"The Greatest Force" by Marcus Gibson

[Nick Beale]

According to the author's website:

"This book is the first-ever full analysis of the impact of RAF Bomber Command on Nazi Germany, proving it was the foremost military force in securing victory.

New research at last dispels the many myths about Bomber Command’s true effectiveness in crippling Germany’s industrial output.

How Bomber Command gave little-known but vital support to the Royal Navy against the U-boats and to Allied armies from Italy, Normandy and deep into Germany

It was deputy PM Clement Attlee who ordered the raid on Dresden—not Air Marshal Harris.

Tragically 55,000 RAF airmen died in the bombing campaign but this book confirms their selfless sacrifice was not in vain.

… overturns all previous histories of RAF Bomber Command in WW2, is destined to become the standard work on one of the war’s most controversial subjects: the bombing campaign against Germany and Italy.

The book forensically challenges the widely repeated claims that the campaign was “ineffective, costly and even a war crime” and goes on to show, with painstaking analysis of British, American, and German archives, that it was in fact an undoubted game-changer in ensuring the ultimate defeat of the Nazi Regime.

• Why Air Marshal Harris was right to bomb German city centres?
• How the RAF diverted around 80% of AA guns and fighters from frontlines.
• How did the RAF also help smash the Kriegsmarine and the Wehrmacht?
• Why were small parts factories far important to Germany than big ones?
• And what were Bomber Command’s greatest errors?
• Why there were no refugees in Dresden? Why did this manufacturing city get off so lightly compared to the Russian cities bombed by the Luftwaffe?
• In 1945 which British politicians betrayed Bomber Command?
• How did General James Doolittle rescue the US 8th Air Force from its disastrous start?

This book will be the very first, truly encyclopaedic analysis that profiles the full spectrum of RAF Bomber Command’s achievements—and it will fundamentally change our view, once and for all, of the immensity of their contribution."

If the foregoing was too modest to convince you, there's part 1 of a ww2tv interview online now, with the second bit to come later this week. I can't say I've bought his argument so far, despite his two years' research (he talked as if he thought that was a lot, by the way).

[Bombphoon]

Hmmm... quite some claims there... not least 'overturns all previous histories of RAF Bomber Command in WW2' and doesn't sound terribly modest about it either.

Like many histories today, the book sounds more subjective than objective.

[edwest2]

I just hope it contains footnotes to document references that support any claims made.

It reminds me of the "Greatest Generation" idea which appears to be being reapplied here. And if I may add that I've seen bias creeping into too many books. Bias, by the way, is not history whenever it appears.

[edwest2]

A brief review posted on WW2TV:

I bought the book and have read much of it. Disappointed. There is very vanishingly little archival citation; it relies on secondary sources. Where those disagree, he cites only the ones that support him.

Biggest error so far is that Chapter 4 is based on a simple mistranslation: Gibson thinks he is discussing the "Zulieferungskrise", citing Adam Tooze's brief discussion of it in Wages of Destruction. But Gibson translates "Zulieferungskrise" as a "spare parts crisis", not "subcomponents crisis" - the latter is correct and what Tooze uses. This is not semantics: The subcomponents crisis was a real dynamic in which Germany had expanded its manufacture of finished products (airframes, engines, tanks, trucks, etc) but had not ensured the same investment into the small producers of subcomponents required to enable those "finishers" to do their jobs. Tooze argues that the RAF's Ruhr Campaign had disproportionate impact on the subcomponents manufacturers, something that historians had underestimated. Because of Gibson's mistranslation, his Chapter 4 focuses primarily on Germany Army/Luftwaffe spare parts and maintenance problems. Hopefully it's obvious how wrong this is. A tank engine, for example, is a "spare part" but is most definitely not a subcomponent as discussed by Tooze. Engine manufacturing was one of the German industries least impacted by bombing, despite Germany often lacking spare engines (especially for tanks). That German lack was due to bad planning decisions about producing spare parts vs. finished products, not about the Zulieferungskrise. Gibson's sloppiness has him thinking that he's developing Tooze's thesis but he is talking about something totally unrelated. What's annoying about this, for someone who spent time and money on the book, is that any research into the German archives would have shown Gibson this fact. But Chapter 4 has only one German archive citation, and I'd bet he lifted that from Tooze or another author rather than digging into it himself.

In general, this is an analytically confused and frustrating book. His arguments frequently run at cross-purposes. He says the German aircraft production numbers are fictional, for example, and rejects the notion that the difference between combat losses and production is the ridiculous rate at which undertrained German pilots crashed planes in training/delivery (a point highlighted/accepted by Philips O'Brien and others). But then later he's extensively discussing how bad the German pilots were, including that they crashed so many planes outside combat. Well which is it?

He casts doubt on the US and British Strategic Bombing Surveys (including by pointing out that the BBS hired W.H. Auden and that he was gay), but frequently cites their conclusions.

[Nick Beale]

Thanks for highlighting that, Ed.

[Andy Fletcher]

• How the RAF diverted around 80% of AA guns and fighters from frontlines.

I think the USAAF might have had something to do with the above, at least from late 1943 onwards.

[edwest2]

You're welcome Nick.