RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War: The Hardest Victory [Paperback]

Denis Richards (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0141390964 | ISBN-13: 978-0141390963 | Publication Date: November 2001

The work of the RAF bomber command has come under fire from a whole generation of historians since the 1960s. They claim that the RAF offensive against Germany was immoral because so many civilians were killed, and wasteful because so many attacks were not on specific military targets. In this book, Denis Richards, co-author of the official history of the RAF 1939-1945, describes the difficulties and failures, but redresses the balance by making clear the magnitude of Bomber Command's achievements. His account provides a revised interpretation of the battle fought virtually every night for almost five and a half years, in which over half the aircrew became casualties. Truly, it was "the hardest victory".

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A masterpiece.” -- Sir Michael Beetham, Marshall of the Royal Air Force

From the Publisher

“The Fighters are our salvation, but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory.” While Winston Churchill acknowledged the vital contribution of the RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War, it has recently come under fire from a whole generation of historians. They claim that the RAF offensive against Germany was immoral because so many civilians were killed, and wasteful because so many attacks were not on specific military targets. In this powerful book, first published in 1995, Denis Richards describes the Command’s difficulties and failures, but also redresses the balance by making clear the magnitude of its achievements. A superb work of military history and required reading for anyone with an interest in World War II.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Penguin UK (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141390964
• ISBN-13: 978-0141390963
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,563,789 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A patriotic and insightful view, November 14, 2006

By 

SuperSchtroumpf (Lyon, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War: The Hardest Victory (Paperback)

If you were only to read this book, you would get a very twisted view of the RAF bomber offensive against Germany. This book suggests that by the end of the war Bomber Command had perfected its techniques and were able to accurately bomb specific targets, in large part thanks to ground-terrain radar. The book goes so far as to claim that Bomber Command accuracy was greater than 8th Air Force's target accuracy.

However, this book does succeed in demonstrating British Bomber's heroism (such as a crewman crawling out onto a wing during flight to put out an engine fire); and it also discusses the evolution of Bomber Command tactics and strategy.

Martin Middlebrook's books, however, are collectively more detailed (Nuremberg Raid, Battle of Berlin, Battle of Hamburg, etc.) and much more insightful.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent General History, July 4, 2007

By 

D. Ury - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War: The Hardest Victory (Paperback)

Denis Richards is an excellent writer and he has written an excellent one-volume history of Bomber Command. I have read many histories of the USAAF and RAF Bomber offensive and all refer to aircraft losses as a percentage, it is not a lack of moral fiber at all. There were different views between the British and the Americans on the best way to conduct the war and this book is excellent for discussing the viewpoint of the British.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Excellent storytelling, devoid of analysis, January 6, 2005

By 

Samuel Martinsson (Helsinki) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War: The Hardest Victory (Paperback)

Richards is a truly magnificent writer, to the extent that he manages to hide his lack of analysis by his lively accounts of nightly raids into Germany. This book is a sortie-by-sortie account of the most important raids the RAF Bomber Command undertook. In fact, this book would be more aptly entitled: "RAF Bomber command pilots, navigators and bomb aimers above enemy occupied Europe". It does not mention machine gunners, it does not tell what happened to crews that were shot down, whether dead or POW; it is silent about the crashes at home bases when tired and wounded pilots tried to take their planes down; neither does it tell about life at their home bases or about the ground crews (according to T.W. Körner it "required 170 man hours by maintenance staff and other personnel to produce one hour's operational flying"); it ignores training of pilots; it does not consider the huge economic burden of building heavy bombers.

Richards shows considerable lack of moral fibre when it comes to RAF losses: he tries to hide the heavy losses. It is amazing that such taboos exist 50 years after the fact. Losses are counted as percentage of planes sent, not as lives of airmen. Only a few heroic deaths (post-humous Victoria cross cases) are told. Over 50% of airmen serving in Bomber command lost their lives in the war, making it second to U-boots only in casualties. There is ample evidence, both anecdotal (in Neillands' book) and statistical (as recollected in Freeman Dyson's book Disturbing the Universe) that Lancasters (and B24 Liberators) were deathtraps for their crews, with maybe 20% surviving, vs. 50% chances for Halifax and B17 crews. Obviously the RAF couldn't do much about the German flak and night fighters, but the 30% difference seems to have been a design flaw in Lancaster escape hatches, according to Dyson, who served as a statitician at Bomber Command.

Richards does not tell anything about the 8th USAAF, which fought side by side with the British. He does not even hint at the American contribution, which was greater than the British from summer 1944 onwards. Maybe it is then only honest that Richards explicitly tells us that he does not try to analyse the role of bombings in bringing Germany to surrender. But just imagine a book about Normandy landing that would claim that it does not even to try to evalute the role of the landing in the course of the war !

This book is a thinly disguised remake of Arthur Harris's 1947 memoirs "Bomber Offensive". The selection of topics, and even more revealingly, the omission of topics, is identical to Harris, and, for example, if Harris says the heavy bombers were the best instrument for war, Richards accepts that at face value. Because Harris was not interested in analysing the results of bombings, neither is Richards. Harris's book is well written personal account, and it is a much more honest description of bomber war than Richards's pseudo-history.