Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II

By Ronald Schaffer

Book Overview

World War II--"the good war"--is here viewed from a new angle of vision, one that sheds fresh light on how major decisions were reached.
More than just a book on the strategy and outcome of American bombing in World War II, Wings of Judgment tells about choices in war, decisions that determined whether hundreds of thousands of people lived or died and whether famous cities and great monuments of civilization survived or were destroyed. It is about the bombing of Dresden and Berlin and of dozens of cities and towns all over Germany and about the preservation of Rome and Florence. It is about the incineration of Tokyo, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the sparing of one of Japan's most beautiful and holy places, the city of Kyoto. Describing U.S. air raids that terrified inhabitants of enemy nations and citizens of enemy-occupied countries, it raises serious questions about the military and moral effects of American bombing. It also tells of American efforts to avoid killing civilians needlessly.
Taking us behind the scenes at military headquarters, Schaffer shows that even the toughest warriors occasionally found themselves offering moral arguments for their actions, arguing that they were made right by enemy atrocities, by the justness of the Allied cause, and by the numbers of lives of American servicemen that Allied bombing might save.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019505640X
• ISBN13: 9780195056402
• Release Date: September 1988
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Very Good

The author has given readers a valuable insight into the making of U.S. air strategy during WWII. The author does an excellent job with not taking sides, or imposing his own moral judgements onto the men who created and implemented the U.S. air war against Germany and Japan. While there is an unfortunate lack of first hand accounts from these men about how they looked at the moral issues involved with this war, the author does well with what he had, and does a good job extrapolating where warranted. This book discusses in detail how the air strategy was developed. What is somewhat surprising is the fact that so few of these men even seemed to contemplate the real impact of the air war on the people of Japan and Germany. So often the discussion about what was happening remained on pragmatic issues of strategy and the nuts and bolts of implementing that strategy. Very little discussion took place over the impact of that strategy, and how that strategy was going to affect the post war world. The most alarming aspect is just how easily the war degenerated into area bombing sometimes at the expense of tactical bombing high priority targets. Even though area bombing had very little impact on the Axis powers ability to continue the war the U.S. air forces continued to employ this strategy. This is the most puzzling aspect of the air war during WWII. Area bombing had not had a major impact on Germany's ability to prosecute the war, and it wasn't until basically all of Germany was overran by ground forces that they finally surrendered. There was ample evidence available to show that area bombing cost much more than was ever gained by the method. With Japan it seemed as though area bombing was eventually employed from its own momentum. As the U.S. gathered an overwhelming abundance of war material it seems that the strategists just decided to bomb targets simply because they could rather than from real strategic necessity. In the end the question raised from this book and the U.S. air war is whether or not a humanitarian or moral war can actually exist. If it can't then laws such as the Geneva Conventions are worthless. War should be waged relentlessly without thought of consequence or morality. Everyone and everything should be fair game. But if morality can be imposed on conflict then the lessons should be drawn from the air war of WWII and change should be made to reflect a more moral form of combat. There were some problems with this book though. There is some redundancy with the material, but the main thing I found lacking with this work was the author's total lack of discussion from the Germany and Japan's perspective. He details the air war very well, but for readers to be able to draw lessons from this conflict there needed to be a discussion from the enemies perspective. Questions about how area bombing actually did affect the enemies strategic position materially, economically and societal. Did the area bombing significan

Excellent objective study of American bombing strategy

This is a very good book. If you are looking for riveting first hand accounts of bombing missions flown over Germany or Japan, this is not your book. This book is a very readable and well researched study of the who/how/why of American bombing strategy in WWII. The last line of the previous reviewer's comments suggesting that this book takes glamor away from WWII veterans or somehow tarnishes the reputaion of the "greatest generation" is frankly offensive. Anyone who fought in that war or knows someone who fought knows glamor has nothing to do with it. The book takes you into the decision making process that the nation went through on many different levels in formulating our air strategy against the axis powers. The amount of research Mr Schaffer did using personal diaries, interviews, memos, official histories, and more really digs deep into who these men were. Some people forget that the this war was viewed, at the time, as a battle to preserve civilization itself. And the men, from Roosevelt to Churchill to Truman on down the chain were trying to figure out how best to win this thing. Can you imagine what it was like to be the commanding general of the 8th Air Force in late 1943? You are ordering raids in which thousands will die at a time when it appears Germany is going to roll over at least continental and eastern Europe, and oh by the way, the men in your bomber commmand, statisticly, will all die beofore ever completeing the required number of missions? This book helps you understand. War is horrific and often demands humans do horrible things. The decisions are never easy or clear, made so much more so by the nature of war. Mr Schaffer does an admirable job of remaining impartial. This book attmepts to relate the facts and motivations facing those men and then discuses the decisions they made. Could the war be ended sooner in Germany or Japan and American lives saved by breaking the will of the enemy populace? Was it possible to stop Japan's sprawling urban industrial base with precision bombing? Should the A-Bomb be dropped somewhere unpopulated first to serve as warning to the Japanese? All issues examined in this book. If you are at all interested in the full story of american bombing strategy in WWII, read this book.

Chilling

This is an outstanding book on American bombing in World War II. Schaffer begins with background studies on those who lead the American air war and on air war doctrine. He then describes in some detail the air war against Germany and Japan, describing what happened and also the opinions of those who lead the war - men such as Curtis LeMay, "Hap" Arnold, and Carl Spaatz.Sadly, the U.S. effort began to directly target civilians. This culminated in such atrocities as the attack on Dresden on February 13-14, 1945, a city which contained few industrial and military targets. A conservative estimate of the deaths is 35,000. [p. 97.] The March 10, 1945 bombing of Tokyo lead to an estimated 87,000 deaths. [p. 132.] This may have exceeded the number of deaths at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Schaffer's description of the Tokyo attack is chilling: "Choking inhabitants crawled across fallen telephone poles and trolley wires. As superheated air burned their lungs and ignited their clothing, some burst into flames, fires sweeping up from the bottom of trousers . . . . Some women who carried infants . . realized only when they stopped to rest that their babies were on fire." [p. 134.]For those who glamorize war and glamorize those who fought in World War II as the "greatest generation," this book provides a useful corrective.

A must read for any one interested in bombing policy.

An excellent in depth analysis of American Strategic bombing policy in World Waar II, including formation in the pre war years, foreign influence, political considerations, and cultural factors. It is equally useful for the political, cultural, or military historian, as well as for political scientists. One of my very favorites!