Bomber Command (Pan Grand Strategy) Paperback – November 1, 1999

To start off Max Hastings is an excellent historian. Hastings picks very interesting anecdotes/events to explain various situations or concepts. His descriptions of individuals are so well written he can go toe to toe with any great novelist. Here is an example: “.......Bill Staton. A huge, burly rhino of a man, still indecently fit at forty-two, he had flown Bristol Fighters with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, became an ace and won the Military Cross, and still bore the great scar across his head where a chair was broken over it at a mess party in 1917. Everything about Staton was larger than life. The squadron called him 'King Kong' because of his size. He was destined for a brewer's engineer if the First World War had not intervened, but for more than twenty years now the RAF had been his life, and he threw himself into it heart and soul.” This is just a sample about Staton – there were several riveting stories about Staton the man who was the CO of 10 Squadron.

In telling the story of Bomber Command, Hastings gathered wonderfully detailed information on 6 Bomber Squadrons that served at different stages of the war so you can understand what were the various challenges, how were they solved if at all, what airplanes did they have and what was good or bad about them. For most of the war it was a challenge to get to the targeted city. If there was lots of cloud cover, even at the end of the war those targets were canceled for another day.

But the books major theme was did Bomber Command contribute in defeating Nazi Germany. Was it the correct decision to dedicating such a great portion of Britains industrial capacity to building bombers versus different military equipment. The crux was – how were the bombers going to be used. It was decided that by bombing German cities, and terrorizing the civilians to such a point that they rise up against their government and force them to end the war. It was called 'area bombing' and that is what Bomber Command pursued to the great annoyance of the British Navy and Army. The last 3 years of the war the C-C of Bomber Command was Arthur Harris, and he fervently believed that he could bring Germany to it's knees through terror bombing. He resisted successfully from cooperating with the USAAF approach of strategic bombing. For example the Allies had the 'oil plan' – bomb Germany's oil producing facilities – it was an excellent idea and the bombing had a great impact on Germany's oil output – they had fighter aircraft, tanks, tucks but not enough fuel to train new crews adequately or even use them in the field. Harris used every trick he had up his sleeve to avoid sending his bombers after oil production facilities, because he was determined to continue his policy of area bombing of German cities.

Interesting fact I was not aware of: In the first few months of 1944 the Luftwaffe night fighters almost wiped out Bomber Command – then the P-51 Mustang showed up in force around spring and in the summer of 1944 basically killed all the experienced German pilots. From the end of summer 1944 Bomber Command and USAAF could bomb any place in Germany without much worries of resistance. One of the assignments for years to bombing strategy was to wipe out German airplane manufacturing – it did not. The Germans had more planes than pilots. The P-51 (a fighter not a bomber) took care of the Luftwaffe.

Fascinating book, that is a page turner, analyzing if the way bombers were used correct, was it correct to allocate such huge resources from the highly trained aircrews to building the bombers.

I love Max's work, they make great audiobooks for times when I will have long periods of down time. They are always well researched and provide interesting small stories that are not commonly known. This book is like all of his other books that I have listened to this one is fascinating and highly enjoyable. It provided a great look in to the lives and operations surrounding the air force. One of my favorite little remarks is about the pilot with the nickname "cheese". Overall, if this kind of book is your thing, I highly recommend Bomber Command.

As I alluded to earlier, I got the MP3 CD version of this book because I prefer to listen to books. The MP3 CD was very easy to copy on to my computer to put on my phone.

It is easy to see why this is a classic text. Hastings writes well and easily, never getting bogged down in the detail, but still conveying the complexity. He traces the development of Bomber Command from the peacetime assumptions, through the rude shocks of trying to wage war and then to the professionalism of the later stages of the war. His collected anecdotes give an individual "face" to what was actually happening in the air, and he keeps a very keen eye on the human cost of the effort, never allowing "the brass" off the hook. I enjoyed reading it very much and feel I know much more than when I opened the book.

A well written account of the strategic bombing war in WWll written from a British perspective. The account gives one a picture of the sacrifices and hardships that the bomber crews endured at a great cost in lives and with the crews operating under horrendous circumstances for little strategic gain. This changed in 1944 once the Luftwaffe was largely vanquished. It is also a story of large egos and what can happen when reputation outstripped reality and when heroes are perpetuated without substance. In this largely fact based story the real heroes are the thousands of bomber crews that night after night whitened their knuckles, swallowed their fears and bravely manned those angels of death over Germany. We are very grateful they did.

This is one of the finest histories I've ever seen of a critical aspect of World War Two. Was the RAF's policy of night area bombing more or less effective than the "precision daylight" strategy advocated (but not always followed) by the USAAF? Was Bomber Command ever on the edge of knocking Germany out of the war without the need of an invasion? Who took what position in regards to the morality of all, and when did they take it? Hastings not only deals ably with these difficult and far-reaching questions, but also sprinkles in tales of the heroism of the RAF aircrew who neither set policy nor chose targets, but merely did their duty as they saw it.

I've read histories as good as this one, but never one better.

Max Hastings is, of course, the pre-eminent military historian writing for the general public. I first read his history of the Falklands War and came away impressed and determined to read his other works. Bomber Command was one of his first works, and perhaps one of the best. I have read extensively on WW2 and not until now did I realize the true story behind the Allied bombing effort; that great expenditures of lives and resources were used, with very, very little gained. This is a sad realization, but Hastings tells the story well and convincingly, and the reader comes away with a much better understanding of the war.

Good assessment of British bombing campaign of WW II. Coverage of squadrons,flyers,missions, and experiences of those involved with the campaign.