I read every book that Malcolm Gladwell writes. This is his latest. It is a diversion from his usual topics, most of which are based on social science. This one is about something he has touched on in his podcast, Revisionist History, and is a topic he is particularly fascinated with. That topic being war history.
Personally, I despise war, but then, who is a fan of war? Still, this is a terrific story, although it has nothing to do with social science or business. It is relatively short and a quick read, due to Gladwell’s wonderful writing style and the interesting topic.
The Bomber Mafia refers to a group of Army aviation commanders. The U.S. Air Force wasn’t formed until 1947. With the advent of the use of airplanes in the First World War, the airplane’s role in warfare changed radically. The Army Air Corps was the predecessor of the Air Force. The Army’s traditional view of the role of airplanes in combat was to support ground troops.
The Bomber Mafia gradually changed this role from ground support to separate missions that had nothing directly to do with ground troops. The Bomber Mafia also believed in precision bombing, for example, to knock out a specific factory. In World War II, the goal was to knock out Germany’s ball bearing factories since that would bring most war production to a halt.
The Bomber Mafia’s British counterparts had a different philosophy. Rather than pinpoint bombing of a specific factory or military installation, the Brits would massively bomb residential areas in hopes of breaking the morale of the people. This was in spite of the blitz of London by Germany not breaking the resolve of the English people.
During World War II, both styles of air campaigns were used. The problem with the American approach was that the bombs were too inaccurate; they simply couldn’t hit their targets. The Brits didn’t care; they just bombed everything. The fire bombing of Dresden is probably the best known of these carpet-bombing episodes, where most of this beautiful city and its residents were wiped out.
After the war in Europe was finished, the attention of the Allies turned to the Pacific and defeating the Japanese. Even the long range of the B-29 was barely enough to reach Japan, and then only after the Mariana Islands were controlled.
Everyone knows of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. What I didn’t know of previously, was the massive fire bombings of most of the major Japanese cities that targeted the residential areas, which were densely packed with homes made of wood and paper. The U.S. military even did testing of traditional Japanese homes furnished with tatami mats and shoji screens.
To make the fires as intense as possible, napalm was developed at Harvard University and tested on the athletic fields. If this all sound awful, it was. But it forced the Japanese to surrender in August 1945. Had they not surrendered, the plan was for a land invasion on Kyushu in November 1945. The planning for this land assault was that half a million Americans would die, and half a million Japanese would die too. Then many millions more Japanese would have died of starvation during the winter of 1945/1946. The fire bombing and atomic bombs saved many lives by shortening the war.
Precision bombing was largely a failure during the Second World War, but in the subsequent decades, the strategy has been proven out. Laser guided bombs can now be directed to a specific room of a specific building. The point, of course, is to minimize the loss of innocents while taking out a military target.
The other part of the story, that I haven’t mentioned, is the larger-than-life personalities that are the characters in this drama. It is a terrific book that I recommend to you, despite the larger context that I abhor.
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