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A review by mburnamfink
Big Week: The Biggest Air Battle of World War II by James Holland
5.0
Big Week is a fascinating multilevel study of the Allied bomber offensive over Nazi Germany from 1943 to the titular 'big week' at the end of February 1944, which saw the defeat of the Luftwaffe. Holland uses interviews and diaries with flight crew to great effect, putting you in the cockpit above Berlin, and showing the heroism of protagonists, while also pulling back to the big picture of the role of strategic airpower in World War 2.
1943 saw the Allies gearing up for a planned invasion of France. Until troops got their feet on the beaches, the only way England and America could materially effect the war was through bombing. The two allies had different theories about how strategic bombing worked. The British, lead by General Arthur "Bomber" Harris, were classical Douhetians. The role of the bomber was to break civilian morale through massive destruction. In part, this was due to technological limits inherited from 1942, where the limited numbers of British heavies would have no chance over the Reich during the day, so they bombed at night. Technical developments in radio-direction finding, radar-mapping, and the use of elite Pathfinder units to mark targets with flares allowed the British to hit a city-sized target, which they did to devastating effect in Hamburg. While the British could smash cities, killing tens of thousands and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless, as the Blitz proved, civilian morale is surprisingly resilient under bombardment, and the Nazis were not beholden to popular opinion in any case.
The Americans had developed a different doctrine based around "precision" day bombing using self-escorting formations of B-17s and B-24. I use "precision" in quotes, because while in peacetime tests the Norden gyroscopic bombsight was theoretically able to hit a pickle barrel, in actual combat American bombers matched the "somewhere in the city" accuracy of the British. The dream of knocking out key war industries from the air was a fantasy.
Both versions of strategic bombing doctrine had their limits, and worse the bomber force was taking unsustainable casualties throughout 1943. Nazi nightfighters using Wild Sow tactics and Schräge Musik upwards pointing cannons were taking a heavy toll on the British. American formations were vulnerable to cannon-laden FW-190s and Me 110s destroyers firing rockets from outside the defensive range of their .50 caliber turrets. The odds of an Allied pilot making it through their required 25 missions was infitesimal.
The Nazis were under similar stress. While bombing wasn't decisive, it was having an effect on aircraft production. More relevant was the fuel shortage, which had German pilots going into combat with 110 flying hours, while American pilots had at least 750 hours before their first combat mission. The baroque and divided Nazi command structure was another weakness, along with Hitler's continual demands for offensive operations against Britain which diverted resources from fighters. The Nazi were still using the Me-109 and FW-190, good designs for their time, but increasingly outdated against the latest Allied fighters, with the jet-powered Me-262 still too far off. And finally, the Nazi experten system concentrated offensive power in a handful of elite pilots. Just twelve pilots accounted for over 1100 kills in 1943. With no leave and no rest, inevitably these pilots would burn out and make a mistake or simple find their luck run dry and get killed, with only novices to replace them.
While strategic bombing couldn't win the war on its own, air superiority was a necessary prereqisite for the Normandy landings. As 1943 turned to 1944, the Allies sought a clear week of weather for a continuous assault that would draw up and defeat the Luftwaffe, using the newly arrived P-51B Mustang. Big Week closes out the book, as American and British bombers focused on an achievable target and ripped the guts out of the Luftwaffe. While operating over the Reich after the Big Week would never be safe, it was no longer the sure doom that is was in 1943.
This is one hell of a history, and highly recommended.
1943 saw the Allies gearing up for a planned invasion of France. Until troops got their feet on the beaches, the only way England and America could materially effect the war was through bombing. The two allies had different theories about how strategic bombing worked. The British, lead by General Arthur "Bomber" Harris, were classical Douhetians. The role of the bomber was to break civilian morale through massive destruction. In part, this was due to technological limits inherited from 1942, where the limited numbers of British heavies would have no chance over the Reich during the day, so they bombed at night. Technical developments in radio-direction finding, radar-mapping, and the use of elite Pathfinder units to mark targets with flares allowed the British to hit a city-sized target, which they did to devastating effect in Hamburg. While the British could smash cities, killing tens of thousands and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless, as the Blitz proved, civilian morale is surprisingly resilient under bombardment, and the Nazis were not beholden to popular opinion in any case.
The Americans had developed a different doctrine based around "precision" day bombing using self-escorting formations of B-17s and B-24. I use "precision" in quotes, because while in peacetime tests the Norden gyroscopic bombsight was theoretically able to hit a pickle barrel, in actual combat American bombers matched the "somewhere in the city" accuracy of the British. The dream of knocking out key war industries from the air was a fantasy.
Both versions of strategic bombing doctrine had their limits, and worse the bomber force was taking unsustainable casualties throughout 1943. Nazi nightfighters using Wild Sow tactics and Schräge Musik upwards pointing cannons were taking a heavy toll on the British. American formations were vulnerable to cannon-laden FW-190s and Me 110s destroyers firing rockets from outside the defensive range of their .50 caliber turrets. The odds of an Allied pilot making it through their required 25 missions was infitesimal.
The Nazis were under similar stress. While bombing wasn't decisive, it was having an effect on aircraft production. More relevant was the fuel shortage, which had German pilots going into combat with 110 flying hours, while American pilots had at least 750 hours before their first combat mission. The baroque and divided Nazi command structure was another weakness, along with Hitler's continual demands for offensive operations against Britain which diverted resources from fighters. The Nazi were still using the Me-109 and FW-190, good designs for their time, but increasingly outdated against the latest Allied fighters, with the jet-powered Me-262 still too far off. And finally, the Nazi experten system concentrated offensive power in a handful of elite pilots. Just twelve pilots accounted for over 1100 kills in 1943. With no leave and no rest, inevitably these pilots would burn out and make a mistake or simple find their luck run dry and get killed, with only novices to replace them.
While strategic bombing couldn't win the war on its own, air superiority was a necessary prereqisite for the Normandy landings. As 1943 turned to 1944, the Allies sought a clear week of weather for a continuous assault that would draw up and defeat the Luftwaffe, using the newly arrived P-51B Mustang. Big Week closes out the book, as American and British bombers focused on an achievable target and ripped the guts out of the Luftwaffe. While operating over the Reich after the Big Week would never be safe, it was no longer the sure doom that is was in 1943.
This is one hell of a history, and highly recommended.