Bomber War [Paperback]

Robin Neillands (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 2004

Robin Neillands' studies every aspect of the airborne fight against Germany in WW2. He looks at: the strengths and fundamental flaws in doctrine; the technical difficulties and developments; and the day-by-day, night-by-night endurance of the crews, flying to the limit in discomfort and danger. The book includes oral history in the shape of personal accounts not only of the British but of Americans, Australians, Canadians and other Allied fliers, and also of German aircrews and civilians.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A pleasure to read. As well as a tour d'horizon, it's a tour de force' -- British Army Review 20041101 'Rarely has oral history been put to better use' -- Blake Morrison, Independent on Sunday 'An engrossing study of the first 30 years of strategic air forces ! Neillands has made a valuable contribution to the history of air warfare' -- Sunday Telegraph 'In a crystal clear and reasoned way, this book counters some of the claptrap uttered about this aspect of the Second World War. It is also a compelling and very moving account of how thousands of British, Commonwealth and American aircrew sallied forth to attack Hitler's Reich' -- Major General Julian Thompson

About the Author

Robin Neillands is 'one of Britain's most readable military historians' (Birmingham Post) and the author of several widely acclaimed books on the First and Second World Wars, including The Battle of Normandy, 1944; The Great War Generals on the Western Front, Eight Army and The Conquest of the Reich. He lives in Wiltshire.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: John Murray (June 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0719562414
• ISBN-13: 978-0719562419
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,158,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars insteresting information but lamentable book structure, March 17, 2004

By 

Bertrand Mueller (Geneva Suisse) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bomber War (Paperback)

Being a pilot myself and interested by WWII, I naturally bought this book. The author surely made an extensive research on the subject but I found the book pretty labourious to read. He constantly repeats himself, he often mentions that he will talk about a subject later in the book, and, worse, the chronology is not always respected: sometimes we go backwards two years, so it is hard to understand the evolution of the bomber war.

The description of the various electronic aids (Gee, H2S, Freya...) shows that the author hardly understands what he is talking about, although the aids were key to the precision of the bombings.

In terms of organisation, a chart showing the structure of the bomber command with the various groups and squadrons would have saved pages of blabla. A map of Europe, UK with airfields (I doubt that readers can figure out where a countryside airfield in UK can be located), and Germany with the main cities would have helped, as well as a concise list of the missions, given the fact that the author doesn't follow a chronological order.

All in all, I found very deceptive that a good base of information is so badly organized, as if the book were not finished. The author could have done a much better job with at least 100 pages less. Simply put, the author didn't put himself in the reader's shoes.

On the positive side, personnal stories give a more lively account rather than dry statictics. The fact that the author could get testimony of so many people directly involved in the war more than 50 years after its end is remarkable: this will be hardly feasible in 10 years.

Also remarkable is the fact that the author crosschecked information between allied and German sources, and we are amazed by the descrepancies about the real damages (target destroyed and planes shot down).

I won't enter the polemic of who (RAF or USAAF) did the best job or had a leading role, I think the book is pretty well balanced in that respect. There will always be people on one side or the other but all in all the book presents the contribution of everyone (US, UK, Canadians, Australians...), and behind nationalities there were just humans fighting for liberty.

The book also deals pretty well with the fact that the more the war advances the more you don't feel bad about using terror weapons. It is an infernal spiral where human beings die in horrible conditions and cultural heritage is devastated and gone for ever. Bombing is not a computer game where you are happy with a good score, bombing generates wounds and death of innocents, and behind each human killed there are family members and friends grieving. Let's not forget it

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Concise history of British and American bomber war, January 6, 2005

By 

Samuel Martinsson (Helsinki) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bomber War (Hardcover)

This is a balanced account of Allied bomber war. Both RAF and USAAF contribution is considered. It rightly concentrates on Germany, because the pre-war doctrines of strategic bombing were put to practise above Germany. This concentration lets him to condense the war to manageable 400 pages, while including many reminisences by those involved: both commanders, pilots, navigators and gunners, and he also lets German fighter pilots and flak gunners as well as bombed civilians to speak.

Neillands tries to understand the bombing effectiveness, unlike Harris, who preffered to bomb cities because they were large enough targets to hit with lousy navigation aids. Neillands spends a lot of time discussing morality of area bombings, but very little on alternative ways of fighting the war: heavy bombers are accepted as the main fighting vehicle of bomber war and no alternatives are considered or cost-benefit analyses tried. Yet USAAF 10% losses per mission (which translates to 12% chances of surving 20 mission tour of duty) and even the 4% RAF losses (with 30% chance of finishing 30 missions) should have made somebody think about alternatives (like Mosquito "light" bomber which could carry the same bomb load as the B-17 "heavy" bomber, but with 0.2% loss rate).

Neillands has the tendency to repeat selected topics so many times as to drive the reader furious. His favourites: 88 mm flak gun was an excellent anti-tank weapon; bombing accuracy in cloud-covered Europe under enemy fire is worse than in training bombing in sunny Texas; losses are prohibitive in daylight bombing without fighter escort. These comments and many others appear 5-10 times in the book. 50 pages could have easily been culled by removing repetition.

On page 387 Neillands commits a statistical fraud when discussing losses: assumably he tries to soften the allied losses by quoting side by side the Luftwaffe fighter command losses. These two, however, have very little to do with each other: Bomber command and the 8th USAAF were minor contributors to German fighter losses, compared with the Eastern front. Early in the bomber offensive Germans lost one fighter for two heavy bombers, which in economic terms was a bargain: two shot down fighter pilots who could often parachute to safety of fatherland, vs. 20 airmen who either died (only 20% survived, based on Neillands's scattered statistics on the topic), or were captured and imprisoned. 8 aircraft engines destroyed against two. Towards the end of the war the situation developed into parity: one fighter for one bomber.

Neillands spends a lot of time speculating whether bombers could have won the war without ground forces, and he believes that Harris and Arnold could have done it. But then, on page 396, he refutes his own argument: "Germany was still fighting in 1945, and fighting hard." which means that the infantry had to invade Germany to end the war, and the "bomber dream" of winning the war from the air was just a dream.

Despite these deficiencies and shortcomings Neillands's book is clearly the book of choice on bomber war. It may be complemented by Arthus Harris's memoirs "Bomber Offensive". A book to be avoided at all cost is Denis Richards's RAF Bomber Command.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Allied Strategic Bombing in WWII-with all the Warts on!, June 13, 2007

By 

Vince Murphy "Murph" (Lincoln, NE, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bomber War (Paperback)

Prof. Neillands does an excellent job setting the props, introducing the actors and explaining the plot of that incredibly tragic drama which was Allied strategic bombing in World War II. If there are compliments to be rendered or blame to be assessed he doesn't shirk at the task. Rich in data yet compelling in pace, Prof. Neillands kept my interest at a level I seldom reach with nonfiction.

There are those who will still castigate him for his defense of Air Marshal Harris. Having been in the military myself, I understand the limitations of command. As far as bombing Dresden is concerned, there is very little doublt but that Harris and Spaatz were following orders. Therefore, the blame must rest higher.

All in all, I would place this in the top ten of all WWII nonfiction I have ever read. If you have a choice of books on the Strategic Bombing Offensive, please consider the late Robin Neilland's book first.