership of Bomber Command and the Air Ministry.
My only complaint about this book, and the only reason I docked it a star, is that some of it's information is a little dated. Hastings buys into some of the mythology surrounding the German economy and Albert Speer that has been challenge by more recent works, such as Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction. This isn't enough to hurt the overall quality of Hastings' arguments and analysis in this book, but it's something of which the reader should be aware.
December 29, 2020
Max Hastingsin "Bomber Command" (Pan Books, 2010) on erinomainen yleisteos, joka käsittelee Englannin kuninkaallisten ilmavoimien pommitusjoukkoja toisessa maailmansodassa. Palkittu tietokirja ilmestyi alun perin vuonna 1979. Englantilainen historioitsija käsittelee aihetta monipuolisesti. Laajempi kokonaiskuva ja pommitusjoukkojen strateginen merkitys sodan kuluessa tulevat selväksi, mutta toisaalta liikutaan ruohonjuuritasolla ja kuvataan tiettyjen yksikköjen ja siinä lentäneitten miesten arkea.
Hastings on muutenkin yllättävän kriittinen pommitusjoukkojen toimintaa kohtaan. Sodan loppuvaiheessa suoritetut hyökkäykset saksalaisia kaupunkeja kohtaan eivät olleet enää perusteltavissa. Teoksessa nostetaan tikun nokkaan erityisesti Darmstadt, joka tuhottiin syyskuussa 1944. Siviilien kertomuksille tuosta surullisesta yöstä on omistettu kokonainen luku.
Jotkut ilmavoimien komentajista uskoivat, että Saksa voitaisiin pakottaa polvilleen pelkällä pommittamisella, mikä osoittautui virheelliseksi näkemykseksi. Luultavasti parempia tuloksia olisi saavutettu aikaiseksi ja sota päättymään nopeammin, mikäli iskut olisi kohdistettu Saksan sodankäynnin kannalta kriittiseen öljyntuotantoon. Ristiriitaisena persoonana historiaan jäävä komentaja Arthur Harris uskoi kuitenkin viimeiseen asti valitsemaansa strategiaan kaupunkien pommittamisesta maan tasalle - eikä katunut tekosiaan ainakaan julkisesti.
Englantilaisten lentäjien ja miehistön jäsenten rohkeutta ei kuitenkaan käydä kiistämään. Saksan öisellä taivaalla ilmatorjunta, vaikeat sääolosuhteet ja etenkin yöhävittäjät vaativat hirmuisen veronsa. Joskus tappioprosentti kohosi yli kymmenen.
Hastings on muutenkin yllättävän kriittinen pommitusjoukkojen toimintaa kohtaan. Sodan loppuvaiheessa suoritetut hyökkäykset saksalaisia kaupunkeja kohtaan eivät olleet enää perusteltavissa. Teoksessa nostetaan tikun nokkaan erityisesti Darmstadt, joka tuhottiin syyskuussa 1944. Siviilien kertomuksille tuosta surullisesta yöstä on omistettu kokonainen luku.
Jotkut ilmavoimien komentajista uskoivat, että Saksa voitaisiin pakottaa polvilleen pelkällä pommittamisella, mikä osoittautui virheelliseksi näkemykseksi. Luultavasti parempia tuloksia olisi saavutettu aikaiseksi ja sota päättymään nopeammin, mikäli iskut olisi kohdistettu Saksan sodankäynnin kannalta kriittiseen öljyntuotantoon. Ristiriitaisena persoonana historiaan jäävä komentaja Arthur Harris uskoi kuitenkin viimeiseen asti valitsemaansa strategiaan kaupunkien pommittamisesta maan tasalle - eikä katunut tekosiaan ainakaan julkisesti.
Englantilaisten lentäjien ja miehistön jäsenten rohkeutta ei kuitenkaan käydä kiistämään. Saksan öisellä taivaalla ilmatorjunta, vaikeat sääolosuhteet ja etenkin yöhävittäjät vaativat hirmuisen veronsa. Joskus tappioprosentti kohosi yli kymmenen.
July 8, 2022
Bomber Command offers an interesting look at Britain's air offensive against Nazi Germany. What stuck with me the most was probably the moral implications of area bombing civilian targets and the inefficiency of the overall offensive. I think the book ran a little bit too long, but it did open my eyes to something I really didn't know anything about which made the overall experience quite worth it. I would have also liked a bigger focus on the everyday lives of the airmen. We get glimpses of events here and there but it is rarely more than a quick peek before we move on to look at the war from a much higher vantage point.
July 11, 2015
Complete and sometimes gripping - but this account suffers by comparison to Bungay's on the fighter squadrons by being desultory within and by chapter. Still, the conclusion is clear and cogent: Bomber Command did go too far. Irrespective of whether or not you consider the Germans deserved it - continued indiscriminate area bombing of German cities did not contribute much to winning, or hastening the end of, the War.
March 5, 2013
Surely the definitive history of Bomber Command. Though written and first published many years ago (1970s), it an incredibly detailed piece of work worthy of a place on any History shelf.
December 3, 2022
When I bought the book, I had assumed this was a recent work but was very surprised to learn that it was written in 1979. In fact, Bomber Harris and other principles were still alive and were apparently interviewed for the book, though I don't remember anything that was written being attributed to those interviews.
That the allied bombing at the end of war went too far and was immoral is oft repeated. I wondered if this book would give a different judgement. I was extremely wrong. Hasting's judgement is that the whole bombing campaign was wholly misconceived. At the beginning of the war it was utterly ineffectual. At the end of war, it was unnecessary. Strategically, it just didn't work. At the same time, it was taking huge casualties in air crew and civilians, as well as expending huge resources.
It's easy to say such things in hindsight but its clear from the exchanges of the time that the government and air chiefs of the time knew that what they were doing was immoral, or at least highly questionable, and told the public one thing (only bombing only military targets) whilst doing another.
The book covers the bomber offensive from multiple perspectives - government, the air chiefs, the crew that flew the missions, the German high command. One of the most powerful chapters, describes a air raid from the perspective of the inhabitants of a small town - Darmstadt - and it is absolutely horrifying.
I found this to be absolutely compelling read.
That the allied bombing at the end of war went too far and was immoral is oft repeated. I wondered if this book would give a different judgement. I was extremely wrong. Hasting's judgement is that the whole bombing campaign was wholly misconceived. At the beginning of the war it was utterly ineffectual. At the end of war, it was unnecessary. Strategically, it just didn't work. At the same time, it was taking huge casualties in air crew and civilians, as well as expending huge resources.
It's easy to say such things in hindsight but its clear from the exchanges of the time that the government and air chiefs of the time knew that what they were doing was immoral, or at least highly questionable, and told the public one thing (only bombing only military targets) whilst doing another.
The book covers the bomber offensive from multiple perspectives - government, the air chiefs, the crew that flew the missions, the German high command. One of the most powerful chapters, describes a air raid from the perspective of the inhabitants of a small town - Darmstadt - and it is absolutely horrifying.
I found this to be absolutely compelling read.
October 18, 2013
This is Max Hastings first WWII book, published in 1979. Now a classic, it was controversial at the outset because it disputed the claims of Bomber Command and of the U. S. Army Air Force about the efficacy and costs of the bombing of Germany and Japan.
Since then, Hastings has placed his stamp on other theaters of that war. Only a few more recent examples: An overview of the war with emphasis on the Eastern Front (“Inferno: the World at War, 1939-45�, see review), Operation Overlord and the march to Germany (“Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45�, see review), the Pacific Air War over Japan (“Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45�, see review). Over the years he has continued to master the historical records and has improved both his organization and presentation. “Bomber Command� is a very good book but it is clearly a training exercise for the outstanding military historian Hastings has become. If you read Bomber Command and find it unappealing, try Hastings� later books!
British air power was an area of hot controversy in the interwar period. In WWI the airplane was essentially a tactical scouting device and the emergence of a strategic air doctrine was extremely slow, with vicious battles raging between those who saw air power—particularly the bomber—as the way to win the war, and those who saw air power as, at best, a support for ground and naval forces. Into this cauldron was dropped an intense debate among the air power devotees—should the bomber’s role be precision bombing of military targets, or should it be used to inflict high civilian casualties in the hope that the enemy would sue for peace? Should fighters be given more emphasis in the next war? What role should fighters play—mere escorts for bombers? defense? weapons to control air space?
In addition to the quandary over air strategy, the Britain of 1940 was little suited to either precision bombing or urban damage. For example, the single-engine three-man Battle, a light bomber, was so slow, had such a tiny payload, was so poorly defended, and was so clumsy that it did little more than absorb the bullets of German fighters. Later bombers like the medium bombers (the Blenheims, Stirlings, etc.) were still no match for the Germans. Not until 1943 was there a heavy bomber akin to the B-17: the British Lancaster had the speed, payload, self-defense, and range required to bomb Germany.
Not only did the RAF of 1940 have no suitable bombers and no air strategy, it also had no experience akin to the Lufwaffe’s experience from the Spanish Civil War. That the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain was due to a most unexpected source—the RAF’s under-resourced fighter command, used in a defensive role rather than the offensive weapons (bombers) that were the RAF’s darlings.
Over time an air strategy did emerge. The bomber was at its core, first as a precision weapon, until abundant evidence showed that even when bombers did navigate to their designated targets (many didn’t) and passed through the curtain of flak and fighters (many didn’t), their bombs typically fell miles from the target. In fact, the evidence indicated that precision bombing had neither strategic nor morale value (except perhaps at the English home front). And, to boot, it was extremely expensive in blood and resources. Had that evidence been made public it would have cut the floor from under the “Bomb Germany� policy; but it was not—and did not. Thus, other alternatives, like using bombers in theaters like the Battle of the Atlantic to protect convoys, and the Meditteranean/Middle East, were neglected. Instead, the “Bomb Germany� policy continued with a shift to area bombing, intended to destroy the German will to fight.
The success of bad policy in the face of counterevidence is laid largely at the doorstep of Churchill (backed by Professor Linneman, his duplicitous science advisor) and of a vigorous Bomber Command lobby: area bombing was the de facto policy while precision bombing continued as the de jure policy. In short, the government lied often and loudly about its air goals.
Leadership of the area bombing effort was lodged with Air Marshall Arthur “Bomber� Harris, a man who, when chided by a policeman that his chronic speeding might kill someone, replied, “I kill hundreds every night.� A man of extremes, Harris believed that Germany could be defeated by bombing alone, and his publicity machine trumpeted that “fact.�
Britain had the wrong strategy ("Bomb Germany"), the wrong resources (too many bombers and too few fighters capable of matching the Germans) and too little of everything. But the entry of the U. S. Air Forces into the European war changed the balance after 1942. The USAAF’s 8th Air Force supplemented the urban bombing campaign while American fighters�-particularly the new and very fast P51 Mustang�-took control of the skies. (In fact, an advantage of continued area bombing was that it attracted German fighters for the kill by P51s). And the 15th Air Force in Italy engaged in bombing the Balkan oil fields, to great effect. Finally the resources and the strategy were sufficient for the task.
Perhaps the best lesson from Bomber Command is the difficulty of eliminating or modifying a bad policy after its adherents have become entrenched. This lesson applies, of course, to all policy issues at every level.
Reviewed Books by Max Hastings:
Catastrophe, 1914: Europe Goes to War
Bomber Command
Inferno: The World at War, 1939-45
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45
Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
Since then, Hastings has placed his stamp on other theaters of that war. Only a few more recent examples: An overview of the war with emphasis on the Eastern Front (“Inferno: the World at War, 1939-45�, see review), Operation Overlord and the march to Germany (“Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45�, see review), the Pacific Air War over Japan (“Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45�, see review). Over the years he has continued to master the historical records and has improved both his organization and presentation. “Bomber Command� is a very good book but it is clearly a training exercise for the outstanding military historian Hastings has become. If you read Bomber Command and find it unappealing, try Hastings� later books!
British air power was an area of hot controversy in the interwar period. In WWI the airplane was essentially a tactical scouting device and the emergence of a strategic air doctrine was extremely slow, with vicious battles raging between those who saw air power—particularly the bomber—as the way to win the war, and those who saw air power as, at best, a support for ground and naval forces. Into this cauldron was dropped an intense debate among the air power devotees—should the bomber’s role be precision bombing of military targets, or should it be used to inflict high civilian casualties in the hope that the enemy would sue for peace? Should fighters be given more emphasis in the next war? What role should fighters play—mere escorts for bombers? defense? weapons to control air space?
In addition to the quandary over air strategy, the Britain of 1940 was little suited to either precision bombing or urban damage. For example, the single-engine three-man Battle, a light bomber, was so slow, had such a tiny payload, was so poorly defended, and was so clumsy that it did little more than absorb the bullets of German fighters. Later bombers like the medium bombers (the Blenheims, Stirlings, etc.) were still no match for the Germans. Not until 1943 was there a heavy bomber akin to the B-17: the British Lancaster had the speed, payload, self-defense, and range required to bomb Germany.
Not only did the RAF of 1940 have no suitable bombers and no air strategy, it also had no experience akin to the Lufwaffe’s experience from the Spanish Civil War. That the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain was due to a most unexpected source—the RAF’s under-resourced fighter command, used in a defensive role rather than the offensive weapons (bombers) that were the RAF’s darlings.
Over time an air strategy did emerge. The bomber was at its core, first as a precision weapon, until abundant evidence showed that even when bombers did navigate to their designated targets (many didn’t) and passed through the curtain of flak and fighters (many didn’t), their bombs typically fell miles from the target. In fact, the evidence indicated that precision bombing had neither strategic nor morale value (except perhaps at the English home front). And, to boot, it was extremely expensive in blood and resources. Had that evidence been made public it would have cut the floor from under the “Bomb Germany� policy; but it was not—and did not. Thus, other alternatives, like using bombers in theaters like the Battle of the Atlantic to protect convoys, and the Meditteranean/Middle East, were neglected. Instead, the “Bomb Germany� policy continued with a shift to area bombing, intended to destroy the German will to fight.
The success of bad policy in the face of counterevidence is laid largely at the doorstep of Churchill (backed by Professor Linneman, his duplicitous science advisor) and of a vigorous Bomber Command lobby: area bombing was the de facto policy while precision bombing continued as the de jure policy. In short, the government lied often and loudly about its air goals.
Leadership of the area bombing effort was lodged with Air Marshall Arthur “Bomber� Harris, a man who, when chided by a policeman that his chronic speeding might kill someone, replied, “I kill hundreds every night.� A man of extremes, Harris believed that Germany could be defeated by bombing alone, and his publicity machine trumpeted that “fact.�
Britain had the wrong strategy ("Bomb Germany"), the wrong resources (too many bombers and too few fighters capable of matching the Germans) and too little of everything. But the entry of the U. S. Air Forces into the European war changed the balance after 1942. The USAAF’s 8th Air Force supplemented the urban bombing campaign while American fighters�-particularly the new and very fast P51 Mustang�-took control of the skies. (In fact, an advantage of continued area bombing was that it attracted German fighters for the kill by P51s). And the 15th Air Force in Italy engaged in bombing the Balkan oil fields, to great effect. Finally the resources and the strategy were sufficient for the task.
Perhaps the best lesson from Bomber Command is the difficulty of eliminating or modifying a bad policy after its adherents have become entrenched. This lesson applies, of course, to all policy issues at every level.
Reviewed Books by Max Hastings:
Catastrophe, 1914: Europe Goes to War
Bomber Command
Inferno: The World at War, 1939-45
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45
Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
September 23, 2020
Sober-minded military history as it's meant to be; this WW2-long overview of one of the Allied forces' most controversial methods of attack benefits from Hastings having interviewed many surviving RAF aircrew, who largely appear to have understood they were being sent out to slaughter by high command. The description of the aftermath of the 1944 bombing of Darmstadt brings to life the devastation of raids on the German citizens affected, and one is largely left with the impression, noble as the battle against fascism was, that in Bomber Command's case the means overtook the ends (in Hastings' own words).
August 23, 2020
This book will not leave you indifferent about the subject.
And I strongly believe that anyone who reads it will look at the bombing of Germany with a new set of eyes, agreeing with mr. Hastings or not
And I strongly believe that anyone who reads it will look at the bombing of Germany with a new set of eyes, agreeing with mr. Hastings or not
September 25, 2020
Immense bravery, weasel politicians and C in C.
Churchill and Harris deserve the same level of critical thought regarding their full range of actions.
Aircrew deserve nothing less than gratitude and admiration.
Churchill and Harris deserve the same level of critical thought regarding their full range of actions.
Aircrew deserve nothing less than gratitude and admiration.
October 31, 2022
'The line between the living and the dead was very thin,' wrote Hornsey. 'If you live on the brink of death yourself, it is as if those who have gone have merely caught an earlier train to the same destination. And whatever that destination is, you will be sharing it soon, since you will almost certainly be catching the next one.'
Considering the scale of the material, Bomber Command's 400 pages is modest, especially when you remember that the book covers the period between 1939-1945 while Masters of the Air is 50% longer covering mostly the years 1941-1945. Yet, Bomber Command makes every chapter, and indeed every page, worth the read. It is an incredible effort by Hastings, and is a well-written book intended for all kinds of audiences.
Bomber Command incorporates the personal experiences of the airmen who flew, with very different fates. There are men who finished their tour of duty, men who were taken as prisoners of war; men who survived, and men who did not. It tells of their fear of flying over Germany and German-occupied territory in the night, not being able to see your enemy until it is too late, always at the risk of colliding with other airplanes, always trying to evade the cones of searchlight and heavy flak.
For such a high casualty rate and poor statistics of finishing their tour of duty, it impressed upon me deeply how the airmen continued with their work with aplomb, taking their chances of survival as matter of fact in written letters to loved ones, pre-empting them that there might be a day when their luck would not hold out.
Personal stories are interspersed between the happenings of High Wycombe and the struggle for resources and command among the higher ranks. Bomber Command illuminates the intra-service feuds and grudges between Fighter Command and Bomber Command, or even more simply, 5 Group and 8 Group, and inter-service quarrels and bitterness between the Admiralty and Generals with the Air Marshals. The book also excels in explaining the missed opportunities for the overall Allied strategies caused by in-fighting within the British, such as Portal's relenting to Harris's area bombing strategy in late 1944 and early 1945, instead of focusing on the Oil Plan and the September directive.
The book also documents the remarkable improvement in bombing equipment by the RAF, such as fitting Gee, Oboe and H2S sets to every plane, the design and production of planes (the Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes) with higher ceilings and speeds and self-sealing tanks (vis-a-vis to the Blenheims, the Stirlings and Wellingtons). In addition, the book also explains how the steady improvement in bombing techniques (such as using Pathfinders to mark the area, the Master Bomber to direct the Main Force and correct the Pathfinder markings, offset for bomb-aimers, flying in streams and using window and radar-jammers) gradually reduced the margin of error from hundreds of miles to as close as 300 yards, on a good night.
With this in mind, Bomber Command does not shy away from criticising Bomber Command's strategic choices. Too often, targets were chosen not because they had an overwhelming strategic value to the German war production or economy, but because they were vulnerable and able to be destroyed. The case of Darmstadt proves the point all too clearly.
Further, the book also provides an excellent source of Bomber Command's achievements from the eyes of the German leaders, such as Albert Speer, Hermann Göring, and Adolf Galland. It is particularly interesting to read about their thoughts about the attacks side-by-side the British leaders, because the thoughts of both sides are, more often than not, more opposed. While Speer feared that the Allies would continue to wreck havoc on Schweinfurt, the attacks stopped. When Göring and Speer worried that a few more attacks like the one on Hamburg might bring Germany to the point of collapse, an attack of that scale and result was never mounted again for 2 years until Dresden in 1945.
More interestingly, I found this paragraph from Albert Speer the most insightful to the real value of Bomber Command:
It seems to me that the book misses the decisive point. Like all other accounts of the bombing that I have so far seen, it places its emphasis on the destruction that air raids inflicted on German industrial potential and thus upon armaments. In reality the losses were not quite so serious... The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion of Europe. That front was the skies over Germany... The unpredictability of the attacks made the front gigantic... Defence against air attacks required the product of thousands of antiaircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers... As far as I can judge from the accounts I have read, no one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side...
The book leaves you with one last haunting thought, written in the foreword of the book:
As for those who flew, it was deeply moving to sit through long evenings in suburban bungalows, listening to very ordinary middle-aged men describing the quite extraordinary things that they did as young aircrew over Germany. I am grateful that my generation has been spared the need to discover whether we could match the impossible sacrifices that they made.
If you have read (or are planning) to read Masters of the Air, you simply have to read Bomber Command. The only thing I did not like much was that there weren't many maps in the first 2/3s of the book, but the writing is clear gripping enough to tide you through the end.
Considering the scale of the material, Bomber Command's 400 pages is modest, especially when you remember that the book covers the period between 1939-1945 while Masters of the Air is 50% longer covering mostly the years 1941-1945. Yet, Bomber Command makes every chapter, and indeed every page, worth the read. It is an incredible effort by Hastings, and is a well-written book intended for all kinds of audiences.
Bomber Command incorporates the personal experiences of the airmen who flew, with very different fates. There are men who finished their tour of duty, men who were taken as prisoners of war; men who survived, and men who did not. It tells of their fear of flying over Germany and German-occupied territory in the night, not being able to see your enemy until it is too late, always at the risk of colliding with other airplanes, always trying to evade the cones of searchlight and heavy flak.
For such a high casualty rate and poor statistics of finishing their tour of duty, it impressed upon me deeply how the airmen continued with their work with aplomb, taking their chances of survival as matter of fact in written letters to loved ones, pre-empting them that there might be a day when their luck would not hold out.
Personal stories are interspersed between the happenings of High Wycombe and the struggle for resources and command among the higher ranks. Bomber Command illuminates the intra-service feuds and grudges between Fighter Command and Bomber Command, or even more simply, 5 Group and 8 Group, and inter-service quarrels and bitterness between the Admiralty and Generals with the Air Marshals. The book also excels in explaining the missed opportunities for the overall Allied strategies caused by in-fighting within the British, such as Portal's relenting to Harris's area bombing strategy in late 1944 and early 1945, instead of focusing on the Oil Plan and the September directive.
The book also documents the remarkable improvement in bombing equipment by the RAF, such as fitting Gee, Oboe and H2S sets to every plane, the design and production of planes (the Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes) with higher ceilings and speeds and self-sealing tanks (vis-a-vis to the Blenheims, the Stirlings and Wellingtons). In addition, the book also explains how the steady improvement in bombing techniques (such as using Pathfinders to mark the area, the Master Bomber to direct the Main Force and correct the Pathfinder markings, offset for bomb-aimers, flying in streams and using window and radar-jammers) gradually reduced the margin of error from hundreds of miles to as close as 300 yards, on a good night.
With this in mind, Bomber Command does not shy away from criticising Bomber Command's strategic choices. Too often, targets were chosen not because they had an overwhelming strategic value to the German war production or economy, but because they were vulnerable and able to be destroyed. The case of Darmstadt proves the point all too clearly.
Further, the book also provides an excellent source of Bomber Command's achievements from the eyes of the German leaders, such as Albert Speer, Hermann Göring, and Adolf Galland. It is particularly interesting to read about their thoughts about the attacks side-by-side the British leaders, because the thoughts of both sides are, more often than not, more opposed. While Speer feared that the Allies would continue to wreck havoc on Schweinfurt, the attacks stopped. When Göring and Speer worried that a few more attacks like the one on Hamburg might bring Germany to the point of collapse, an attack of that scale and result was never mounted again for 2 years until Dresden in 1945.
More interestingly, I found this paragraph from Albert Speer the most insightful to the real value of Bomber Command:
It seems to me that the book misses the decisive point. Like all other accounts of the bombing that I have so far seen, it places its emphasis on the destruction that air raids inflicted on German industrial potential and thus upon armaments. In reality the losses were not quite so serious... The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion of Europe. That front was the skies over Germany... The unpredictability of the attacks made the front gigantic... Defence against air attacks required the product of thousands of antiaircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers... As far as I can judge from the accounts I have read, no one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side...
The book leaves you with one last haunting thought, written in the foreword of the book:
As for those who flew, it was deeply moving to sit through long evenings in suburban bungalows, listening to very ordinary middle-aged men describing the quite extraordinary things that they did as young aircrew over Germany. I am grateful that my generation has been spared the need to discover whether we could match the impossible sacrifices that they made.
If you have read (or are planning) to read Masters of the Air, you simply have to read Bomber Command. The only thing I did not like much was that there weren't many maps in the first 2/3s of the book, but the writing is clear gripping enough to tide you through the end.
August 21, 2015
A gifted writer writes an evocative account of a misguided campaign. Hastings makes a convincing arugment that the British terror bombing of German cities for much of World War was more than criminal, it was bad strategy and may have prolonged the war. Bertrand "Bomber" Harris was the British general who pushed the area bombing concept even when ordered to do otherwise. This book is his indictment. Highly recommended - providing both a solid understanding of what happened and why, and a good depiction of what life was like for the members of Bomber Command, which suffered appalling casualties.
March 27, 2017
Good critical look at Bomber Commands exploits and failures during WWII. Would have preferred much more insight and direct quotes from the actual men who participated. While there, the chapter titles are a bit misleading, a Squadron is named, and some personal memoirs are shared but the rest of the chapter deals with things about the overall book.
May 20, 2024
Factually it’s fantastic but I can’t help but feel like a lot of the text is just filling out pages. Marmite opinion I know, simply wasn’t a book for me.
February 4, 2020
This is an epic book chronicling the strategic bombing offensive from Britain during the 2nd World War; I was reading it on my Kindle a couple of years ago but this book just doesn’t suit that format & so this weekend I resumed where I’d left off with a great value hardback copy I just picked up.
Here, the political & tactical decision making of Bomber Command is told with full reference to the experience of the aircrew at the sharp end; it’s extensively researched & decisions, missions & outcomes are interpreted intelligently & with proper perspective; it’s a serious book which speaks with authority.
There’s a shocking account of the destruction of the ancient city of Darmstadt; a fairly straightforward, successful operation with few losses from the RAF’s point of view & a harrowing taste of hell for the ill-prepared inhabitants who suffered & died in their thousands as the city went up in a firestorm which shocked even returning German troops on leave from the fighting.
I defend & talk up the commitment, capability & courage of the bomber crews whose contribution to the war has consistently been ignored & even condemned because of the nature of what they did in cities like Dresden (& Darmstadt). People sent to war who did their duty can’t really be judged for the war’s existence in the first place or the decisions of their superiors. They deserve recognition & thanks for their bravery, skill, dedication & sacrifice. This book showcases their role with extensive, graphic & sensitive descriptions of their experiences obtained from 1st hand accounts.
I’ve not thought so much about the senior leadership who sent them though & this book makes it clear that although they were often convinced of a particular strategy, they disagreed with one another, were actually stumbling along in the dark, particularly in the early stages of the war & made countless mistakes, especially towards the end. The area bombing campaign went on far too long, was more costly than effective and had no moral justification in any case.
That it was pursued in defiance of express orders eg to divert efforts to destroy oil supply & production & then doggedly defended at the end of, & well after the war by senior RAF commanders, undoubtedly intensified & prolonged the criticism they would likely have had coming anyway.
This book is cohesive, measured, objective & well evidenced & I feel confident it’s ‘filled out� my awareness of the issues surrounding Bomber Command & given greater balance to my otherwise often one-sided perspective.
Here, the political & tactical decision making of Bomber Command is told with full reference to the experience of the aircrew at the sharp end; it’s extensively researched & decisions, missions & outcomes are interpreted intelligently & with proper perspective; it’s a serious book which speaks with authority.
There’s a shocking account of the destruction of the ancient city of Darmstadt; a fairly straightforward, successful operation with few losses from the RAF’s point of view & a harrowing taste of hell for the ill-prepared inhabitants who suffered & died in their thousands as the city went up in a firestorm which shocked even returning German troops on leave from the fighting.
I defend & talk up the commitment, capability & courage of the bomber crews whose contribution to the war has consistently been ignored & even condemned because of the nature of what they did in cities like Dresden (& Darmstadt). People sent to war who did their duty can’t really be judged for the war’s existence in the first place or the decisions of their superiors. They deserve recognition & thanks for their bravery, skill, dedication & sacrifice. This book showcases their role with extensive, graphic & sensitive descriptions of their experiences obtained from 1st hand accounts.
I’ve not thought so much about the senior leadership who sent them though & this book makes it clear that although they were often convinced of a particular strategy, they disagreed with one another, were actually stumbling along in the dark, particularly in the early stages of the war & made countless mistakes, especially towards the end. The area bombing campaign went on far too long, was more costly than effective and had no moral justification in any case.
That it was pursued in defiance of express orders eg to divert efforts to destroy oil supply & production & then doggedly defended at the end of, & well after the war by senior RAF commanders, undoubtedly intensified & prolonged the criticism they would likely have had coming anyway.
This book is cohesive, measured, objective & well evidenced & I feel confident it’s ‘filled out� my awareness of the issues surrounding Bomber Command & given greater balance to my otherwise often one-sided perspective.
March 31, 2022
This book is at its strongest when matching up the experiences of individual crews with the wider strategy, the sections dealing with the morals of area bomber, the opposition and its acceptance by far the weakest. These bits deal with a necessary facet, but simply aren't as interesting as the actual flying and dropping bombs on the Reich.
Hastings certainly makes the point that the results of the early bombing were derisory and probably represented a net loss to Britain in the scheme of things. However, the campaign had to continue as at first it was the only way Britain had of hitting back at Germany, as the army wasn't strong enough and the navy's blockade, whilst useful in the long term, wasn't offensive in itself. In addition to this, it was also relatively cheap in human lives. The 70,000 or so casualties almost pale into insignificance compared to the bloodletting on the eastern front. The bomber offensive thus represented Britain hitting Germany at a time when it could do little elsewhere and preserved the population from huge losses. Given the limited results, it was also something of a public relations triumph that went some way to convincing Stalin that whilst there wasn't going to be a second front any time soon, Britain was actually fighting. It also provided an area where Britain could lead the Americans instead of playing second fiddle. These are points that Hastings enlarges upon in his later book, Chastise.
However, in giving the bomber offensive priority, Churchill created something of a monster. It took the lion's share of resources and left Britain with very little room to shift emphasis later in the war. As a result, the army and navy became Cinderella services, having to make do with the manpower, material and factory space that was left over. Bomber Harris was also a liability. Whilst his will to press on was useful during his early rule (and rule it was) over his command, his resistance to the ideas and directives of others hindered the force from achieving more that was useful.
I found this book an interesting read, even if the actual achievements of Bomber Command were not as useful to the wider war as what they could have been, nor especially edifying when it became clear that wrecking cities in 1945 was more punishment than strategic.
Hastings certainly makes the point that the results of the early bombing were derisory and probably represented a net loss to Britain in the scheme of things. However, the campaign had to continue as at first it was the only way Britain had of hitting back at Germany, as the army wasn't strong enough and the navy's blockade, whilst useful in the long term, wasn't offensive in itself. In addition to this, it was also relatively cheap in human lives. The 70,000 or so casualties almost pale into insignificance compared to the bloodletting on the eastern front. The bomber offensive thus represented Britain hitting Germany at a time when it could do little elsewhere and preserved the population from huge losses. Given the limited results, it was also something of a public relations triumph that went some way to convincing Stalin that whilst there wasn't going to be a second front any time soon, Britain was actually fighting. It also provided an area where Britain could lead the Americans instead of playing second fiddle. These are points that Hastings enlarges upon in his later book, Chastise.
However, in giving the bomber offensive priority, Churchill created something of a monster. It took the lion's share of resources and left Britain with very little room to shift emphasis later in the war. As a result, the army and navy became Cinderella services, having to make do with the manpower, material and factory space that was left over. Bomber Harris was also a liability. Whilst his will to press on was useful during his early rule (and rule it was) over his command, his resistance to the ideas and directives of others hindered the force from achieving more that was useful.
I found this book an interesting read, even if the actual achievements of Bomber Command were not as useful to the wider war as what they could have been, nor especially edifying when it became clear that wrecking cities in 1945 was more punishment than strategic.
May 5, 2023
Bomber Command: Interesting facts intermixed with debating points
I knew that Americans bombed Nazi-controlled Europe by day and Britain bombed Nazi-controlled Europe by night. I knew Britain used radio signals to enable accurate nighttime bombing. But I knew little more than that about the British bombing campaign. And even what I thought I knew wasn’t necessarily accurate. So this book provided lots of additional information and perspective. For example:
[1] After Dunkirk, there were no British land forces in Europe, so bombers were Britain’s only way to take offensive actions against targets within Nazi-controlled Europe and especially within Germany itself. But in the early days of the war, Britain quickly learned that bombers could not attack during the day without suffering massive losses from German’s fighters. Bombing at night had its share of risks, but was clearly nowhere as suicidal as daylight bombing.
[2] Many know that, by 1944, massive British nighttime bombing raids were beginning to devastate Germany’s cities. But in the earlier years (especially, 1939-1941), Britain’s nighttime bombing raids were minimally effective as radio/radar guided bombing was not yet developed, allowing German’s routine blackout practices to be a simple but effective means to frustrate Britain’s nighttime attempts to try and target Germany’s cities and factories.
This book is completely focused on Britain’s Bomber Command and consequently provided more information, historical perspective, personal experiences, tactics and strategy on that subject than any other book I’ve read.
Unfortunately, pervading the whole book is the author’s opinion that Britain’s bombing campaign was mostly ineffective and so drained human and material resources away from other wartime priorities where they could have had a more meaningful impact (e.g., against the U-boats). The book had a fair number of quotes (certainly more than I wanted to see) � and those quotes tended to buttress the author’s opinion. Of course, if you get to pick which quotes to use, your arguments will always appear sound.
Bottom line: Excellent description of the constantly evolving nighttime air war over Germany. But the author’s claims of Bomber Command ineffectiveness suffered by only presenting one side of a debate.
I knew that Americans bombed Nazi-controlled Europe by day and Britain bombed Nazi-controlled Europe by night. I knew Britain used radio signals to enable accurate nighttime bombing. But I knew little more than that about the British bombing campaign. And even what I thought I knew wasn’t necessarily accurate. So this book provided lots of additional information and perspective. For example:
[1] After Dunkirk, there were no British land forces in Europe, so bombers were Britain’s only way to take offensive actions against targets within Nazi-controlled Europe and especially within Germany itself. But in the early days of the war, Britain quickly learned that bombers could not attack during the day without suffering massive losses from German’s fighters. Bombing at night had its share of risks, but was clearly nowhere as suicidal as daylight bombing.
[2] Many know that, by 1944, massive British nighttime bombing raids were beginning to devastate Germany’s cities. But in the earlier years (especially, 1939-1941), Britain’s nighttime bombing raids were minimally effective as radio/radar guided bombing was not yet developed, allowing German’s routine blackout practices to be a simple but effective means to frustrate Britain’s nighttime attempts to try and target Germany’s cities and factories.
This book is completely focused on Britain’s Bomber Command and consequently provided more information, historical perspective, personal experiences, tactics and strategy on that subject than any other book I’ve read.
Unfortunately, pervading the whole book is the author’s opinion that Britain’s bombing campaign was mostly ineffective and so drained human and material resources away from other wartime priorities where they could have had a more meaningful impact (e.g., against the U-boats). The book had a fair number of quotes (certainly more than I wanted to see) � and those quotes tended to buttress the author’s opinion. Of course, if you get to pick which quotes to use, your arguments will always appear sound.
Bottom line: Excellent description of the constantly evolving nighttime air war over Germany. But the author’s claims of Bomber Command ineffectiveness suffered by only presenting one side of a debate.
April 28, 2021
Because I had been reading non-fiction for far too long and wanted instead to lose myself in novels I have had this book on my "to read" list for quite some time. It really is a very well-researched and well written book. I have always been intrigued about World War II and in particular aircraft, and this book covers all the major features and reasons about the myriad events that the RAF bombers were responsible for. This book reveals very much about the internal politics of the decision-making and the conflicts between the major players (Army, Navy, RAF Fighter squadrons and eventually the USA as they were drawn into the war). To bomb only military targets and avoid all citizens, or to destroy cities, irrespective of the military/industrial complexes that may or may not be nearby suburbs, became the dilemma for the politicians.
The life of the men who were flying (this encompasses all the crew members of a bomber) were not considered particularly important by those in authority - it was all about trying to hit targets in Germany, which for the first three years of WW2 were abysmal. Despite the poor outcomes, the British public were fed plenty of publicity and propaganda enhancing Bomber Command and and the operational squadrons. It is often said, "The first thing to be destroyed in war is truth".
More than 75.000 of the bomber aircrew were killed. Until 1942 the RAF had no technology that enabled accurate bombing of targets and no real navigational assistance to locate the targets. The aircraft initially were of old design and unsuitable for the tasks involved which actually required the ability to carry effective weights over a long distance, at high altitudes and speed, plus protection for the crew with enough guns and turrets to defend the aircraft.
It was not until the Lancaster bomber came into service that success was eventually achieved.
A very well described history of the Bomber Command, the resultant bombing and the controversies that evolved over the duration of World War ll.
The life of the men who were flying (this encompasses all the crew members of a bomber) were not considered particularly important by those in authority - it was all about trying to hit targets in Germany, which for the first three years of WW2 were abysmal. Despite the poor outcomes, the British public were fed plenty of publicity and propaganda enhancing Bomber Command and and the operational squadrons. It is often said, "The first thing to be destroyed in war is truth".
More than 75.000 of the bomber aircrew were killed. Until 1942 the RAF had no technology that enabled accurate bombing of targets and no real navigational assistance to locate the targets. The aircraft initially were of old design and unsuitable for the tasks involved which actually required the ability to carry effective weights over a long distance, at high altitudes and speed, plus protection for the crew with enough guns and turrets to defend the aircraft.
It was not until the Lancaster bomber came into service that success was eventually achieved.
A very well described history of the Bomber Command, the resultant bombing and the controversies that evolved over the duration of World War ll.
February 26, 2021
War history is always not easy to time -too early and you get caught up in all the bravado or despair of the result and too late and you lose the stories and experience of those who were involved. In researching and writing this book in the late 1970's, over 30 years from the event, Max Hastings probably got it just right. The personal accounts and memories of the airmen, leaders and civilians both in this country and Germany make this a very readable book and it takes account of the post-war debate about the practice of bombing residentially populated areas. Civilians of whatever nationality have always been the unfortunate innocents of wars but to deliberately target them was and still is a crime -however air commanders every since the Spanish Civil War to more recently in Iraq and Yemen have tried to justify these attacks either to damage the morale of the population or to route out the enemy who hide in built-up areas. History often reveals that all the so-called justification leads to the fact that innocents are killed because they are too easy a target. The fact that Britain (I hate the use of England which is only one part of this country) suffered such heavy losses in maintaining city bombing for most of the second world war showed that at the end of day we are no better at holding our ethics together than those we fight. Although as the writer makes it plain the those that carried it out are not the ones that can be blamed for the strategy that was followed. The fact that Bomber Command was underprepared in the capability to fight a war as were the other services at the start of the war shows how you can easily seep walk into serious conflict. The detail and personalties that have been captured make this a solid and well-written account of a leading part of this country fight for survival and seeing through the conflict however horrid the mess it left behind.
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