Read Online A Summer Bright and Terrible by David E. Fisher - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David E. Fisher
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infinitely long and easily penetrable borders.
The system just could not work, and to this
day, it hasn’t, despite the continuous inflow of governmental moneys. Nor, in
the 1930s, could Dowding’s. First, the British fighters couldn’t catch the
German bombers, which could speed along at upward of 250 miles an hour, faster
than the fastest British fighters. Second, even if the fighters could manage to
reach and fly above the bombers, so as to use the speed of a dive to catch
them, the fighter planes carried only two machine guns, which fire low-calibre
ammunition intermittently through the propeller. The fighters wouldn’t be able
to hold a bomber in their sights long enough to deliver enough bullets to bring
it down. Third, they couldn’t manage to be above the bombers when arriving in
the first place, because the bombers wouldn’t be sighted until they crossed the
coast. At that point, the enemy’s primary target, London, would only be ten
minutes’ flying time away, whereas it would take the British fighters nearly
twenty minutes to reach the operational altitude of the bombers.
So every other RAF staff officer’s belief that,
as Stanley Baldwin put it in a 1932 radio address to the nation, “the bomber
will always get through,” is not only understandable but correct. The only defence
against being bombed is to have enough bombers to rain even greater destruction
on the enemy, and so to deter them.
Why on earth can’t Dowding see that?
Well, there is one difference in the two
situations. In the 1930s, bombers are the only threat. Dowding doesn’t have to
worry about cruise missiles or spies sneaking nuclear bombs into the country,
since neither cruise missiles nor nuclear weapons have yet been invented. His
only enemy is the bomber. He is free to concentrate on stopping the bombers,
and his powers of concentration are enormous. For “powers of concentration,”
read “stubbornness,” and you have the opinion of everyone else in the Royal Air
Force.
Seven
In the scheme of things, the bombing of
England in the First World War was little more than a nuisance. The economic
damage, far from crippling the nation as the German leaders had hoped, was less
than that done by rats every year. People were killed, yes, and every death is
a tragedy, but they were not killed in sufficient numbers to affect the outcome
of the war in the slightest.
Nevertheless, the bombing was an ill omen of
things to come. Particularly fearsome was the spectre of the wholesale gassing
of civilian populations from the air. The use of poison gas in artillery shells
had been outlawed by international agreement early in the century, but the
Germans had found a loophole. Instead of shooting gas shells at the Allies,
they brought gas canisters into the frontline trenches and just opened the
valves, letting the gas drift over into the British and French trenches. There
was nothing in the letter of the law to prohibit this; the tactic’s only flaw
was that the dispersal of the gas depended on the uncontrollable wind, and as
it turned out, the prevailing winds were west to east, blowing most of the gas
back onto their own troops.
So gas, horrible as it was, turned out to be
rather useless in trench warfare. Dropping it on cities, however, was a
different matter. Fleets of bombers loaded with gas canisters would sow untold horror
in the crowded streets of London. Of course it would seem to have been a simple
matter for the League of Nations to remove the loophole and simply ban poison
gas, no matter how it was delivered, by artillery shell or windblown or aerial
bomb. But the League—deprived of the world’s most powerful nation, the United
States—was proving to be incapable of any real action.
The outlook was indeed terrible. In February
1918, a dozen German Gothas bombed London on three consecutive nights, dropping
three hundred tons of explosives and killing thirty-eight people. Reporting on
this, an air commodore
infinitely long and easily penetrable borders.
The system just could not work, and to this
day, it hasn’t, despite the continuous inflow of governmental moneys. Nor, in
the 1930s, could Dowding’s. First, the British fighters couldn’t catch the
German bombers, which could speed along at upward of 250 miles an hour, faster
than the fastest British fighters. Second, even if the fighters could manage to
reach and fly above the bombers, so as to use the speed of a dive to catch
them, the fighter planes carried only two machine guns, which fire low-calibre
ammunition intermittently through the propeller. The fighters wouldn’t be able
to hold a bomber in their sights long enough to deliver enough bullets to bring
it down. Third, they couldn’t manage to be above the bombers when arriving in
the first place, because the bombers wouldn’t be sighted until they crossed the
coast. At that point, the enemy’s primary target, London, would only be ten
minutes’ flying time away, whereas it would take the British fighters nearly
twenty minutes to reach the operational altitude of the bombers.
So every other RAF staff officer’s belief that,
as Stanley Baldwin put it in a 1932 radio address to the nation, “the bomber
will always get through,” is not only understandable but correct. The only defence
against being bombed is to have enough bombers to rain even greater destruction
on the enemy, and so to deter them.
Why on earth can’t Dowding see that?
Well, there is one difference in the two
situations. In the 1930s, bombers are the only threat. Dowding doesn’t have to
worry about cruise missiles or spies sneaking nuclear bombs into the country,
since neither cruise missiles nor nuclear weapons have yet been invented. His
only enemy is the bomber. He is free to concentrate on stopping the bombers,
and his powers of concentration are enormous. For “powers of concentration,”
read “stubbornness,” and you have the opinion of everyone else in the Royal Air
Force.
Seven
In the scheme of things, the bombing of
England in the First World War was little more than a nuisance. The economic
damage, far from crippling the nation as the German leaders had hoped, was less
than that done by rats every year. People were killed, yes, and every death is
a tragedy, but they were not killed in sufficient numbers to affect the outcome
of the war in the slightest.
Nevertheless, the bombing was an ill omen of
things to come. Particularly fearsome was the spectre of the wholesale gassing
of civilian populations from the air. The use of poison gas in artillery shells
had been outlawed by international agreement early in the century, but the
Germans had found a loophole. Instead of shooting gas shells at the Allies,
they brought gas canisters into the frontline trenches and just opened the
valves, letting the gas drift over into the British and French trenches. There
was nothing in the letter of the law to prohibit this; the tactic’s only flaw
was that the dispersal of the gas depended on the uncontrollable wind, and as
it turned out, the prevailing winds were west to east, blowing most of the gas
back onto their own troops.
So gas, horrible as it was, turned out to be
rather useless in trench warfare. Dropping it on cities, however, was a
different matter. Fleets of bombers loaded with gas canisters would sow untold horror
in the crowded streets of London. Of course it would seem to have been a simple
matter for the League of Nations to remove the loophole and simply ban poison
gas, no matter how it was delivered, by artillery shell or windblown or aerial
bomb. But the League—deprived of the world’s most powerful nation, the United
States—was proving to be incapable of any real action.
The outlook was indeed terrible. In February
1918, a dozen German Gothas bombed London on three consecutive nights, dropping
three hundred tons of explosives and killing thirty-eight people. Reporting on
this, an air commodore
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