"Bomber" Harris; the Authorised Biography

by Dudley Saward

Book Overview

Bomber Harris: The Story of Sir Arthur Harris, by Saward, Dudley This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0907675336
• ISBN13: 9780907675334
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Cassell/ Ashford,Buchan & Enright
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Proves the Efficacy of Allied Area Bombing

Contrary to others' misrepresentations, this is not an unthinking apology for Allied area bombing. To the contrary: In support of his contentions about the efficacy of Allied area bombing of German cities, author Saward cites the testimony of Albert Speer. Surely Speer should know: He was in charge of the Reich's military production. It was by his creative efforts (such as the dispersion of industry into many small towns and into eastern areas of Reich-held territory largely out of the range of Allied bombers) that the Third Reich lasted as long as it did. Saward presents eye-opening evidence for the efficacy of Allied bombing in WWII. He proves that the lost productivity of a carpet-bombed city was much more significant than the lost productivity of a destroyed munitions factory (which was very difficult to hit anyway). Again, Albert Speer makes this clear. In describing the aftereffects of the Hamburg firestorm, he states: "Hamburg put the fear of God in me...Three days later I informed Hitler that armaments production was collapsing..." (p. 210). Decades after the war, Speer reaffirmed his contention that six more such attacks would have meant the total halt to German war production: "In March 1972, when the author talked with Albert Speer in his home in Heidelberg, he asked him if he had changed his mind about this matter of six towns. Speer replied: `No, no, attacks like that on six such towns, and we would have been finished!'" (p. 211). Had Arthur Harris been listened to, and Germany not gotten a respite from Allied bombing, perhaps Nazi Germany would have collapsed at least a year sooner than it did. Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris won a number of awards for his service, including the Order of Polonia Restituta (p. 322).