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The Pointblank Directive: Three Generals and the Untold Story of the Daring Plan that Saved D-Day
Where was the Luftwaffe on D-Day? Following decades of debate, 2010 saw a formerly classified history restored and in it was a new set of answers. Pointblank is the result of extensive new research that creates a richly textured portrait of perhaps the last untold story of three uniquely talented men and why the German Air Force was unable to mount an effective combat against the invasion forces.
Following a year of unremarkable bombing against German aircraft industries, General Henry H. ''Hap'' Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces, placed his lifelong friend General Carl A. ''Tooey'' Spaatz in command of the strategic bombing forces in Europe, and his protege, General James ''Jimmy'' Doolittle, command of the Eighth Air Force in England. For these fellow aviation strategists, he had one set of orders - sweep the skies clean of the Luftwaffe by June 1944. The plan was called Pointblank.
Following a year of unremarkable bombing against German aircraft industries, General Henry H. ''Hap'' Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces, placed his lifelong friend General Carl A. ''Tooey'' Spaatz in command of the strategic bombing forces in Europe, and his protege, General James ''Jimmy'' Doolittle, command of the Eighth Air Force in England. For these fellow aviation strategists, he had one set of orders - sweep the skies clean of the Luftwaffe by June 1944. The plan was called Pointblank.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
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99 people want to read
About the author
L. Douglas Keeney
22 books21 followersL. Douglas Keeney is an author, historian, commentator and speaker with twenty-two books in print from Simon & Schuster, St. Martins/Macmillan, HarperCollins and Lyons Press. Keeney’s passion is to unearth the lost stories in world history and in those stories find the fabric of the people we are today. To that end, Keeney has written about events as seminal as 9/11 and World War II, as entertaining as the fashionable roots of the French Riviera, as revealing as the profiles of such luminaries as Curtis LeMay John F. Kennedy, and Franklin Roosevelt, and as unusual as those who pioneered international aviation and travel into space. He is an engaging speaker who has entertained hundreds of audiences across the nation.
Keeney’s books have been well reviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Naval Institute Press, slate, The New Yorker and more than one hundred other newspapers and magazines.
He has a master’s degree in Economics, is a pilot and scuba diver and was the cofounder of cable TV’s The Military Channel. He has appeared as a subject matter expert and commentator on Fox TV, CBS, PBS, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, The Learning Channel, and on numerous radio shows.
Keeney’s books have been well reviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Naval Institute Press, slate, The New Yorker and more than one hundred other newspapers and magazines.
He has a master’s degree in Economics, is a pilot and scuba diver and was the cofounder of cable TV’s The Military Channel. He has appeared as a subject matter expert and commentator on Fox TV, CBS, PBS, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, The Learning Channel, and on numerous radio shows.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 1, 2013
The Pointblank Directive
L. Douglas Keeney is a military historian and researcher - and it shows. His is not the usual blood and guts, look-how-clever-we-were epistle. evidenced by the 21 pages of notes and 6 pages of select bibliography. Rather, it is a thorough investigation and explanation of the Allied plan to use the combined Air Forces to obstruct the Germans in every possible way prior to the invasion on the D-Day landing. Perhaps a Luftwaffe ME109 squadron leader explained it best when he said,
"Every corner of the Reich was ablaze. It became a playground for Allied fighters and bombers. They attacked by day and by night giving the nation no rest. Spitfires, Lightings, Thunderbolts and other aircraft kept a constant watch over our airfields and we were unable to take off".
The genesis of the Directive was the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. There it was determined that the Allied goal was ...
"The progressive destruction and dislocation of the moral of the German military, industrial and economic system and the undermining of the moral of the German people to the point where their capacity for armed resistance was totally weakened".
Simply put, the job of the Pointblank Directive was to eliminate the Luftwaffe as a threat on D-Day. In 272 pages, Keeney exposes the good, the less good and the downright depressing story of the decision making by General officers and the tragic consequences of those decisions. We learn of the sacrifices and suffering of the men of the 8Th, 9th and 15th USAAF supported by UK's Bomber Command. The stark statistics of 51% killed in action, 9% killed in crashes and 3% seriously injured are given a human dimension in measured terms unadorned by sensational prose.
I was shocked to learn that General Carl Spaatz (officer commanding the 8th Air Force), considered the loss of 600 bombers a month (6000 men), acceptable in the pursuit of victory. As I read on Keeney's revelations became more astonishing.
There are many parts of this work that one could identify as spectacular, his description of the Luftwaffe's fighting technique deserves particular praise.
This is an excellent book (save for too many typos), and for the most part, Keeney is brutally honest when he distributes brickbats and bouquets in equal measure. When I reached the end of the book, I had the feeling that an editor read the final MS and criticized it for being too even handed. More spice was needed, and this came in the form of the suggestion that Gen Hap Arnold occupied the higher moral ground over the Brits with his reluctance to bomb German cities. What happened to the moral ground a few months later when he acquiesced at the firebombing of Japanese civilians? It couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that his grandparents first language was German, could it? This mystery editor also reminded Keeney that the book was intended for an American readership, so some caustic comments about the Brits wouldn't come amiss. Keeney obliged by condemning the Brits for forcing us to make too many aircraft (the bounders), and sin of all sins, not developing their aircraft as quickly as we did. Left to his own devises, Mr Keeney might have mentioned that we did rob them of their atomic development and jet engine technology (but we wouldn't share our Norden bombsight with them even though it was developed from the RAF's 'Course Setting Bombsight'), and we had bled then dry 'helping' their war effort.
Of all the alarming information found in this work, what has lingered, is the result of post-war analysis that found that of all the bombs dropped in the ETO during the second World War, only 20% landed within 1000 feet of their intended target.
Notwithstanding the above, The Pointblank Directive is an excellent book and well worth reading. As Dr. Johnson said, "If a books worth reading, it's worth buying".
L. Douglas Keeney is a military historian and researcher - and it shows. His is not the usual blood and guts, look-how-clever-we-were epistle. evidenced by the 21 pages of notes and 6 pages of select bibliography. Rather, it is a thorough investigation and explanation of the Allied plan to use the combined Air Forces to obstruct the Germans in every possible way prior to the invasion on the D-Day landing. Perhaps a Luftwaffe ME109 squadron leader explained it best when he said,
"Every corner of the Reich was ablaze. It became a playground for Allied fighters and bombers. They attacked by day and by night giving the nation no rest. Spitfires, Lightings, Thunderbolts and other aircraft kept a constant watch over our airfields and we were unable to take off".
The genesis of the Directive was the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. There it was determined that the Allied goal was ...
"The progressive destruction and dislocation of the moral of the German military, industrial and economic system and the undermining of the moral of the German people to the point where their capacity for armed resistance was totally weakened".
Simply put, the job of the Pointblank Directive was to eliminate the Luftwaffe as a threat on D-Day. In 272 pages, Keeney exposes the good, the less good and the downright depressing story of the decision making by General officers and the tragic consequences of those decisions. We learn of the sacrifices and suffering of the men of the 8Th, 9th and 15th USAAF supported by UK's Bomber Command. The stark statistics of 51% killed in action, 9% killed in crashes and 3% seriously injured are given a human dimension in measured terms unadorned by sensational prose.
I was shocked to learn that General Carl Spaatz (officer commanding the 8th Air Force), considered the loss of 600 bombers a month (6000 men), acceptable in the pursuit of victory. As I read on Keeney's revelations became more astonishing.
There are many parts of this work that one could identify as spectacular, his description of the Luftwaffe's fighting technique deserves particular praise.
This is an excellent book (save for too many typos), and for the most part, Keeney is brutally honest when he distributes brickbats and bouquets in equal measure. When I reached the end of the book, I had the feeling that an editor read the final MS and criticized it for being too even handed. More spice was needed, and this came in the form of the suggestion that Gen Hap Arnold occupied the higher moral ground over the Brits with his reluctance to bomb German cities. What happened to the moral ground a few months later when he acquiesced at the firebombing of Japanese civilians? It couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that his grandparents first language was German, could it? This mystery editor also reminded Keeney that the book was intended for an American readership, so some caustic comments about the Brits wouldn't come amiss. Keeney obliged by condemning the Brits for forcing us to make too many aircraft (the bounders), and sin of all sins, not developing their aircraft as quickly as we did. Left to his own devises, Mr Keeney might have mentioned that we did rob them of their atomic development and jet engine technology (but we wouldn't share our Norden bombsight with them even though it was developed from the RAF's 'Course Setting Bombsight'), and we had bled then dry 'helping' their war effort.
Of all the alarming information found in this work, what has lingered, is the result of post-war analysis that found that of all the bombs dropped in the ETO during the second World War, only 20% landed within 1000 feet of their intended target.
Notwithstanding the above, The Pointblank Directive is an excellent book and well worth reading. As Dr. Johnson said, "If a books worth reading, it's worth buying".
July 8, 2024
I felt that the research and narrative invested into this book was nothing short of inspirational while providing a perspective not often focused on during WWII books. However, I dropped it to four stars based on the editing. The book is unfortunately as riddled with grammatical and spelling errors as the damaged aircraft it references. The editing does a dis-service to the stories contained herein.
April 18, 2021
Has to be one of the worst books I have read regarding the USAAF in the ETO of WW2. There are so many typos and inaccuracies, such as saying that Spaatz and Doolittle took over the AAF in England in January 1943 (pg. 80) when it happened in January 1944.
April 28, 2014
A good book on the air war in World War II, mostly centering around England and Europe (8th Air Force). The book seemed to be researched well and the flow and ease of reading were also good (i.e. it didn't read like a straight up documentary). I thought the author did a good job of introducing the characters and made it all the more interesting by the stories he introduced--especially when combining them with the actual words from the men who were fighting. The style of storytelling reminded me of Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers", though I couldn't say it was quite as good as Ambrose's. Overall, an enjoyable and worthwhile read, definitely recommended. As an aside, this would also probably go well with Ambrose's "Wild Blue."
April 13, 2014
I really enjoyed this book. The book described in detail the fight for air supremacy over Europe before D-Day in June, 1944. The cost in lives and airplanes was pretty amazing. The Luftwaffe did its best to defend Germany from the US and UK bombers and fighters, but in the end they could not overcome the numbers of airplanes the Allies threw against them. Douglas Keeney did a very good job going into the details of the planning and execution of the effort to destroy the Luftwaffe. I would recommend this book to anybody who has an interest in the history of World War Two.
November 28, 2015
OK for someone who doesn't know much about the subject, but not interesting to me.
The occasional errors and odd interpretations were jarring. P-47s are "agile" (p.59)?
It did cover some efforts by the medium bombers and fighters of the Ninth Air Force, but it seemed to be muddied in the telling. It was hard to separate who was bombing what, when, at times.
The occasional errors and odd interpretations were jarring. P-47s are "agile" (p.59)?
It did cover some efforts by the medium bombers and fighters of the Ninth Air Force, but it seemed to be muddied in the telling. It was hard to separate who was bombing what, when, at times.
July 21, 2016
An amazing story about one man's inspirational actions to rescue the crews of bombers that had been shot down and were being held in eastern European countries. What he accomplished is hard to believe, as well as the risk he took to do so. A fast and captivating read and well worth the time spent doing so.
February 20, 2015
Great book on the war against the luftwaffe. Very interesting to read about how the conditions were set prior to D-Day. Little attention is payed to this monumental effort by the AAF to take the luftwaffe out of the fight. Great Book!
August 18, 2012
I will have more to say about this new book. Street date is october 2012.
January 1, 2013
Very nice change up from usual look at ETO air war. However, barely mentioned medium and light bomber perspective.
February 28, 2013
I enjoyed the research and anecdotal stories. it helped piece together some events for me with the 8th AD and 303 BY which I research. This is a fine title to read on the events leading up to DDay.
December 5, 2013
Interesting take on WWII that I had not seen before, but the writing is somewhat puerile and he could have added a lot more detail.
April 29, 2014
Great read! Really added to my knowledge of the air war against the German war machine.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews