The Bombing War

[Tom Beshear]

Our military STILL has too high an opinion of bombing to force compliance, demoralise an opponent, etc.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Monte Davis 
  To: 'rich' ; pynchon-l at waste.org 
  Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2013 11:28 AM
  Subject: RE: The Bombing War


  The Overy book is the best wrap-up to date of what has gradually become accepted among historians since we (and the UK) got over our Twelve O'Clock High: that "strategic" bombing of Germany simply didn't make much difference to the war, and was pursued mostly because (1) interwar doctrine had grotesquely exaggerated how accurate and effective it would be, (2) the UK and US had already invested in large heavy-bomber forces, and (3) there was no other way of striking directly at Germany from the summer of 1940 to the winter of 1945, and it was thought psychologically/politically necessary to be doing something.

   

  The same factors were at work in Germany's use of the  V1 and V2, once its armies were in retreat and its remaining aircraft were defending them or the  homeland. And of course, once you accept that Allied bombing of Germany was as much "terror bombing" as Guernica or Rotterdam or the Blitz or Stalingrad had been (simply because none of them were accurate enough to be anything else), the V-weapons of 1944-45 are still new and scary - but basically more of the same, at least until their technological descendants get nuclear warheads..

   

  The reviewer notes the roots in British colonial campaigns. Given more recent events, it's good snarky fun to recall Secretary for War Churchill championing bombing of Iraqi rebels in 1920 (and recommending poison gas). In  fact, though, the experience of the static, bloody Western Front in WWI - and the desire not to repeat it -- was much more important. The Germans emphasized fast-moving armor and tactical air to win before trench lines could solidify, while the UK (and to some extent the US) hoped to "leap over" battlefronts and knock out the factories and transport that supplied the armies.

   

   

  From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of rich
  Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2013 9:49 AM
  To: "pynchon-l at waste.org"
  Subject: The Bombing War

   

  Richard Over's new book, a door-stopper about the air campaign in the second world war has been getting rave reviews. could shed some insight on things Pynchon

  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/27/bombing-war-europe-richard-overy-review

  If the blitz was the first independent strategic bombing offensive, it was followed soon by a much larger offensive on the part of the British, where, exceptionally, military doctrine favoured the independent use of bombers. The strategy was developed following attempts to suppress colonial uprisings, where long distances and poor communications had made it difficult to deploy ground forces effectively. Bomber Command, above all under Arthur Harris, became, in Overy's words, a "sorceror's apprentice", whose activities eventually far outran the control of its political masters.
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