The Machinery of Murder (Part One)
Topic: Must Read
Len Dighton’s masterpiece, Bomber, does not depict the Second World War in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed in these years of the glorification of the Greatest Generation. Published in 1970, long before the old soldiers began to fade away, this disturbing novel is ultimately based on one grim statistic: During World War II, the Allied strategic bombing offensive killed an estimated 400,000 German civilians, the majority of them in 1943-45.
The strategic bombing offensive against Germany was controversial at the time and remains so today. In the 1920s and 1930s, air power advocates confidently asserted that strategic bombing could rapidly destroy an enemy’s will and capacity to fight by smashing key industries and infrastructure and demoralizing the civilian population. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin famously asserted that “The bomber will always get through,” and the idea that the next war would begin with a knock-out blow from the air became firmly fixed in the popular imagination.
The doctrine of strategic bombing was enthusiastically embraced by the leaders of the Royal Air Force, which had been made an independent service in 1918. It justified the RAF’s existence and pointed toward a revolution in the art of war that would reduce the Army and Royal Navy to mere adjuncts of the main weapon, the Air.
There were dissenters from the concept of the strategic bombing, Winston Churchill prominent among them. And when war began in 1939 it quickly became apparent that the RAF possessed neither the expertise nor the technology to deliver the aerial knock-out blow. Daylight bombing raids resulted in high losses from German fighters and antiaircraft artillery (flak). Night bombing raids revealed that the RAF was pitifully ill-equipped to locate and bomb targets in darkness.
The Battle of Britain ought to have raised further doubts about the validity of strategic bombing. Despite all its advantages of numerical superiority and possession of bases in close proximity to targets in Britain, the Luftwaffe failed either to paralyze British industry or to demolish the morale of the British people. But with the fall of France, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill, now prime minister, realized that strategic bombing was his country’s only means of striking back. Great resources were accordingly devoted to the creation of a bomber force capable of delivering on the promises of the interwar air power prophets. With the appointment of the able and energetic Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris to lead it in 1941, RAF Bomber Command was transformed into a powerful weapon of mass destruction.
Along with Churchill’s scientific adviser, Lord Cherwell, Harris pressed for the adoption of area bombing by night. Germany’s cities were to be laid in ruins, the objective being to kill and “de-house” German civilians. Cherwell and Harris argued that industrial workers were valid military targets; anyhow, daylight precision bombing would only result in prohibitive casualties. Determined to take the fight to Germany in some way, Churchill fell in with their plan.
Between 1941 and 1943, new and far more capable aircraft, such as the Lancaster and Halifax four-engine bombers, were delivered to Bomber Command’s operational squadrons. New, sophisticated navigational aids were introduced. A specially trained Pathfinder Force was created to locate and mark targets for the bomber stream. By 1943 Bomber Command was a formidable force that posed a deadly threat to Germany’s cities. Meanwhile, the US Eighth Air Force, based in Britain, was adding its weight to the strategic air offensive with daylight bombing raids.
The Germans reacted to this threat with their customary efficiency and by 1943 they were devoting major resources to home air defense. Particularly impressive was the development of a specialized night fighter force. In tandem with the Luftwaffe’s always-efficient flak, radar-directed night fighters with their hard-hitting cannon armament took a heavy toll of RAF bombers.
Bomber is set in mid-1943, with both Bomber Command and the German night fighter force rising to peak efficiency and the killing about to begin in earnest. Having sketched in the historical background, I’ll discuss the novel in my next post.
Posted by tmg110
at 10:46 AM EDT
Updated: Friday, 6 April 2012 3:30 PM EDT
