Economist book review - The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945
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Economist book review - The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945
Some interesting statistics in this article.
The article misses a point mentioned in one of the comments: "Not bombing German cities during WWII would have provided a gift worth many 10's of millions of man hours of industrial production and scientific research & development".
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21586520-damning-verdict-bombing-campaign-europe-during-second-world-war-costly
The article misses a point mentioned in one of the comments: "Not bombing German cities during WWII would have provided a gift worth many 10's of millions of man hours of industrial production and scientific research & development".
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21586520-damning-verdict-bombing-campaign-europe-during-second-world-war-costly
Your link isn't working OP. Googling comes up with this:-
Strategic bombing, 1939-45: A costly, brutal failure | The Economist
hope that works. As to the theme, same old same old. It seems that the book that will make the money is the one that says "Bombing Campaign 1939-1945 was essential to winning the war". That would require fresh thinking though, so more likely we'll have even more safe bets like this one.
Strategic bombing, 1939-45: A costly, brutal failure | The Economist
hope that works. As to the theme, same old same old. It seems that the book that will make the money is the one that says "Bombing Campaign 1939-1945 was essential to winning the war". That would require fresh thinking though, so more likely we'll have even more safe bets like this one.
Well count me in for fresh-thinking. The "costly, brutal strategic air war 1939-45" was essential for winning the Second World War and, that was not just in Europe. Thank God we fought Total War in that one.
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Thank heavens we are free to speculate about whether or not saturation bombing worked.
Over 50,000 Bomber Command men died as part of the price of buying us that freedom.
Over 50,000 Bomber Command men died as part of the price of buying us that freedom.
Interesting comment that today we use precision bombing to avoid civilians and collateral damage while WW2 was saturation bombing. I guess we're also now not engaged in total warfare against adversaries that would smash us if they had the wherewithal. The author does not remember Coventry, Rotterdam or Warsaw either!
This revisionist shiiiiiite only serves to poison the history and not truly analyse it. As previously stated comparing today's standards in almost everything vs. yesteryear is purely academic and a waste of oxygen....
This revisionist shiiiiiite only serves to poison the history and not truly analyse it. As previously stated comparing today's standards in almost everything vs. yesteryear is purely academic and a waste of oxygen....
Shan't buy that, then!
Quote: As previously stated comparing today's standards in almost everything vs. yesteryear is purely academic and a waste of oxygen....
Two points
1. I think it was ever thus, no doubt the Georgians whinged about the good old days. And the Victorians.
2. Surely most of us associate with "people like us" who understand "what really matters" and, apart from looking over our specs and saying harrumph! and I say! are to a good degree insulated from the oicks, revisionists, nay-sayers and slobs?
I read in Sunday's D Tel that I should not start to eat until everyone is served, and not to put elbows on the table. I really needed that, but then I don't dine with folk who need that advice.
All the above is a bit tongue in cheek, but all true I believe.
Quote: As previously stated comparing today's standards in almost everything vs. yesteryear is purely academic and a waste of oxygen....
Two points
1. I think it was ever thus, no doubt the Georgians whinged about the good old days. And the Victorians.
2. Surely most of us associate with "people like us" who understand "what really matters" and, apart from looking over our specs and saying harrumph! and I say! are to a good degree insulated from the oicks, revisionists, nay-sayers and slobs?
I read in Sunday's D Tel that I should not start to eat until everyone is served, and not to put elbows on the table. I really needed that, but then I don't dine with folk who need that advice.
All the above is a bit tongue in cheek, but all true I believe.
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Yet when war broke out in 1939 no air force was capable of such devastation. Nor did the general staffs of the main protagonists have plans to use what passed for heavy bombers at the time to carry out such attacks, seeing them as adjuncts to ground warfare rather than forces intended for independent operation.
It certainly won't be on my shopping list.
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Albert Speer reckoned the Air Defence operation it was costing Germany badly by 1944 - before that maybe not so bad but the diversion of manpower and resources started to hurt big time in the last 2 years of the war
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Alber Speer discussed the bombing of Hamburg when he was interrogated in July 1945....
"We were of the opinion that a rapid repetition of this type of attack upon another six German towns would inevitably cripple the will to sustain armament manufacture and war production. It was I who first verbally reported to the Fuehrer at that time that a continuation of these attacks might bring about a rapid end to the war."
I think there may be a problem here, in that having read Professor Overy's other works (see How the Allies Won, for instance) and heard him speak, I get the feeling that the reviewer has either failed to capture all the nuances of the argument, or has read the book as confirming his/her opinions on the bomber offensive...
How the Allies Won talks about the contribution made by the bombing offensive to victory, and Overy is - IIRC - credited by Adam Tooze (an economic historian who gives the bomber offensive credit for hampering the German war economy in his book) as helping him get to the right sort of answers about the effect of bombing.
Overy has been going through the archives since the papers became available and has spoken to an awful lot of veterans. I gather that Overy has gone through the surviving papers from the German side as well, which is more than many historians of the bomber offensive have done. He's certainly aware of what Speer had to say (he may even have interviewed him about it as well, if memory serves).
Overy certainly wouldn't have made the mistake of referring to the Air Staff as the General Staff for a start, and given that the review is decidedly egalitarian in stripping him of his Professorship, I think I might be prepared to give him a chance on this - even if it is to give a library copy a read to work out whether I'll be going to the well-known riverine purveyor of books to get my own copy. But to dismiss the book on the strength of a review in the Economist seems a bit harsh, to be frank...
How the Allies Won talks about the contribution made by the bombing offensive to victory, and Overy is - IIRC - credited by Adam Tooze (an economic historian who gives the bomber offensive credit for hampering the German war economy in his book) as helping him get to the right sort of answers about the effect of bombing.
Overy has been going through the archives since the papers became available and has spoken to an awful lot of veterans. I gather that Overy has gone through the surviving papers from the German side as well, which is more than many historians of the bomber offensive have done. He's certainly aware of what Speer had to say (he may even have interviewed him about it as well, if memory serves).
Overy certainly wouldn't have made the mistake of referring to the Air Staff as the General Staff for a start, and given that the review is decidedly egalitarian in stripping him of his Professorship, I think I might be prepared to give him a chance on this - even if it is to give a library copy a read to work out whether I'll be going to the well-known riverine purveyor of books to get my own copy. But to dismiss the book on the strength of a review in the Economist seems a bit harsh, to be frank...
Last edited by Archimedes; 24th Sep 2013 at 16:56.
Coming close on the heels of yet another assertion that The Battle of Britain was a non event (can't get a source for that but listened to it on BBC Radio 4 ) I think its about time that far from receiving new clasps, all RAF WW2 survivors should be requested to return their campaign medals forthwith, as they were all quite obviously wasting their time 
I suspect that the review is wanting.
I would hope at least that the book makes note of the effort expended in defending against bombing raids, and to what extent that facilitated the achievement of tactical air superiority in support of ground forces.
You're also playing a game of "what if?" if you try to make a general argument that strategic bombing was ineffective. An undisturbed German industry - not forced to disperse production, put things underground or build guns and fighters to defend the Reich - would have been able to produce more submarines or long-range missiles. How many, and what difference would it have made?
I would hope at least that the book makes note of the effort expended in defending against bombing raids, and to what extent that facilitated the achievement of tactical air superiority in support of ground forces.
You're also playing a game of "what if?" if you try to make a general argument that strategic bombing was ineffective. An undisturbed German industry - not forced to disperse production, put things underground or build guns and fighters to defend the Reich - would have been able to produce more submarines or long-range missiles. How many, and what difference would it have made?
To be honest the whole of the Second World War was a costly brutal affair, but it and the Strategic Bombing campaign were a necessity. My family never recovered from losing members in the Blitz or from losing my Great Uncle on ops with Bomber Command. I went to Keil last December to his grave on the 70th anniversary of his and his crews death. I met one of the local cemetery keepers, who told me that local children were compiling information on the young airmen there, to learn more about them and how they had fought to defeat Hitler. The cemetery houses a good number of Bomber Command dead. What they did at the time was to carry out the official policy of the British Government, they were not lucky enough to be able to use hindsight and decide whether it was a costly and brutal affair. Although I would guess they knew it was definitely brutal.
Last edited by rolling20; 24th Sep 2013 at 19:31.
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Originally Posted by Archimedes
Overy certainly wouldn't have made the mistake of referring to the Air Staff as the General Staff for a start,
OK, the review might be grossly unfair and inaccurate but I won't be buying it to find out.
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Thread drift, but this is probably the place to get an answer.
I was watching The History Channel, when there was made the bald statement that; 'The B-17 dropped one third of all the bombs of WWII'.
This was not justified at all, and seeing as how late the B-17 was brought into the European theatre and how well know it was for its poor bomb load, can anyone confirm, justify or repudiate this?
Maybe because it carried many 'teeny weenie bombs' compared to the rather large items that a/c such as the Lancaster carried.
WRT the Pacific theatre, surely the B-29 carried much more than the B-17?
Just asking.
I was watching The History Channel, when there was made the bald statement that; 'The B-17 dropped one third of all the bombs of WWII'.
This was not justified at all, and seeing as how late the B-17 was brought into the European theatre and how well know it was for its poor bomb load, can anyone confirm, justify or repudiate this?
Maybe because it carried many 'teeny weenie bombs' compared to the rather large items that a/c such as the Lancaster carried.
WRT the Pacific theatre, surely the B-29 carried much more than the B-17?
Just asking.
I've not got around to reading Richard Overy's latest tome, but if it is true to form, it will be an extremely well researched effort. The immediate Post War US Strategic BombingSurvey was pretty conclusive in it’s findings (sadly the UK could only afford a very small team of researchers to take part in this massive study) about the efficacy of the Combined Bomber Offensive; Speer and Goering, inter alia, spoke at length of the massive disruption to the war effort brought about by CBO. * Overy’s Interrogations contains some useful quotes from the Nuremburg investigations and trials that support these assertions. ‘Bomber’Harris himself quotes Speer in Bomber Offensive, along with the rather interesting observation that when the Allies successfully bombed the Reichsluftministerieaircraft procurement division in an effort to disrupt the administration ofcontracts, productivity rose, counterintuitively!
I think that all researchers accept that to defend the Reich from the CBO drew in massive resources – manpower, materiel - otherwise that could have beendeploy in support of the land forces. Bylate 1943, work on most offensive air systems – with the exception of the V1and V2 – had stopped and almost all aircraft production was directed towardsdefensive fighters. Arguably, then, the CBO effectively stopped Nazi Germany developing a strategic bomber force. The designs were there, but none were put into volume production. Furthermore, because of the disruption to transportation,fuel distribution and aircraft materials, the RLM would have struggled to have produced bombers in any significant numbers.
However, the reviewer does mention the massive economic impact theBritish-led bomber offensive had on the UK economy, and little has been written about this, at least not in recent years. If I recall correctly (as I don’t have the AP athand), by early 1943 one third of the construction industry – equipment andworkers – were employed building or lengthening bomber airfields in the UK, andit was consuming 10% of the war-fighting budget. This led to already acute manpower shortages in other areas – amongst the fighting services, emergency services and in the wider economy. To sense an extent of the resources consumed, the Air Ministry – on behalf of the RAF and the USAAF – was accepting a bomber airfield into service every three days, for three years. Additionally, at any one time, c 50% of airfields were being upgraded (sealed runways, increased hangarage &c).
I don’t recall seeing any work speculating on how these resources could havebetter used, but it might make an interesting ACSC Research Paper..
* As it was conducted by the USAAF, it would say that, of course.
Last edited by Whenurhappy; 26th Sep 2013 at 14:58.
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the US Strategic Bombing Survey wasn't exactly an unbiased piece of research - a couple of years after the war no-one was going to pick holes in what had been a vast effort costing zillions and the lives of so many brave men
later research has shown that Speer was pretty much correct - up until 1944 it was an irritant - after that it started to make a difference but, TBH the Red Army would have got to Berlin anyway by 1946 at the latest
later research has shown that Speer was pretty much correct - up until 1944 it was an irritant - after that it started to make a difference but, TBH the Red Army would have got to Berlin anyway by 1946 at the latest
HH - hence my asterisk comment at the bottom of my post!
Red Army to Berlin - probably. Allies out of France? without the Transportation plan, possibly not. Result? The whole of Europe under Soviet control...
Although synthetic fuel production peak in c Jul 1944, from Aug 1943, a huge amount of hiitherto 'soft' factories had to disperse after the Schweinfurt and Augsburg raids; moreover a belated attempt was then made to put armaments production on to a war footing (but not using women munitions workers, well, at least not german women munitions workers).
Red Army to Berlin - probably. Allies out of France? without the Transportation plan, possibly not. Result? The whole of Europe under Soviet control...
Although synthetic fuel production peak in c Jul 1944, from Aug 1943, a huge amount of hiitherto 'soft' factories had to disperse after the Schweinfurt and Augsburg raids; moreover a belated attempt was then made to put armaments production on to a war footing (but not using women munitions workers, well, at least not german women munitions workers).
Last edited by Whenurhappy; 26th Sep 2013 at 17:52.
later research has shown that Speer was pretty much correct - up until 1944 it was an irritant - after that it started to make a difference but, TBH the Red Army would have got to Berlin anyway by 1946 at the latest
That is debatable, and even if they did, at what cost? The Soviet Air Force was heavily biased towards support for the Red Army, with very little in the way of long range strategic bombers or maritime aircraft. Thus the Soviet war effort was greatly supported by the RAF/USAAF bombing of Germany without which they would have met with much stiffer resistance in the areas of men and materials. The Soviet Air Force played little or no part in the strategic bombing campaign, certainly after the very early months of their participation in the war. Nor did they provide much in the way of air support for the Arctic convoys which were bringing essential supplies to them - they had no equivalent of the FW Condor, the Catalina or the longe range Wellingtons operated by Coastal Command and could offer nothing in the way of air cover for the convoys until they were virtually in sight of the Russian ports.
There has often been a tendency (not least amongst the Russians themselves) to see WW2 as a titanic struggle between the forces of Soviet communism and German fascism, with all other participants merely a sideshow, but the Soviet struggle was facilitated to a very great extent by the efforts and sacrifices of the air forces (and navies) of the West.