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Victory Through Air Power
The outbreak of World War II found the U.S. air arsenal still pitifully neglected. To bring the magnitude of the problem to public attention, de Seversky wrote Victory Through Airpower. The book became a best seller and awoke people to the need for better airpower. For his efforts he was awarded the Medal of Merit by President Harry Truman. "De Seversky began his military life at a young age. After serving in the Imperial Russian Navy, he received high honors and was the ace in the Navy after engaging in over 57 aerial combats. After coming to the United States, he created the Seversky Aircraft company before being forced out of the presidency of his own company in 1939. Seversky published Victory Through Air Power in 1942, and explained his theories of aviation and long-range bombing as influenced by General Billy Mitchell. Seversky argued "The rapid expansion of the range and striking power of military aviation makes it certain that the United States will be as exposed to destruction from the air, within a predictable period, as are the British Isles today;" Those who deny this possibility are exhibiting something like a "Maginot line mentality"; The U.S. must begin preparing immediately for "an interhemispheric war direct across oceans;" The U.S. must become the dominant air-power nation, "even as England in its prime was the dominant sea-power nation of the world."
354 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1942
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August 26, 2020
In the early years of the 20th Century, an emerging field of endeavor was being explored in many parts of the world we call Earth. That emerging field had many synonyms – flight, manned flight, powered flight, and eventually the nouns subtly changed to powered flight by man, and powered flight under manned control. By the last month of third year of the 20th Century, 1903, the rumors and speculation about manned, powered flight became a proven reality.
On December 17th, 1903, the first manned flight by man was achieved using a flying contrivance, powered with twin propellers and a small gasoline engine, Orville and Wilbur Wright became the first humans to achieve powered flight using a flying machine of their own design. Located on the sandy beaches of the eastern coast of North Carolina, the Wrights’ built a small hanger, just large enough for their first flying machine. The distance was not long, but it was captured on a photographic plate style camera. Thus, began a new era where flight in man-made contrivances, like the Wright Flyer, would become commonplace. By the end of the first quarter-century, airplanes, their pilots, and the exploration of their potential uses were appearing in not only the United States but in Europe as well. Soon before the half-century was celebrated, the world had suffered the destruction of two world wars. Airplanes in their modern 1940’s versions had the capacity of several tons of bombs, several defensive gun emplacements, and multiple engines for some of the larger model. The airplane would become just the device to be used along with the first experiments with nuclear fission bombs to be able to destroy an entire city with a single atomic weapon using uranium or plutonium as the explosive elements, and the world would see the mushroom clouds appearing over two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the results from the two nuclear bombs dropped from American B-29 Superfortress bombers. Before the mid-century passed, the two Japanese cities were destroyed with thousands of citizens dead, many more frightfully injured, and Imperial Japan ready to surrender by the beginning of September 1945. Thousands of dead or dying inhabitants brought about the surrender of the Japanese forces, and thus ended World War II as well as the dawning of the Victory Through Air Power (VTAP).
Alexander P. de-Seversky wrote this book in 1942 shortly after the devastating attack by Japanese forces on several places in the Pacific Ocean including the destruction of most of the United States Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. The re-emergence of a rebuilt Pacific Fleet was well underway by the time Major de-Seversky’s book was in print and available world-wide. While the actual advent of the nuclear bombs used by America would not come before 1945, the outline and description of the combat uses of flying machines were clearly delineated in Major de-Seversky’s book. While the actual events of the war were not spelled out by De Seversky, his prescience about the events between 1940-45 while not clearly spelled out in detail, were prophetic enough that their truth resonated amongst the members of the Allied Forces including America, Great Britain, France, and China. While de Seversky’s work was controversial in some ways, it was prophetic in many others.
The ideas professed in VTAP were heeded in some ways, but they were ignored in others. For the most part, however de Seversky was never too far off base to make his case. As the war raged on in the first half of the 1940’s, his vision and suggestions became clarified, with the resulting coalescence driving the air power supporters and enthusiasts with several of the top officers in France, Great Britain, the United States, and China, all saw and supported the concepts that de Seversky wrote about in VTAP. It was clear that various types of aircraft would play incredibly important roles in the overall victory using air power. It was clear that a group of bombers would have a less difficult time for dropping their explosives on an enemy whose defensive air and ground emplacements were inadequate or unprepared. It was important that clarity about objectives and means of their attainment were followed with rigor and planning. It was also important that all resources needed to be gathered and utilized with a clear vision of the needs, roles, and outcomes for each segment of the aerial forces involved in the conflict. Only with a true vision using the best available intelligence, the widest amount of victory’s margins, and the simple matter of taking advantage of a optimal situation as it developed would be needed for a winning outcome. Furthermore, it was clear that air power was a considerable asset once possessed and utilized in specific and strategic manners and methods. De Seversky was prescient in his assessment of what would be required to achieve the outcomes delineated in VTAP.
Air power savvy individuals like General William Mitchell, General Toohey Spaatz, General Douglas MacArthur, and General Henry “Hap” Arnold were inspired by de Seversky’s ideas about the most appropriate and necessary uses of air power in order to achieve an overall victorious outcome. It was not essential that one leader had to know it all, but it helped when all the commanding general officers availed themselves of the experts in the areas needed to improve reliability, effectiveness, and overall defensive actions that could be translated into an resounding victory. The joint efforts between the Services as well as the air power experts would be keys to achieving VTAP’s suggestions and best practices from past engagements.
In the final analysis, de Seversky and his ideas taken from VTAP, worked in concert with the improved airframes and ordinance as well as the enhancements found in aircraft range, destructive offensive, and enhanced defensive capabilities all worked in favor of the leadership with a solid grasp of the power that came from aerial combat platforms. It required a delegation of resources, officers, enlisted personnel, and aircrews who knew their capabilities and who worked as teams on their aircraft, enhancing its overall offensive and defensive capabilities, resulting in a surviving crew and plane returning from each mission.
It was clear that the air force on the winning side of the struggle had to have the best possible equipment, the best trained aircrews, the most situationally aware officers, and the most devastating ordnance available with which to attack a combatant resulting in appropriate amounts of destruction and devastation reducing the needs for additional missions to destroy things left over from a day’s raids. The best possible outcomes would naturally be those which resulted in the most destruction to the enemy’s infrastructure and defenses while also returning with the least amount of damage, the most successful returns to base with crew, defensive weapons, expended ammunition and ordnance, all of which resulted in an enemy less able to defend their country and who would come to a negotiated settlement which would be advantageous to all involved.
Summary:
Major Alexander de Seversky’s Victory Through Air Power is an excellent look at the strategic use of aviation assets to inflict enough damage on an enemy to prevent the enemy from launching counterattacks or other offensive attempts to bring its weapons to bear on its enemies. With the strategic use of available air power, ordnance, and capably trained, seasoned, and professional aircrews, the outcome of any engagement will generally come to fruition with the side with the best knowledge, superior skills, and even an abiding sense of worth for themselves and their defensive efforts to bring an armed conflict to a swift and victorious conclusion.
Major de Seversky suggests that a victorious air force will be those best trained personnel, with the best weapons (both offensive and defensive) available along with the toughest training and equipment available to perform their assigned tasks. Only with these prepared crews, capable vehicles to traverse hostile grounds, and with superb warfighting skills will rule the engagement, the day, the battle, and overall focused on ending the war. The sooner peaceful results are obtained, the better off for all combatants on either side of the conflict. Only through the reliance on strength in air power can these objectives be attained, but the less likelihood that miscalculation or misunderstanding can result in future conflicts. The best way to win the battles is to be decisive, devastating, and determined that the side with the most offensive capabilities will be able to win regardless of the combatants, their skill sets, and their equipment. Fighting a war with confidence, understanding of your opponents weaknesses, and focusing attacks upon weaknesses in training, skillsets, or protection against enemy attacks – these are the was wars are lost or won, depending on the side with the best warfighting skills, best equipment, and the best leadership to get the jobs done with the lowest casualties and the least amount of destruction to one’s homeland.
Then and only then will your forces achieve the Victory Through Air Power, or any other means at one’s disposal to destroy the adversaries’ will to fight or to continue to make war. That day of defeat is the winning side’s day of triumph and reconciliation with the other side to reach a lower conflict state for both sides. Only then shall peace reign over the combatant forces.
On December 17th, 1903, the first manned flight by man was achieved using a flying contrivance, powered with twin propellers and a small gasoline engine, Orville and Wilbur Wright became the first humans to achieve powered flight using a flying machine of their own design. Located on the sandy beaches of the eastern coast of North Carolina, the Wrights’ built a small hanger, just large enough for their first flying machine. The distance was not long, but it was captured on a photographic plate style camera. Thus, began a new era where flight in man-made contrivances, like the Wright Flyer, would become commonplace. By the end of the first quarter-century, airplanes, their pilots, and the exploration of their potential uses were appearing in not only the United States but in Europe as well. Soon before the half-century was celebrated, the world had suffered the destruction of two world wars. Airplanes in their modern 1940’s versions had the capacity of several tons of bombs, several defensive gun emplacements, and multiple engines for some of the larger model. The airplane would become just the device to be used along with the first experiments with nuclear fission bombs to be able to destroy an entire city with a single atomic weapon using uranium or plutonium as the explosive elements, and the world would see the mushroom clouds appearing over two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the results from the two nuclear bombs dropped from American B-29 Superfortress bombers. Before the mid-century passed, the two Japanese cities were destroyed with thousands of citizens dead, many more frightfully injured, and Imperial Japan ready to surrender by the beginning of September 1945. Thousands of dead or dying inhabitants brought about the surrender of the Japanese forces, and thus ended World War II as well as the dawning of the Victory Through Air Power (VTAP).
Alexander P. de-Seversky wrote this book in 1942 shortly after the devastating attack by Japanese forces on several places in the Pacific Ocean including the destruction of most of the United States Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. The re-emergence of a rebuilt Pacific Fleet was well underway by the time Major de-Seversky’s book was in print and available world-wide. While the actual advent of the nuclear bombs used by America would not come before 1945, the outline and description of the combat uses of flying machines were clearly delineated in Major de-Seversky’s book. While the actual events of the war were not spelled out by De Seversky, his prescience about the events between 1940-45 while not clearly spelled out in detail, were prophetic enough that their truth resonated amongst the members of the Allied Forces including America, Great Britain, France, and China. While de Seversky’s work was controversial in some ways, it was prophetic in many others.
The ideas professed in VTAP were heeded in some ways, but they were ignored in others. For the most part, however de Seversky was never too far off base to make his case. As the war raged on in the first half of the 1940’s, his vision and suggestions became clarified, with the resulting coalescence driving the air power supporters and enthusiasts with several of the top officers in France, Great Britain, the United States, and China, all saw and supported the concepts that de Seversky wrote about in VTAP. It was clear that various types of aircraft would play incredibly important roles in the overall victory using air power. It was clear that a group of bombers would have a less difficult time for dropping their explosives on an enemy whose defensive air and ground emplacements were inadequate or unprepared. It was important that clarity about objectives and means of their attainment were followed with rigor and planning. It was also important that all resources needed to be gathered and utilized with a clear vision of the needs, roles, and outcomes for each segment of the aerial forces involved in the conflict. Only with a true vision using the best available intelligence, the widest amount of victory’s margins, and the simple matter of taking advantage of a optimal situation as it developed would be needed for a winning outcome. Furthermore, it was clear that air power was a considerable asset once possessed and utilized in specific and strategic manners and methods. De Seversky was prescient in his assessment of what would be required to achieve the outcomes delineated in VTAP.
Air power savvy individuals like General William Mitchell, General Toohey Spaatz, General Douglas MacArthur, and General Henry “Hap” Arnold were inspired by de Seversky’s ideas about the most appropriate and necessary uses of air power in order to achieve an overall victorious outcome. It was not essential that one leader had to know it all, but it helped when all the commanding general officers availed themselves of the experts in the areas needed to improve reliability, effectiveness, and overall defensive actions that could be translated into an resounding victory. The joint efforts between the Services as well as the air power experts would be keys to achieving VTAP’s suggestions and best practices from past engagements.
In the final analysis, de Seversky and his ideas taken from VTAP, worked in concert with the improved airframes and ordinance as well as the enhancements found in aircraft range, destructive offensive, and enhanced defensive capabilities all worked in favor of the leadership with a solid grasp of the power that came from aerial combat platforms. It required a delegation of resources, officers, enlisted personnel, and aircrews who knew their capabilities and who worked as teams on their aircraft, enhancing its overall offensive and defensive capabilities, resulting in a surviving crew and plane returning from each mission.
It was clear that the air force on the winning side of the struggle had to have the best possible equipment, the best trained aircrews, the most situationally aware officers, and the most devastating ordnance available with which to attack a combatant resulting in appropriate amounts of destruction and devastation reducing the needs for additional missions to destroy things left over from a day’s raids. The best possible outcomes would naturally be those which resulted in the most destruction to the enemy’s infrastructure and defenses while also returning with the least amount of damage, the most successful returns to base with crew, defensive weapons, expended ammunition and ordnance, all of which resulted in an enemy less able to defend their country and who would come to a negotiated settlement which would be advantageous to all involved.
Summary:
Major Alexander de Seversky’s Victory Through Air Power is an excellent look at the strategic use of aviation assets to inflict enough damage on an enemy to prevent the enemy from launching counterattacks or other offensive attempts to bring its weapons to bear on its enemies. With the strategic use of available air power, ordnance, and capably trained, seasoned, and professional aircrews, the outcome of any engagement will generally come to fruition with the side with the best knowledge, superior skills, and even an abiding sense of worth for themselves and their defensive efforts to bring an armed conflict to a swift and victorious conclusion.
Major de Seversky suggests that a victorious air force will be those best trained personnel, with the best weapons (both offensive and defensive) available along with the toughest training and equipment available to perform their assigned tasks. Only with these prepared crews, capable vehicles to traverse hostile grounds, and with superb warfighting skills will rule the engagement, the day, the battle, and overall focused on ending the war. The sooner peaceful results are obtained, the better off for all combatants on either side of the conflict. Only through the reliance on strength in air power can these objectives be attained, but the less likelihood that miscalculation or misunderstanding can result in future conflicts. The best way to win the battles is to be decisive, devastating, and determined that the side with the most offensive capabilities will be able to win regardless of the combatants, their skill sets, and their equipment. Fighting a war with confidence, understanding of your opponents weaknesses, and focusing attacks upon weaknesses in training, skillsets, or protection against enemy attacks – these are the was wars are lost or won, depending on the side with the best warfighting skills, best equipment, and the best leadership to get the jobs done with the lowest casualties and the least amount of destruction to one’s homeland.
Then and only then will your forces achieve the Victory Through Air Power, or any other means at one’s disposal to destroy the adversaries’ will to fight or to continue to make war. That day of defeat is the winning side’s day of triumph and reconciliation with the other side to reach a lower conflict state for both sides. Only then shall peace reign over the combatant forces.
January 7, 2026
Alexander P. de Seversky's 1942 Victory Through Air Power, published in the year following America's disastrous loss of men and ships at Pearl Harbor--and of course after more than two years of successful Nazi blitzkrieg in Europe--is an interesting, naturally dated, artifact of that perilous and uncertain period: self-righteous and more than a little repetitive, over-ambitious in its estimation of technical progress and hence inaccurate in some of its recommendations, and yet nevertheless unknowingly forward-looking to the upcoming nuclear era not even a dozen years in the future.
According to Seversky, a former Imperial Russian military pilot and now naturalized U.S. citizen who had worked with Billy Mitchell "during [his] demonstration of the ability of aircraft to sink battleships" (1942 Simon & Schuster hardcover, page 353) and continued designing and test-flying airplanes (page 354) and of course advocating for airpower, the day of big-gun battleships taking the fight to enemy shores and of debarkations or invasions of hundreds of thousands of troops fighting mile by mile through enemy territory is over. Well, almost over, anyway.
That is, no, he does not suggest withdrawing all American naval forces right at the very second of writing...but the title of Chapter VII is "The Twilight of Sea Power," after all. To prove his point, Seversky examines a number of then-very-recent military situations from the Second World War.
At Skagerrak in Norway, for example, despite the prediction of Winston Churchill when still First Lord of the Admiralty that the "vastly superior naval forces" of the British would prove Hitler's attack a "great...strategic and political error (page 34), instead the British were forced to withdraw because of "dominat[ing]" German air power, with even the British aircraft carriers more a "tempting" target than a strength (page 35). Later, during the evacuation at Dunkirk, the "troop masses and the bevy of miscellaneous vessels in the shallow waters would have made perfect targets for German planes...if the air above had not been effectively held and patrolled by the RAF" (pages 40-41). And of course Germany was unable to invade across the Channel--an undertaking involving hundreds of slow and vulnerable ships--because "mastery of the air must come first" (page 64; italics original), and the Germans could not, due to both strategy and technology, win the Battle of Britain.
From such proofs, the author advocates spending on research and development of, and then manufacture of, supposedly achievable super-aircraft rather than spending on further naval forces. Although he often overstates the case in considering the area within range of land-based bombers to be fully off-limits to once-proud naval fleets, the overall thrust is correct. That is, a heavily armored battleship might not be spotted by hunters...but when it is, it will be in desperate trouble, as would even an aircraft carrier, despite its complement of fighter planes. The side that has air superiority can conduct grand surface operations at sea; the side without command of the air dare not steam against the enemy's far- and fast-prowling bombers.
Yet if a nation does have an aerial shield for its fleet, suggests Seversky, "why not unloose that air power directly at the heart of the enemy instead of wasting it to shield a less effective force?" (page 155). And why land hundreds of thousands of troops that have to fight their way from the coast to the enemy capital when aircraft can fly right over opposing soldiers and tanks and artillery pieces? In advocating for strategic bombing he builds upon the 1920s airpower theorist Giulio Douhet of Italy, with the title of Chapter V stating the goal: "Possession or Elimination." An important difference, however, is that since, contrary to the previous "assum[ption] that aerial bombardment would quickly shatter popular morale," the war has proved that "civilians can 'take it,'" the focus instead should be "precision bombing rather than random bombing" (page 147; italics original).
Where Seversky errs, of course, is in his estimation of the pace of aeronautical advancement. Certainly progress from the open-cockpit biplanes of doped fabric of 1918 to the high-speed all-metal monoplanes of the early 1940s indeed was huge. And yet the idea of "superbombers" with "a 6000-mile effective radius" and "each carrying at least 50 tons of bombs" (page 161), heavily gunned with their own turrets and convoyed by "battleplanes" which "would shield the bombing force from any direction...just as destroyers shield a battleship against torpedo attacks" (page 313), simply is not one that would--or could--see fruition anytime soon. Yes, the Germans were working on an Amerikabomber, but its payload would have been much smaller, and although the Convair B-36 was closer in performance, its first flight was not even until late 1946. It is difficult to imagine, even if $3 billion had been stripped from construction of "battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers" (page 161) and poured into this effort, that America could been bombing Germany and Japan from the continental U.S. in, say, 1943.
Seversky's tone has a tendency to grate, too, often being hectoring and, in a way, defensive as well. That is, again and again we are told how the benefits of airpower are not getting a fair evaluation by hidebound Navy and even Army leaders, potentials are being ignored, projects are being underfunded, and advocates--not just the court-martialed martyr of Billy Mitchell but hundreds of clear-eyed officers throughout the service--are being stifled. The thing is, though... Well, he's right, as is shown by crazily short-sighted quotes from various public officials. Style tends not to be especially straightforward anyway, and tone does not necessarily help, especially considering how repetitive the text ends up being.
Yet despite technological predictions that in the short term were wildly optimistic, and despite some shortcomings of writing, Alexander P. de Seversky's 1942 Victory Through Air Power nevertheless is an important historical document of its times--and really, a better estimation of the importance of long-range aviation in the coming early nuclear age--and it remains a decent read of 3.5 to perhaps 4 stars.
According to Seversky, a former Imperial Russian military pilot and now naturalized U.S. citizen who had worked with Billy Mitchell "during [his] demonstration of the ability of aircraft to sink battleships" (1942 Simon & Schuster hardcover, page 353) and continued designing and test-flying airplanes (page 354) and of course advocating for airpower, the day of big-gun battleships taking the fight to enemy shores and of debarkations or invasions of hundreds of thousands of troops fighting mile by mile through enemy territory is over. Well, almost over, anyway.
That is, no, he does not suggest withdrawing all American naval forces right at the very second of writing...but the title of Chapter VII is "The Twilight of Sea Power," after all. To prove his point, Seversky examines a number of then-very-recent military situations from the Second World War.
At Skagerrak in Norway, for example, despite the prediction of Winston Churchill when still First Lord of the Admiralty that the "vastly superior naval forces" of the British would prove Hitler's attack a "great...strategic and political error (page 34), instead the British were forced to withdraw because of "dominat[ing]" German air power, with even the British aircraft carriers more a "tempting" target than a strength (page 35). Later, during the evacuation at Dunkirk, the "troop masses and the bevy of miscellaneous vessels in the shallow waters would have made perfect targets for German planes...if the air above had not been effectively held and patrolled by the RAF" (pages 40-41). And of course Germany was unable to invade across the Channel--an undertaking involving hundreds of slow and vulnerable ships--because "mastery of the air must come first" (page 64; italics original), and the Germans could not, due to both strategy and technology, win the Battle of Britain.
From such proofs, the author advocates spending on research and development of, and then manufacture of, supposedly achievable super-aircraft rather than spending on further naval forces. Although he often overstates the case in considering the area within range of land-based bombers to be fully off-limits to once-proud naval fleets, the overall thrust is correct. That is, a heavily armored battleship might not be spotted by hunters...but when it is, it will be in desperate trouble, as would even an aircraft carrier, despite its complement of fighter planes. The side that has air superiority can conduct grand surface operations at sea; the side without command of the air dare not steam against the enemy's far- and fast-prowling bombers.
Yet if a nation does have an aerial shield for its fleet, suggests Seversky, "why not unloose that air power directly at the heart of the enemy instead of wasting it to shield a less effective force?" (page 155). And why land hundreds of thousands of troops that have to fight their way from the coast to the enemy capital when aircraft can fly right over opposing soldiers and tanks and artillery pieces? In advocating for strategic bombing he builds upon the 1920s airpower theorist Giulio Douhet of Italy, with the title of Chapter V stating the goal: "Possession or Elimination." An important difference, however, is that since, contrary to the previous "assum[ption] that aerial bombardment would quickly shatter popular morale," the war has proved that "civilians can 'take it,'" the focus instead should be "precision bombing rather than random bombing" (page 147; italics original).
Where Seversky errs, of course, is in his estimation of the pace of aeronautical advancement. Certainly progress from the open-cockpit biplanes of doped fabric of 1918 to the high-speed all-metal monoplanes of the early 1940s indeed was huge. And yet the idea of "superbombers" with "a 6000-mile effective radius" and "each carrying at least 50 tons of bombs" (page 161), heavily gunned with their own turrets and convoyed by "battleplanes" which "would shield the bombing force from any direction...just as destroyers shield a battleship against torpedo attacks" (page 313), simply is not one that would--or could--see fruition anytime soon. Yes, the Germans were working on an Amerikabomber, but its payload would have been much smaller, and although the Convair B-36 was closer in performance, its first flight was not even until late 1946. It is difficult to imagine, even if $3 billion had been stripped from construction of "battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers" (page 161) and poured into this effort, that America could been bombing Germany and Japan from the continental U.S. in, say, 1943.
Seversky's tone has a tendency to grate, too, often being hectoring and, in a way, defensive as well. That is, again and again we are told how the benefits of airpower are not getting a fair evaluation by hidebound Navy and even Army leaders, potentials are being ignored, projects are being underfunded, and advocates--not just the court-martialed martyr of Billy Mitchell but hundreds of clear-eyed officers throughout the service--are being stifled. The thing is, though... Well, he's right, as is shown by crazily short-sighted quotes from various public officials. Style tends not to be especially straightforward anyway, and tone does not necessarily help, especially considering how repetitive the text ends up being.
Yet despite technological predictions that in the short term were wildly optimistic, and despite some shortcomings of writing, Alexander P. de Seversky's 1942 Victory Through Air Power nevertheless is an important historical document of its times--and really, a better estimation of the importance of long-range aviation in the coming early nuclear age--and it remains a decent read of 3.5 to perhaps 4 stars.
June 7, 2020
Of course, like most people my age or older who grew up in the U.S., I have seen the wartime propaganda/documentary film based on this book several times. My family did not have television when I was a child, but I used to regularly walk down the block to my cousin Danny's house on Saturday mornings so we could either either play outside (when the weather was nice), or watch television when it was cold and/or raining. During the 1960s & 1970s, TV programming was considerably more limited than it is now, for obvious reasons: no cable or satellite systems, analog broadcast only, very few stations broadcasting 24 hours a day, etc. In addition, many people did not yet own color television sets then, so much of the programming was in black & white. This meant that we watched a great deal of "classic era" Hollywood product, like 'Casablanca', 'The Maltese Falcon', 'Captain Blood', 'The Mark of Zorro', 'The Magnificent Seven', comedies featuring the Three Stooges, Marx Brothers and so on; as well as kung-fu flicks (mostly from Hong Kong), and Japanese samurai, superhero or monster movies. We especially enjoyed war movies, mostly about World War II (as did practically all of the other boys we knew), and in addition to all the commercial war movies like 'Back to Bataan', 'The Dirty Dozen', 'Tora! Tora! Tora!', 'The Blue Max', etc. there were many documentary series on television like 'Victory at Sea', a 26-part series produced by NBC Television in the early 1950s, or 'Why We Fight', a series of seven documentary films commissioned by the U.S. Government and made during WWII that had served as Frank Capra's riposte to Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film 'Triumph of the Will'. Also, of course, there were always cartoons every Saturday morning (not to mention 'Batman'!). I feel sorry for kids nowadays, the cartoons they watch seem pretty lame to me- I talked to some kids in my neighbourhood about a year ago who had never even heard of 'Speed Racer'!
So, one of those Saturday mornings during the mid-1970s, instead of the usual sort of cartoons there was a special broadcast of wartime animated films from the 1940s, one of which was 'Victory Through Air Power'. The 'Victory Through Air Power' movie is a Technicolor animated documentary feature film based on this book, which was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists on July 17, 1943. Unlike most animated features, this one features extensive live-action footage of Major de Seversky himself, explaining his ideas as contained in the book and providing part of the narration for the animated sequences. It is well worth watching (especially if you have never seen it), but unfortunately many of the versions available on-line are of inferior quality, incomplete and/or in black & white only. There is one complete, high-quality version on YouTube right now (you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwK9j...), but it has an excruciatingly bad modern prologue that you can avoid watching if you skip ahead to the 22:35 mark where the movie actually starts.
The movie, while largely based on the book, was obviously intended more as entertainment with propagandistic tendencies rather than as a serious analysis of aerial warfare. The book is much more serious, and consequently much more interesting, particularly given the fairly important role played by Major de Seversky in the U.S. aircraft industry between the world wars. Like General Billy Mitchell, for whom he had worked as a consultant and to whom both the book and the movie were dedicated, and also General Giulio Douhet (Italy), Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard (U.K.), Generalleutnant Walther Wever, Generalleutnant Ernst Udet and Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (Germany), Alexander de Seversky was one of the leading air power theorists and advocates during the inter-war years. As far as I can tell, he was mostly right, and occasionally damned near prescient in his predictions of near-term future trends in air warfare. The thing that really struck me while reading this was his constant criticism of the short-sighted and frankly foolish U.S. procurement policies for their debilitating effect on the performance and effectiveness of combat aviation, not only in the beginning but throughout the war. If those criticisms were valid, and the things he said in this book were true (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), this was an absolute scandal. I've read a great many books about the history of the Second World War over the years, many of them specifically about the war in the air, but I don't remember ever coming across this information previously. Obviously, all of the air forces involved in WWII had their individual strengths and weaknesses in terms of aircraft performance, armament, tactics etc. I've seen a lot more discussion of this in regard to the Germans than anyone else, probably not coincidentally. The story of the Luftwaffe's "Ural bomber" project is well known, as is the history of Hitler's lunatic interference with the development of the Me-262. My maternal grandfather, H.C. Showalter II, was employed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during the war, and worked in the P-38 Lightning program; he passed away quite a few years ago, but I wish I had read this book earlier so I could have taken the opportunity to ask him about some of this stuff...
[More to follow]
So, one of those Saturday mornings during the mid-1970s, instead of the usual sort of cartoons there was a special broadcast of wartime animated films from the 1940s, one of which was 'Victory Through Air Power'. The 'Victory Through Air Power' movie is a Technicolor animated documentary feature film based on this book, which was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists on July 17, 1943. Unlike most animated features, this one features extensive live-action footage of Major de Seversky himself, explaining his ideas as contained in the book and providing part of the narration for the animated sequences. It is well worth watching (especially if you have never seen it), but unfortunately many of the versions available on-line are of inferior quality, incomplete and/or in black & white only. There is one complete, high-quality version on YouTube right now (you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwK9j...), but it has an excruciatingly bad modern prologue that you can avoid watching if you skip ahead to the 22:35 mark where the movie actually starts.
The movie, while largely based on the book, was obviously intended more as entertainment with propagandistic tendencies rather than as a serious analysis of aerial warfare. The book is much more serious, and consequently much more interesting, particularly given the fairly important role played by Major de Seversky in the U.S. aircraft industry between the world wars. Like General Billy Mitchell, for whom he had worked as a consultant and to whom both the book and the movie were dedicated, and also General Giulio Douhet (Italy), Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Trenchard (U.K.), Generalleutnant Walther Wever, Generalleutnant Ernst Udet and Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (Germany), Alexander de Seversky was one of the leading air power theorists and advocates during the inter-war years. As far as I can tell, he was mostly right, and occasionally damned near prescient in his predictions of near-term future trends in air warfare. The thing that really struck me while reading this was his constant criticism of the short-sighted and frankly foolish U.S. procurement policies for their debilitating effect on the performance and effectiveness of combat aviation, not only in the beginning but throughout the war. If those criticisms were valid, and the things he said in this book were true (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), this was an absolute scandal. I've read a great many books about the history of the Second World War over the years, many of them specifically about the war in the air, but I don't remember ever coming across this information previously. Obviously, all of the air forces involved in WWII had their individual strengths and weaknesses in terms of aircraft performance, armament, tactics etc. I've seen a lot more discussion of this in regard to the Germans than anyone else, probably not coincidentally. The story of the Luftwaffe's "Ural bomber" project is well known, as is the history of Hitler's lunatic interference with the development of the Me-262. My maternal grandfather, H.C. Showalter II, was employed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during the war, and worked in the P-38 Lightning program; he passed away quite a few years ago, but I wish I had read this book earlier so I could have taken the opportunity to ask him about some of this stuff...
[More to follow]
October 5, 2020
An excellent argument on the use of airpower as the deciding factor in the Second World War. Written just as America is entering the war, Seversky outlines how air superiority had been the deciding factor in every engagement between the allies and axis powers thus far in the war. The argument is made that naval power, including ship-based aviation, is in decline in importance, to be superseded by land-based air power. He argues that an independent American air force such as Britain's RAF is the only way air power will be properly accorded the resources and strategic independence to prosecute the war to victory. Particularly interesting were his first-hand observations about the aircraft design and manufacturing industries in Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Great Britain and the U.S.
History proved Seversky largely correct except for two quite unforeseeable events. First, he did not envision the awesome destructive power of the fast carrier task forces ranging in the Pacific, virtually as powerful as land-based aviation. Second, he did not foresee the atom bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles, making some of his thoughts about long-range bombing obsolete.
History proved Seversky largely correct except for two quite unforeseeable events. First, he did not envision the awesome destructive power of the fast carrier task forces ranging in the Pacific, virtually as powerful as land-based aviation. Second, he did not foresee the atom bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles, making some of his thoughts about long-range bombing obsolete.
December 22, 2020
Based on this book, if we and the rest of the world would have listened to Seversky, then the Nazis would have been halted in 1940 when they attacked France and Japan would never have attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was a great dreamer of things but was not very good at putting those dreams into reality. There was a sound reason why the USAAC convinced the board of directors to kick him out of his own company. If that would not have occurred, then the P-47 and other Republic Aircraft planes would never have come to fruition.
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September 9, 2023Livro que comecei a 27/07/2023, mas a 31/07/2023 desisti de o terminar. Não vai receber classificação da minha parte, nem vou colocar data para não contar para os livros lidos. Foi um livro muito chato e apenas aconselho se gostarem de um monte de dissertações sobre a importância da invenção dos aviões.
November 29, 2022
Dated, and fanciful even for the time.
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