Bomber Offensive: The Devastation of Europe

Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II / the Violent Century: Campaign #7

by Noble Frankland

Campaign Book 7

Genres: History, Military Fiction, War, World War II, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Anthony Noble Frankland was a British historian who served as Director General of the Imperial War Museum.

Reviews

[David Engel]

This concise book, written in 1970, offers a wonderful overview of the plans, debates and implementations of the Allied air forces against the European Axis campaigns in WWII. I enjoyed behind the scenes stories of how the strategies and tactics were made and altered as the process unfolded. I was unaware the RAF bombers actually dropped more tonnage than the Eighth Air Force! This was a good read!

[Craig]

I think this does a great job of going over the roots, establishment and then main objectives of the Bomber campaign of the Second World War. As they establish in the introduction, Frankland was involved in Bomber command and had first hand experience to the motivations and decisions for what they did. The book is primarily from a British perspective but does highlight the American side of the campaign and even gives Spaatz who commanded the American side of the Bombers credit for being the best commander of the bunch. I think the book gives a great balanced approach to both approaches to bombing for the British and the Americans and the advantages and disadvantages to both. Finally, the summary outlines why the British approach was necessary and why it continued and tragedies such as Dresden's firebombing was more the exception as a similar approach was done to another city and did not get the results as Dresden's did. Depending on where you sit on either side of the debate for the bombing campaign during the Second World War this book would be a good read for understanding why the approach that they had was necessary and unfortunate. War is brutal and terrible and this book doesn't shy away from that.

[Robert Hepple]

First published in 1969, 'Bomber Offensive - The Devastation of Europe' is Campaign Book in the Purnell's History of the Second World War series of books. As the title suggests, this volume looks at the bombing of Europe by the RAF and USAAF during WW2. The text is extremely well written and is supported by some excellent photos. The detail of the text is far greater for the early phases of the bombing campaign, with some intelligent insights into how decisions were made after some tentative beginnings. By contrast, the detail of the later phases of the bombing campaign seems a little basic and rushed, but nonetheless an interesting read.