We won the war when we did because our aircraft carriers were luckily out of Pearl Harbor when it was invaded, we were never going to lose but our task would have become daunting if we had to re-build our aircraft carrier fleet in my opinion Germany invaded Russia for its oil, oil was and is the commodity needed for modern militaries, Your email address will not be published. Once you are in a way, are some forms of bombing more humane than others? The next chapter details the pilots at the Air Corps Tactical School in Alabama who were known as the Bomber Mafia. Yes. While one is a celebrated hero, the other was an idealist whose concepts allowed him to be sidelined in the annals of background. And then another. You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with War stories are a brand-new category for those utilized to Macolm Gladwells distinct brand of nonfiction. You will be emailed a confirmation with the link to the audiobook or you can login with your email addresshere. The brief Conclusion looks at the bigger picture this story tells about the use of technology. An exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. For the first few years, the strongest voice at ACTS against the bomber doctrine was Captain (later General) George C. Kenney who called for the use of air power to attack enemy fighting units on the ground. This was not a standalone event. The destruction was so far beyond anything theyd seen before that the reality of the reports coming in from American bases in the Mariana Islands just didnt register. Starting in 2022, Starbucks is expanding its Veterans Day freebie to include an additional product: iced coffee. There are a lot of moral dilemmas to chew on here. Malcom Gladwells book Talking to Strangers is a very good book that ties together LeMay believed that the campaign was so effective that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 werent even necessary, because his campaign already had made clear the price if Japan declined to surrender. However I really did not recognize why this publication merely discusses why this was the status quo. They intended the mission to be against military and industrial targets, not populations. Guide begins with a very genuine trouble. Here is Gladwells stunning description of a United States Air Force B-17 bomber being cut up on a run over Germany: One 20-millimeter cannon shell penetrated the right side of the airplane and exploded beneath the pilot, cutting one of the gunners in the leg. [] Hansell won the war". He was hardly a theorist, and especially not someone out to make war more humane. With thousands of Veterans Day military discounts to choose from, how do you find the best ones? This page was last edited on 16 June 2022, at 01:38. The airmen believed that the tool would allow forces to focus on taking out specific targets that could cripple the enemys production lines rather than engaging in the kind of indiscriminate bombing that the Germans did on London and the Allied forces would against Dresden. (Gladwell partly excuses this notorious phrase, saying it was likely the work of a ghostwriter.) Tap the link to open your audiobook purchase in your podcast app. To frame the book in this simplistic binary is to misconstrue the doctrines of both precision and area bombing". He just didnt have it. LeMay was allowed to kill civilians by the tens of thousands because he had a theory about morale among the populace, which never came close to a conclusion. They believed that bombing strategic targets made sense, and bombing population centers didnt. If yo. It is indeed a conversational work, almost garrulous at times, as when he reports that one psychologist has a heartbreaking riff about what one member of a couple will often say when the other one dies that some part of him or her has died along with the partner. However, this chatty style also glides over some important historical questions. On the eve of the Second World War, a band of visionaries at Maxwell Air Force Base tried to reimagine modern warfare. Revisionist History host Malcolm Gladwell joins Dan to discuss the development of U.S. precision bombing ideas, Curtis LeMay and the firebombing of Japanese cities. Anyone can read what you share. It's true: The audiobook breaks conventional audiobook standards, as this is a well-produced audio experience. Yet he also concludes that in the long run, in the years that followed, the idealistic Hansell was right to believe that an air campaign based on precision strikes was possible. I would have been bored with this when I was 11--likely he would be, too. Bomber Mafia Questions 2,700,000+ results. Perhaps bombing debate this is old hat to many of my readers. [4] He devoted four episodes of the fifth season of Revisionist History to air power in World War II, and stated the audiobook served as an expansion of material from the podcast. This was a ripoff and should have just been a podcast. After difficulties in applying the Bomber Mafia's theoretical strategy, Major General Hansell was replaced by Major General Curtis LeMay, who utilized tactical changes such as attacking Japanese population centers with napalm to ensure a Japanese surrender. The kind of indiscriminate destruction that LeMay used to win the war is absolutely a thing of the past, at least for American forces. The Listeners Guide is only available from Pushkin Industries when you buy The Bomber Mafia. This guide is based on the hardcover first edition. The setting is Second World War. Por Vs. Para Mafia Game. Later, Saville successfully implemented his ideas in the Mediterranean Theater. [14], After the 1991 Gulf War, David L. Goldfein states that by then bombs could hit, with precision, a specific wing of a building. LeMays solution was to saturate Tokyo with napalm bombs, killing as many as 100,000 people in about six hours, and then to go on and firebomb dozens of other Japanese cities, killing thousands upon thousands, sometimes when the target cities were of little or no military value. These pilots dreamed of more humane ways to conduct wars. Their assurance, their journey gets provided a little bit too late for it to have any substantial bearing on the war. Privacy Policy | Scientists at Harvard repurposed a failed Dupont Chemical product and refined it into napalm, the most brutal bombing tool devised before the atomic bomb and one particularly suited to cause maximum damage to the wood-and-paper houses of Japan. I enjoyed this short book thoroughly, and would have been happy if it had been twice as long. Had the war gone on longer, into the winter of 1945-46, he suggests, millions of Japanese could have died of starvation. T H E B O M B E R M A FI A. l i ste n er's g u i de ma lc o l m g l a d w e l l Thank you for purchasing Malcolm Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia.. Take capers these are certainly not peas. There are actual recordings of interviews conducted by Gladwell and also taken from documentaries filmed or recorded in the decades since the war. Key ideas from The Bomber Mafia. Copyright 2023 Military.com. To most people, a city park is a grace note, a green space that makes urban life more livable. I thought he was pretty thorough but obviously if he's written a book he must have thought it worthy of a more even in depth look. Whether it was the atom bombs or LeMays bombing tactic that hastened the Japanese to surrender will always be a debatable topic. For customer support, contact help@supportingcast.fm. World War II had begun in Europe in 1939, and the United States entered in 1941, after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. Another example: Gladwell calls the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 and 10, 1945, the longest night of the war. This unfortunate phrase, this unproven superlative, is repeated in the books unwieldy subtitle. After the war, LeMay was given a high medal by the Japanese government. The words Bomber Mafia refer to a group of American pilots in the 1930s stationed at what was then called Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama. General Haywood Hansell was the leader of The Bomber Mafia, a small group within the military that believed an emerging technologyairborne warfarecould make wars shorter and far less deadly. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy. Do you prefer this format. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine for over 25 years and was named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Most Influential People. Many years later a related term "Fighter Mafia" described those within the Air Force that favored lightweight fighters good at dog-fighting instead of heavy missile-firing fighters. Simply not a subject I seem out, neither do I think I would certainly have liked it as much had I review. [2] Precision in bombing was not achieved until long-range fighter escorts became available and air superiority was achieved, as opponents had warned. Randall Jarrell captured LeMays blithely brutal approach in two of the most memorable lines of 20th-century American poetry: In bombers named for girls, we burned / The cities we had learned about in school.. You can pay with any major credit cards, as well as Apple Pay on iOS and Google Pay on Android. It's a history of the dueling philosophies regarding bombing that existed in the US military during World War II. [8], Although flawed and tested only under optimal conditions, the doctrine (originally known as the "industrial web theory")[9] became the primary airpower strategy of the United States in the planning for World War II. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? 1. The mission failed for several reasons, including clouds that obscured the targets, which had to be seen to use the Norden bombsight. In The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times bestsellers including Talking to Strangers and host of the podcast Revisionist History, uses original interviews, archival footage and his trademark insight to weave together the stories of a Dutch genius and his Kennedy stated there were "gaps in [Gladwell's] account", and cites the RAF Bomber Command's attempt at careful bombing as an example. The audiobook is an experience in itself, complete with sound results, music, and old interviews from the men he profiles (and also several of their battles survivors). As a work of history, it borders on reckless". Gladwell steps back from the bombing of Tokyo, the deadliest night of the war, and asks, Was it worth it? The attack was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives but may have spared more by averting a planned US invasion. This was all in one plane. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Developed over the years 19261929 at Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) at Langley Field in Virginia, a forward-looking doctrine of daylight precision bombing was promulgated by Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell who advocated a greatly expanded role for the bomber force.
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