Product Description

An account which traces the development of area bombing, using documents, letters, diaries and interviews with key surviving witnesses. Bomber Command's offensive against the cities of Germany was one of the epic campaigns of World War II.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14632 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Customer Reviews

BOMBER COMMAND by MAx Hastings
...Yes, the campaign was costly, and yes, it was cruel, in tems of the number of Allied airmen who lost their lives. But pointless? No, and to say it was, does nothing but trivialise the huge loss of life endured by those who served in Bomber Command. The book itself is one of the more accurate portrayals of Bomber Command, and should be on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in the subject. Sometimes brutally honest, and portraying facts that we might not like to admit, it nevertheless gives the whole story. We must not forget that Bomber Command provided us with the ONLY way to strike directly at Germany from June 1940 until June 1944, and the author readily acknowledges this fact when detailing occasions when things went wrong. Non-sensationalist and factual, overall, a good, recommended, buy.

Excellent, painful account on 'forgotten' campaign
I always think of Max Hastings as that bloke on Question Time with the pinstripe suits that have the stripes just a little too wide.

Pity he has to waste his time with all that journalism, his real forte is military history and I think he should stick to it.

This is an extremely good book that manages to convey the appalling unreality that must have been the lot of bomber crews who knew they only had a few months to live - at best and yet conveys a proper appreciation of 'Bomber' Harris and his vital role in maintaining British morale when all we had to hit back at the Germans were the bombing raids of dubious accuracy and effectiveness. The sense of theatre that Harris brought to the job - with his 1,000 bomber raids and his uncompromising public statements - is well chronicled here.

But when Hastings describes the carnage of the raid at Darmstadt - a really boring little raid by Bomber Command standards - you feel real revulsion about what was done in the name of freedom.

Great stuff. Well worth buying.

History brought to life
This a truly excellent book written by a man with that rare combination of historian and writer. So many historians just cannot bring a story to life but Max Hastings is an exception. I found the book more of a page turner than the thriller 'Da Vinci Code' which is written by someone who is neither writer nor historian. Bomber Command is a dispassionate appraisal of its value to the Allied victory in WW2.