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The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive, 1939-1945
An authoritative study of the Allied bombing campaign against Nazi Germany draws on the recollections of British, American, Canadian, and other Allied pilots, as well as on those of German fliers and civilians, to explore the role and effectiveness of the campaign and the moral issues involved. 15,000 first printing.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
55 people are currently reading
163 people want to read
About the author
Robin Neillands
44 books18 followersRobin Hunter Neillands was a British writer known for his works on travel and military history. A former Royal Marine who served in Cyprus and the Middle East, he later became a prolific author, publishing under multiple pen names. His military histories, often featuring firsthand accounts from veterans, challenged revisionist narratives, particularly regarding Bernard Montgomery, the Dieppe Raid, and the Allied bombing campaign in World War II. Neillands also authored numerous travel books inspired by his extensive journeys across Europe. His works, both popular and scholarly, earned him a nomination for the Royal United Services Institute’s Military Literature Award.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 15, 2017
An excellent book telling about how the British and American air forces evolved their strategic bombing through world war 2, which explodes several myths along the way, including some truths about Dresden that I wasn't aware of, or how 'accurate' the bomb aiming really was. There was also lots of ingenuity on both sides as they fought each other from their separate perspectives, and also the perhaps unsurprising way that downed aircrew were treated by the locals who had been on the receiving end. And I have to say, the more I read about Harris, the more I like him. A very good history, and very well written.
September 29, 2015
_The Bomber War_ by Robin Neillands is a fascinating, comprehensive, and well-written overview of the entire bomber war against Germany during World War II, covering both British (RAF Bomber Command) and American (largely the USAAF Eighth Air Force) forces as well as the German defenders.
Neillands originally set out to refute what he saw as a growing mythology that portrayed Bomber Command in general and Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris in particular as being guilty if not of war crimes than at least of an immoral war, and that their area bombing of German cities was wholly unnecessary and that precision bombing should have used instead.
Though Neillands went well beyond these questions in writing this book, he did in my opinion refute these allegations quite thoroughly, showing that the bombing was both moral and necessary and also that precision bombing was difficult if not impossible.
First of all, Allied leaders were well aware of the moral implications of what they were doing and early on did strive to avoid civilian casualties; Neillands detailed early efforts by the British and later by the Americans when they entered the war to avoid attacking any target that might result in civilians injuries.
Unfortunately, as the war dragged on, civilian deaths became unavoidable. To an extent some of this was from an erosion of concern; leaders and air crews just wanted the long hard war to end and anything within reason that brought that end even one day closer was an option. There was also a firm belief in the "Bomber Dream" (particularly with Harris), that a successful bombing campaign could bring the horrors of war to the German people and induce them to force their government to sue for peace as well as destroy the war-making capacity of Germany.
The main reasons though that civilians were bombed were technical, weather, and enemy defense problems, ranging from frequent cloud cover and adverse weather in Europe, industrial haze over many targets, technical problems with radar bombing technology, navigational problems, fierce and growing fighter and flak opposition, and lack of fighter escorts for much of the war, all leading to often fantastically inaccurate attacks. If one worried too much about not hitting civilians by accident, many important targets would have enjoyed weeks or even months of respite from attacks. Allied leaders quickly discovered that if one worried about hitting civilians, one could not bomb Germany at all.
I was surprised at how inaccurate the bombing could be. Very early in the war British bombers had great difficulty even finding the cities they were supposed to bomb owing to a lack of good navigational training and equipment. Even once they found the cities they had real trouble hitting the target; one British study of 1941 concluded that only one in three bombers dropped their bombs within five miles of the target! Since the inquiry decided that the target area had a radius of five miles, this meant that bombs were being dropped in a 75 squire mile area around the target. Even the Americans as late as 1945 admitted in their official histories that an average circular probable error of two miles existed when using radar bombing methods, and could only achieve any effectiveness by "drenching the area with bombs."
The United States prided itself on its attempts at daylight precision bombing, but was not able to really achieve this to any degree until 1945. Its prewar precision-bombing doctrine proved fundamentally flawed thanks to misconceptions about what the bomber could achieve in combat, frequent cloud cover and haze over targets (rendering their vaunted Norden bomb sights useless), deficiencies in radar bombing methods, and lack of fighter cover (not remedied until the advent of P-51 Mustang fighters in 1944, capable of long-range escort).
Neillands firmly concluded that the bomber war was vital to the Allied victory. In addition to the tremendous damage done particularly in the latter years of the war, the bombing campaign opened a Second Front well before the invasion of Europe, tying down vast resources to fend off the bombers. Goering had to deploy 8,876 very useful 88 mm flak guns to fight off the bombers (Rommel's Afrika Korps only had 35 of these guns, which were quite effective against tanks). To man these guns (as well as 25,000 pieces of 20 mm and 30 mm canon) Germany required 900,000 soldiers (Rommel's army for the defense of Normandy only had 500,000 men). Similarly, many pilots and aircraft that could have been used to attack Russia or the United Kingdom were tied down defending the Reich.
The book as I mentioned is quite comprehensive and dealt with a number of other topics relating to the bomber war. The operational histories of both the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command are covered, as well as the evolution of bombers in both countries, not only in terms of design, engineering, and the service records of the various aircraft used, but also in terms of bombing philosophies, as Neillands explained for instance why the Americans even well before the war focused their energies on precision bombing as well as the wrong lessons learned by pilots used to North American terrain and climate, lessons not serving them well in Europe. Also fascinating were the differences in structure, culture, morale, and training between American and British forces and the series of measures, countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures developed by Allied and German scientists in terms of radar, radio, and navigational aids, as one country produced an innovation that was then countered by the other nation, which sought to counter that countermeasure.
One of my favorite things about the book were the many quotes and anecdotes provided by those who served in the war, their words painting vivid and fascinating pictures of life from the point of view of Bomber Command and Eighth Air Force air crews as well as from Luftwaffe pilots, German flak gun crews, and those on the ground who experienced the end result of their bombing raids.
Neillands originally set out to refute what he saw as a growing mythology that portrayed Bomber Command in general and Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris in particular as being guilty if not of war crimes than at least of an immoral war, and that their area bombing of German cities was wholly unnecessary and that precision bombing should have used instead.
Though Neillands went well beyond these questions in writing this book, he did in my opinion refute these allegations quite thoroughly, showing that the bombing was both moral and necessary and also that precision bombing was difficult if not impossible.
First of all, Allied leaders were well aware of the moral implications of what they were doing and early on did strive to avoid civilian casualties; Neillands detailed early efforts by the British and later by the Americans when they entered the war to avoid attacking any target that might result in civilians injuries.
Unfortunately, as the war dragged on, civilian deaths became unavoidable. To an extent some of this was from an erosion of concern; leaders and air crews just wanted the long hard war to end and anything within reason that brought that end even one day closer was an option. There was also a firm belief in the "Bomber Dream" (particularly with Harris), that a successful bombing campaign could bring the horrors of war to the German people and induce them to force their government to sue for peace as well as destroy the war-making capacity of Germany.
The main reasons though that civilians were bombed were technical, weather, and enemy defense problems, ranging from frequent cloud cover and adverse weather in Europe, industrial haze over many targets, technical problems with radar bombing technology, navigational problems, fierce and growing fighter and flak opposition, and lack of fighter escorts for much of the war, all leading to often fantastically inaccurate attacks. If one worried too much about not hitting civilians by accident, many important targets would have enjoyed weeks or even months of respite from attacks. Allied leaders quickly discovered that if one worried about hitting civilians, one could not bomb Germany at all.
I was surprised at how inaccurate the bombing could be. Very early in the war British bombers had great difficulty even finding the cities they were supposed to bomb owing to a lack of good navigational training and equipment. Even once they found the cities they had real trouble hitting the target; one British study of 1941 concluded that only one in three bombers dropped their bombs within five miles of the target! Since the inquiry decided that the target area had a radius of five miles, this meant that bombs were being dropped in a 75 squire mile area around the target. Even the Americans as late as 1945 admitted in their official histories that an average circular probable error of two miles existed when using radar bombing methods, and could only achieve any effectiveness by "drenching the area with bombs."
The United States prided itself on its attempts at daylight precision bombing, but was not able to really achieve this to any degree until 1945. Its prewar precision-bombing doctrine proved fundamentally flawed thanks to misconceptions about what the bomber could achieve in combat, frequent cloud cover and haze over targets (rendering their vaunted Norden bomb sights useless), deficiencies in radar bombing methods, and lack of fighter cover (not remedied until the advent of P-51 Mustang fighters in 1944, capable of long-range escort).
Neillands firmly concluded that the bomber war was vital to the Allied victory. In addition to the tremendous damage done particularly in the latter years of the war, the bombing campaign opened a Second Front well before the invasion of Europe, tying down vast resources to fend off the bombers. Goering had to deploy 8,876 very useful 88 mm flak guns to fight off the bombers (Rommel's Afrika Korps only had 35 of these guns, which were quite effective against tanks). To man these guns (as well as 25,000 pieces of 20 mm and 30 mm canon) Germany required 900,000 soldiers (Rommel's army for the defense of Normandy only had 500,000 men). Similarly, many pilots and aircraft that could have been used to attack Russia or the United Kingdom were tied down defending the Reich.
The book as I mentioned is quite comprehensive and dealt with a number of other topics relating to the bomber war. The operational histories of both the Eighth Air Force and Bomber Command are covered, as well as the evolution of bombers in both countries, not only in terms of design, engineering, and the service records of the various aircraft used, but also in terms of bombing philosophies, as Neillands explained for instance why the Americans even well before the war focused their energies on precision bombing as well as the wrong lessons learned by pilots used to North American terrain and climate, lessons not serving them well in Europe. Also fascinating were the differences in structure, culture, morale, and training between American and British forces and the series of measures, countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures developed by Allied and German scientists in terms of radar, radio, and navigational aids, as one country produced an innovation that was then countered by the other nation, which sought to counter that countermeasure.
One of my favorite things about the book were the many quotes and anecdotes provided by those who served in the war, their words painting vivid and fascinating pictures of life from the point of view of Bomber Command and Eighth Air Force air crews as well as from Luftwaffe pilots, German flak gun crews, and those on the ground who experienced the end result of their bombing raids.
September 12, 2017
Comprehensive study of the Bomber campaign
The author is marked by readability, by is adroit use of oral history, and by his trenchant analysis of the stages of the campaign. The narrative leads inevitably to the bombing of Dresden. Neillands argues that Harris was implementing a decision at the highest level; his evidence is convincing. He discusses the morality of key aspects of the campaign and it's culmination. I am not wholly convinced, but he claims an overriding ethical justification. So be it, but this study is replete with insights, and vividly depicts the human element in the the Offensive.
The author is marked by readability, by is adroit use of oral history, and by his trenchant analysis of the stages of the campaign. The narrative leads inevitably to the bombing of Dresden. Neillands argues that Harris was implementing a decision at the highest level; his evidence is convincing. He discusses the morality of key aspects of the campaign and it's culmination. I am not wholly convinced, but he claims an overriding ethical justification. So be it, but this study is replete with insights, and vividly depicts the human element in the the Offensive.
August 11, 2015
;?sobering in the extreme and hard to believe it ever happened
A sobering account of the incredible sacrifices made by the incredibly brave aircrew of bomber command and fighter command of the RAF and the USAF and their resolute and forceful commanders and what it took to defeat Nazi Germany and win the second world war. A tragedy of the first order and an inspiration. Lest we ever forget.
A sobering account of the incredible sacrifices made by the incredibly brave aircrew of bomber command and fighter command of the RAF and the USAF and their resolute and forceful commanders and what it took to defeat Nazi Germany and win the second world war. A tragedy of the first order and an inspiration. Lest we ever forget.
April 9, 2021
An excellent book on the Allied bombing campaign against Germany in WW II. Neillands addresses all of the major aspects of the campaign - aircraft, crew training, German defenses, Allied countermeasures, and the political and moral aspects of area and “terror” bombing. He includes hundreds of first person accounts by aircrew. One of his goals is also to help rehabilitate Air Chief Marshal Harris, the commander of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Often accused of being a monstrous war criminal because of the bombing of Dresden in 1945, the truth is much more complex. The use of strategic bombing to win a war without ground troops has been thrown on the trash heap of military history, but the fallout from WW II bombing deaths still impacts modern day precision bombing - a few accidental civilian deaths in Afghanistan are heavily scrutinized while the 100,000 Japanese dead in the March 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo are merely an historical footnote.
June 27, 2020
Eye-opening account of the Allied WW2 bomber offensive
Neillands goes to great lengths to get the point across - like it or not the Allied bomber offensive was needed, as part of the war effort, to prosecute the war against Nazi Germany.
Time and again the author goes over points already covered to reinforce and expand upon arguments for the bomber offensive.
This book is fantastically well researched and does its best to dispel any myths surrounding the campaign. For example, critics will suggest the destruction of Dresden was Arthur Harris's idea and he should be blamed for it. Neillands explains where the orders originated, and also presents evidence that, but for bad weather, the USAAF would have bombed Dresden on the previous day to the RAF raid.
Read this and know more about WW2, recommended.
Neillands goes to great lengths to get the point across - like it or not the Allied bomber offensive was needed, as part of the war effort, to prosecute the war against Nazi Germany.
Time and again the author goes over points already covered to reinforce and expand upon arguments for the bomber offensive.
This book is fantastically well researched and does its best to dispel any myths surrounding the campaign. For example, critics will suggest the destruction of Dresden was Arthur Harris's idea and he should be blamed for it. Neillands explains where the orders originated, and also presents evidence that, but for bad weather, the USAAF would have bombed Dresden on the previous day to the RAF raid.
Read this and know more about WW2, recommended.
January 4, 2024
I bought this book when it was on the recommended reading list for RAF recruits about 10 years ago, which I would still fully endorse.
Despite the comprehensive content, it remains engaging throughout, and certainly is not dry.
There are plenty of first hand accounts from a variety of Allied and German aircrew, providing details and opinions on the conduct of the air-war. They are well selected and placed, to complement the author’s own words. The depth of research is evident, and Neillands does an excellent job of arguing against myths and covering the moral discussions about area bombing.
Despite the comprehensive content, it remains engaging throughout, and certainly is not dry.
There are plenty of first hand accounts from a variety of Allied and German aircrew, providing details and opinions on the conduct of the air-war. They are well selected and placed, to complement the author’s own words. The depth of research is evident, and Neillands does an excellent job of arguing against myths and covering the moral discussions about area bombing.
December 12, 2018
A thoughtful and thought provoking study of Bomber Command operations during WW2. His treatment of the USAAF operations is perhaps cursory but he starts of by saying that his main focus is Bomber Command and Arthur Harris. Lots of myths dispelled, although the people who perpetuate the myths won't read this book anyway. Excellent read and I enjoyed it very much.
January 29, 2021
Bomber Harris : Saint or Sinner
I thought the author gave a good sense of life (and death) as a bomber aircrew over Germany in WW2,
While most of the elements relevant to assessing Bomber Harris are presented somewhere in the book, an objective distillation would have been useful.
I thought the author gave a good sense of life (and death) as a bomber aircrew over Germany in WW2,
While most of the elements relevant to assessing Bomber Harris are presented somewhere in the book, an objective distillation would have been useful.
November 4, 2019
An even handed account
Robin Neillands has written a balanced account drawing on the the experiences of English, American and German Airmen. It should be required reading for all those uninformed liberals who condemn the Bomber Command campaign against Germany in WW2.
Robin Neillands has written a balanced account drawing on the the experiences of English, American and German Airmen. It should be required reading for all those uninformed liberals who condemn the Bomber Command campaign against Germany in WW2.
Read
May 12, 2020Longt read but worthwhile.
A must for anyone interested in the Bomber war 1939-1945. Gives great details into what happened and why it happened.
A must for anyone interested in the Bomber war 1939-1945. Gives great details into what happened and why it happened.
January 19, 2021
As detailed of a book that I have read about the air war over Europe, focusing on...you guessed it, the bomber side of the things with Bomber Command and the Eighth.
February 19, 2008
This book is a description of the bombing offensive against Germany in WW2. The most fascinating aspect of this book is that it chronicles the problems encountered with long range bombing given the technology and resources that existed at the time. Everything had to be invented from scratch. Navigation, target acquisition, electronic measures and countermeasures, fighters and flack. The book also spends some time on the mostly after the war debate about whether the bombing achieved its goals and whether it was morally right. I think if you're reading a book like this you're not going to be hung up on whether it was morally right or not, it was certainly unavoidable and it certainly ended any possible German conspiracy theories after the war that they didnt really lose and that they were stabbed in the back, like in WW1 when the German nation suffered virtually no physical damage.
Again, who cares? Long time ago. How the RAF and the AAF learned step by step how to conduct a systematic and effective strategic bombing campaign is the meat of this book and it is very well done. Its a history book about a war soon to be completely faded from living memory.
Again, who cares? Long time ago. How the RAF and the AAF learned step by step how to conduct a systematic and effective strategic bombing campaign is the meat of this book and it is very well done. Its a history book about a war soon to be completely faded from living memory.
August 20, 2012
Overzicht van de geallieerde luchtbombardementen op Duitsland in de Tweede Wereldoorlog vanuit het militaire perspectief van de betrokken luchtmachten.
Het boek is geschreven als reactie op beschuldigingen van oorlogsmisdaden en daarom sterk defensief geschreven. Daarnaast is het wijdlopig, rommelig en juist kortaf over onderwerpen die volgens de auteur al genoeg aandacht hebben gekregen (Hamburg, Dresden). Hoe de terreur op de grond werd ervaren krijgt nauwelijks aandacht en de auteur hinkt moreel op twee benen (nee, dan liever het magistrale 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', die over de gruwelen in Hamburg, Dresden en Tokyo niks te raden overlaat).
Evenwel is het boek inzichtelijk over het verloop van de Bomber War, de technische problemen, de valse succesclaims, het gevaar waarin de vliegeniers zich begaven en de uiteindelijke effecten. De vele persoonlijke verslagen van de vliegeniers storen de continuïteit, maar brengen de gebeurtenissen wel erg dichtbij.
Het boek is geschreven als reactie op beschuldigingen van oorlogsmisdaden en daarom sterk defensief geschreven. Daarnaast is het wijdlopig, rommelig en juist kortaf over onderwerpen die volgens de auteur al genoeg aandacht hebben gekregen (Hamburg, Dresden). Hoe de terreur op de grond werd ervaren krijgt nauwelijks aandacht en de auteur hinkt moreel op twee benen (nee, dan liever het magistrale 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb', die over de gruwelen in Hamburg, Dresden en Tokyo niks te raden overlaat).
Evenwel is het boek inzichtelijk over het verloop van de Bomber War, de technische problemen, de valse succesclaims, het gevaar waarin de vliegeniers zich begaven en de uiteindelijke effecten. De vele persoonlijke verslagen van de vliegeniers storen de continuïteit, maar brengen de gebeurtenissen wel erg dichtbij.
November 15, 2015
Just finished reading The Bomber War by Robin Neillands. This was a great book, a very fair account of what has become one of the more controversial campaigns in World War Two. It both explained in detail how the Bomber War over Europe was fought and provided a decent background to many sides of the debates that continue to occur on the subject. The chapter on the Dresden bombing is particularly enlightening. As with other Neillands books it tends, slightly, toward a pro-British stance vis-a-vis the US military and politicians. But it does so in a factual and non-emotional manner which, most importantly, serves to highlight the heroic actions undertaken in the gruesome and important campaign waged by all the belligerents in the skies over Europe.
June 20, 2013
I've always loved military aircraft and thought I knew a lot of the role it played in WWII. I was blown away (no pun intended) as to just how little the Allied air offense played in the war in Europe and how many problems the airplanes and airmen faced during the war. This book gave incredible insight into the aircraft I thought I knew so well.
May 18, 2013
A good account of the allield bomber offensive in the ETO
April 18, 2017
A “fair and balanced” history of the Allied bombing campaigns during World War 2. A book similar to "The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain" by Stephen Bungay.
Niellands doesn’t make any excuses for the Allied bombing. As he writes, there was a war on. And it is worth remembering that area bombing of civilians was initiated by the Germans, in Guernica, Warzaw, Coventry, and London. But the futility and horror of the bombing still remains. The point is not that area bombing was immoral. The war was immoral. But it still had to be fought.
Arthur Harris and his Command fought and died for the right of others to vilify their memory.
Niellands doesn’t make any excuses for the Allied bombing. As he writes, there was a war on. And it is worth remembering that area bombing of civilians was initiated by the Germans, in Guernica, Warzaw, Coventry, and London. But the futility and horror of the bombing still remains. The point is not that area bombing was immoral. The war was immoral. But it still had to be fought.
Arthur Harris and his Command fought and died for the right of others to vilify their memory.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews