eBook

Rhetoric and reality in air warfare

Biddle, Tami Davis

2004,2009,2002

Overview

A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about \"strategic\" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained largely through cognitive error and bias. Tami Davis Biddle explains how air theorists, and those influenced by them, came to believe that strategic bombing would be an especially effective coercive tool and how they responded when their assumptions were challenged. Biddle analyzes how a particular interpretation of the World War I experience, together with airmen's organizational interests, shaped interwar debates about strategic bombing and preserved conceptions of its potentially revolutionary character. This flawed interpretation as well as a failure to anticipate implementation problems were revealed as World War II commenced. By then, the British and Americans had invested heavily in strategic bombing. They saw little choice but to try to solve the problems in real time and make long-range bombing as effective as possible. Combining narrative with analysis, this book presents the first-ever comparative history of British and American strategic bombing from its origins through 1945. In examining the ideas and rhetoric on which strategic bombing depended, it offers critical insights into the validity and robustness of those ideas--not only as they applied to World War II but as they apply to contemporary warfare.

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Subject: Aerial bombing / Aerial operations, American / Aerial operations, British / Aerial warfare / Aerodrome / Air Corps (Ireland) / Air Corps Tactical School / Air force / Air Ministry / Air offensive / Air power / Air Staff (United Kingdom) / Air Staff (United States) / Air supremacy / Aircraft / Airman / Airstrike / and operations / Army / Aviation / B. H. Liddell Hart / Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress / Bomb / Bomber / Bomber Command / Bombing, Aerial / Bombing, Aerial -- Great Britain / Bombing, Aerial -- United States / Bombsight / Butt Report / Calculation / Chief of staff / Close air support / Combined Bomber Offensive / Disarmament / Dislocation / Escort fighter / European theatre of World War II / German Air Force / Grand strategy / Great Britain / Heavy bomber / Henry H. Arnold / HISTORY / HISTORY / Military / Aviation / HISTORY / Military / Strategy / Incendiary device / Independent Air Force / Interdiction / Joint Chiefs of Staff / Lecture / Luftwaffe / Maintenance / Military / Military history / Military organization / Military tactics / Morale / Navy / Norden bombsight / On War / Precision bombing / Reconnaissance / repair / Reprisal / Requirement / Secretary of State for Air / Squadron (aviation) / Staff college / Strategic bomber / Strategic bombers / Strategic bombers -- Great Britain / Strategic bombers -- United States / Strategic bombing / Strategy / Troop / United States / United States Air Force / United States Army Air Forces / Vulnerability / War / War economy / War effort / Warfare / Weapon / World War I / World War II / World War, 1914-1918 / World War, 1939-1945
• ISBN: 0691089094, 9780691089096, 9780691120102, 0691120102, 1400824974, 9781400824977