4.0 out of 5 stars
Personalities, technologies, and morality of the WWII bombing
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 11 April 2022
The Bomber Mafia, Malcomb Gladwell
This book tells about the people and the technologies that shaped the U.S. and British bombing campaigns of WWII. But the overarching theme that shows up again and again is the question, what is the moral or ethical way to prosecute a war. I think it fairly presents the dilemmas. The main dilemma is whether to target civilians. This is a timely question, considering the way that Russia is targeting civilians in Ukraine. The book is respectful of most points of view, but has a low tolerance for people {the Bomber Mafia) who commit to a doctrine based on little evidence, and who refuse to change when they see evidence that their doctrine is wrong. Gladwell wrestles with the decisions to firebomb Dresden and many Japanese cities, and the use of the atomic bomb. These were mainly attacks on civilians, and Gladwell is uncomfortable with that. But he recognizes that a land invasion of Japan would have caused enormous casualties on both sides plus a great deal of starvation among Japanese civilians. He notes that LeMay’s superiors, including Truman, did not comprehend what he was doing, and he made decisions of grave consequence with no real supervision. He notes that in 1964 Japan awarded Lemay with their highest medal for work to improve the Japanese defensive air force.
The following paragraphs are a more detailed summary of the book.
After a few introductory pages, we are introduced to Carl L. Norden, inventer of the Norden Bomb Sight – the Mark XV. Many things affect the path of a bomb when it is dropped from high altitude. Mainly, release altitude, aircraft speed, and wind. Oh, and the earth moves some distance as the bomb falls. Norden designed the bomb sight single-handedly, refusing any help. Norden was a devout Christian, and believed that precision bombing, made possible with his bomb sight, would win wars by destroying the machines of war, rather than by killing millions of soldiers or civilians.
Early on, we start learning about the Bomber Mafia. A few pilots (around twelve) who were veterans of World War I reacted to the carnage of trench warfare in that war. They thought that a war could be fought mainly with airplanes with a quicker end and fewer deaths. They were instructors at the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alabama. At Maxwell, they were as isolated as possible from the rest of the Army, which didn’t think much of airplanes or pilots. They formulated four tenets: 1, the bomber will always get through. 2, attack by daylight. 3, use a bombsight, like Norden’s. 4, bomb from high altitude. One pilot at the Tactical School, Claire Chennault, challenged these tenets, and was thrown out. They didn’t have any of the hardware they were thinking about, and they didn’t have a war, so they did thought experiments. They heard a factory in Pittsburgh that manufactured a critical part of variable-pitch propellors. The factory was badly damaged in a flood, and propellors could not be completed for many months. Aha. If a few critical factories could be destroyed, the enemy could not produce essential arms. The whole industry did not have to be destroyed.
To explain how different Air Corps (or Air Force) culture was, he describes the chapels at West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy. The Air Force Academy cadet chapel looks like seventeen fighter jets aimed at the sky. It is made with aluminum, steel, and stained glass. Nobody had built such a building before, and when finished, it leaked water when it rained. So modifications were made. The Idea is that most things the Air Force does (back then anyway), hasn’t been done before and you just have to do it and then make adjustments where needed. (Before The Bomber Mafia was published, a major – drastic – rebuilding project was started on the cadet chapel, but Gladwell does not mention it, it doesn’t really contribute to his narrative.)
The United States entered World War II and started high altitude, daylight bombing, with the Royal Air Force bombing at night – “area bombing.” In January, 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca. Churchill wanted the U.S. to switch to night area bombing. General Hap Arnold summoned General Ira Eaker to Casablanca to change Churchill’s mind. Churchill wasn’t entirely convinced but agreed that the Eighth Air Force would continue with daylight precision bombing a bit longer. The U.K. had a bomber mafioso – a single man – Frederick Lindemann – who set the bombing doctrine for the U.K. He was a very close friend of Churchill, and believed in night area bombing of entire cities. They liked to call it morale bombing. They believed it would destroy the morale of the German people. They had witnessed the failure of bombing to hurt morale in London and other U.K. cities, but they were sure it would be different with bombing German cities. Lindemann said “I define a moral action as one that brings advantage to my friends.” P 71. Lindemann was German born and educated, but he turned on his native country. He had no facts to support his bombing doctrine. Marshall Arthur Harris – Bomber Harris – ran the British bombing command. He implemented Lindemann’s doctrine.
The Bomber Mafia thought they knew a “choke point” in German production. If they could wipe out the ball bearing production, they could prevent the production of any machine that turns. They devised a plan to bomb the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt. They would simultaneously send some bombers to Regensburg, led by Curtis LeMay, as a diversion. Fog caused the Schweinfurt bombers to take off hours late, so there was no diversion. The Schweinfurt bombers dropped 2000 bombs, and only 80 hit their target. Many bombers were destroyed. It did not impede German war production. This should have taught the Bomber Mafia that high altitude daylight precision bombing would not work, but it didn’t. They tried and failed again a few months later, and did not abandon high altitude daylight precision bombing.
Part 2 of the book shifts to the Pacific Theater. Several of the Marianas Islands were taken, to be used to launch bombing raids on Japan. Guam, Tinian, Saipan. The B-29 was produced with much longer range than the B-17 or B-24, long enough to reach Japan from the Marianas. General Haywood Hansell commanded the 20th Bomber Command in the Marianas in late 1944 until he was relieved in January 1945. (On page 164 it says 20th, on page 168 it says 21st. Probably 21st is correct.) He as a solid member of the Bomber Mafia and committed to high altitude daylight precision bombing. But it wasn’t going to work over Japan because there was a 125 MPH jet stream at the altitude where the B-29s were bombing. It was way too much to ask of the Norden Bomb Sight. Hardly any bombs hit their targets.
Early in the war, scientists at Harvard were working on incendiary bombs. They finally came up with napalm, and napalm bombs were developed and produced. Hansell was ordered to conduct an incendiary raid on a Japanese city. He sent out a feeble raid, and got fired. He was morally opposed to massive incendiary bombing that would kill many civilians. His replacement was Curtis LeMay.
At first, LeMay tried to do high altitude daylight precision bombing. A big problem was clouds. The Norden Bomb Sight requires that the bombardier must be able to see the target. You can’t do precision bombing if the ground is obscured by clouds. (This is on top of the jet stream problem.) Many times, the B-29s were ready to take off, but there were reports or forecasts that the target was cloudy. It’s not clear how they would know that from the Marianas. LeMay came up with a plan all by himself. The bombers would come in at 5,000 feet, at night, with incendiary (napalm) bombs. They did this on March 9-10, 1945. The target was a 15 mile square area. Most of it was burned. There were many deaths, mostly civilian. This was repeated many times in many Japanese cities. Before the Tokyo raid, there was concern about coming in at 5,000 feet. But the Japanese defenses were not designed for bombers at such a low altitude. The book doesn’t mention any bomber losses.
When you go to the Amazon page for the book, most of the reviews that pop up first are 1 or 2 star reviews. We used to be able to write comments to respond to reviews, but Amazon took that feature away. The negative reviews point out a couple of errors and they call it incomplete, not rigorous, lightweight, and plagiarism. There are errors. Gladwell says that B-29s could not launch from Guam because of insufficient tailwind. When takeoff performance is marginal, an airplane always takes off with a headwind. I flew the KC-135A, I know. Suppose takeoff speed is 100 knots and there is a 25 knot tailwind. Then the airplane has to have a ground speed of 125 knots to take off. If there is a 25 knot headwind, the groundspeed only needs to be 75 knots. Isn’t this obvious? I think the book is reasonably complete, covering the important issues. Well it is not real rigorous, it wasn’t intended to be. I don’t know about the plagiarism charge. Some reviewers criticized Gladwell’s treatment of the moral questions. I think he was fair. He didn’t side completely with or against LeMay’s decision to firebomb Japanese cities. He explored the issue. One reviewer recommended Twilight of the Gods by Ian Tolle. I suppose that is a great book, but it is 943 pages.
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