Bomber Command

The book was not what i thought it be as a paperback turn up with photos i could not look at so have sold it.went to EBAY and got the Hardback of the book as they had photos that could be seen and made my money back on the rubbish paperback i was sold .

The book is brilliant but I had to return because I had given it in paperback the previous Christmas. The one star is for me. The remaining stars are for thi wonderful readable history.

Here are some of the issues covered in the book:COMMAND STRUCTURES: The RAF was an independent force: much of the motivation of the RAF command was to justify this independence. 'Bomber Harris' believed that 'area bombing' of cities could bring Germany to its knees without ground force intervention. Churchill never accepted this, but the bombing offensive was seen as an answer to Stalin's complaint that there was no second front to ease pressure on Russia. Harris's claims for what his bombing force could achieve were over the top - and in the end damaged his reputation. Harris was isolated in his rural headquarters with a daily office routine. He rarely visited operational stations.MILITARY TECHNOLOGIES. Early bombing raids lacked the navigational ability to hit targets - or even get close. Developments in navigation meant that later raids were more effective but accurate bombing was always a problem. Harris thought that area bombing was the best solution - even to the extent of ignoring orders to bomb specific targets - such as industries, rail junctions and oil.BOMBING RESULTS. Intelligence estimates of bombing damage were wildly optimistic. Industries that were damaged recovered quite quickly, and production remained resilient almost until the very end of the war. However, Albert Speer - in charge of German war production - said that if the (mostly) American bombers had continued to hit his oil plants this could have brought total collapse. Harris only bombed oil targets reluctantly, when ordered to do so.PERSONALITIES OF LEADERS. Harris was very strong-headed. Portal, his immediate superior, was perhaps too weak to curtail area bombing. By spring 1945 German resistance was over but Harris still thought it best to continue area bombing - rather, he explained, than have his crews stand idle. Hastings writes: 'The obliteration of German cities in the spring of 1945, when all strategic justification had vanished, is a lasting blot on the Allied conduct of the war and on the judgement of senior Allied airmen'. For Harris area bombing was an obsession.HUMAN SACRIFICE. Area bombing meant huge numbers of civilian deaths - which raised serious moral issues. Of course Hitler - as shown by his V1 and V2 rockets - would not have hesitated to have inflicted as much physical and moral damage as he could to achieve his aims. But the moral argument is that we need not have Sunk to these depths, certainly once victory was in sight. Aircrews also suffered badly. When losses of aircraft on operations were greater than about 4% (which they usually were) these meant that, statistically, no flyer could complete a tour of, say, thirty operations and live.SUMMARY: this book is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the 2nd World War, and probably more importantly, for its implications for the practicalities and moralities of any future conflicts. I was totally absorbed.

This is a very good account of.Bomber Command in the war, and as with all.Max Hastings' books you learn a whole load that you didn't know, even if you thought you knew the period.well. Catastrophe was superb in that regard.I withhold one star because I thought the book concentrated overly on the mass of heavy bombers and on the moral question of area bombing. I.would have liked to hear about possible.alternatives. e.g. a massive expansion of the mosquito program or.the elite bomber units.Hastings' thesis is that the heavy bomber campaign was an.incredibly expensive war of.attrition which did not hurt the Germans mortally. But at that it was preferable.to other campaigns of.attrition which would have cost much more.in lives. Whatever Churchill had decided to.pour his industrial and technical effort into, the Germans would have responded and some kind of attrition would have ensued. They weren't going to give in.As for.the moral.element, the question answers itself. The Japanese on Chungking and then the Germans began the war of area.bombing. The Americans finished it, killing 84000 in.a single raid.on.Tokyo, before.we.consider.the A bombs. One of.the unspoken reasons for the area bombing campaign against Germany was that the Brits knew the Blitz had pushed civilian.morale to.the brink. After 71 consecutive nights of.raids on london, in 1940/41 and absolutely barbaric behaviour of the Germans in Occupied Europe, why on earth should London forbear to "dish it out"?Another I interesting point of.Hastings is that rationing and the way of.life in Germany was relatively normal compared.to the uk. The UK aS at full stretch while.the Germans.had it easy. Why? Hastings does.not answer.this, but the truth is that the Nazis were a plundering force,looting from all those countries and importing millions as slave workers. This makes a difference. Were the RAF to hit every productive factory in Europe? Or were.they to.punish the complacent Germans, all of.whose wArs since 1870 had been fought at the expense of.other nations, on other people's fields and towns.and cities?This.is.a greAt book though. I heartily recommend.

An excellent and in depth assessment of the problems faced by the the Command. How it tried to fight back with the only resource we had at that time in1940 41. With totally inadequate aircraft and indecision from the top. Young airman tried to find and bomb targets with little success and much loss of lifeTrying to find military targets was virtually impossible and we tried to then break the moral of the German people as they had done here by area bombing. Both Churchill and Harris were agreed on this line of offence against the enemy.55,000 aircrew lost their lives carrying out these attacks. Sadly they were not even mentioned by Churchill in his victory speech. All he could talk about was the Battle of Britain! They never even got a medal for trying to carry out an impossible task He had ordered. Bomber Command and the brave men who flew those missions were castigated by the young who never lived through that conflict. Those brave very young men died for nothing doing what they were ordered to do. The anger of those who know no better should be turned on Churchill not the young men who did what he alone ordered. As. Harris said " They (Germany) sowed the wind and they reaped the whirlwind"A fine book and I recommend it especially to the present generation.

I got this book because my father was part of 619 squadron. , I am learning a lot of what the war was like for him.