num_pages: 553
description: The bomber campaign against Germany is now among the most contentious actions of the Second World War. Did it help bring the Nazis to their knees? Was the RAF wrong to bomb cities? Did the USAAF attack only military targets? Was anything achieved by killing German civilians most of them women and children? If not are the bombers  and especially Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and the aircrew of RAF Bomber Command  not war criminals? Or were all means not justified against the Nazis? In this controversial book Robin Neillands examines every detail of the campaign: the strengths and fundamental flaws in doctrine the technical difficulties and developments from night-time navigation through bomb-aiming to fighter escort and above all the day-by-day night-by-night endurance of the crews flying to the limit in discomfort and danger facing flak and enemy fighters. Illuminated by the personal experiences not only of British but of American Australian Canadian and other Allied fliers as well this books packs an emotional punch while remaining historically accurate. A compelling and very moving account of how thousands of British Commonwealth and American aircrew most in their early twenties sallied forth both by day and by night to attack Hitlers Reich. The statistical odds of survival were stacked against them but they went back again and again many paying the ultimate price.- Major General Julian Thompson CB OBE Robin Neillands is the author of several acclaimed works on the First World War including The Great War Generals on the Western Front Attrition: The Great War on the Western Front 1916 and The Old Contemptibles. Praise for Robin Neillands: One of Britains most readable historians  Birmingham Post Immensely readable  a blast of fresh air  The Spectator Informed and explicit this is military history at its best  Western Daily Press Neillands willingness to call a spade a spade will catch the popular imagination. His central argument is hard to fault  Literary Review Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.
language: English
title: The Bomber War: Arthur Harris and the Allied Bomber Offensive 1939-1945
publisher: Endeavour Press