Read Online A Summer Bright and Terrible by David E. Fisher - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David E. Fisher
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wrote that “the foreign folk in the crowded East End
district were singularly liable to an unreasoning panic. . . . In the shelter
of the tube stations the distress of Jewish mothers and children was very
difficult to soothe. They would scream loudly. . . while bands, shedding every
vestige of manhood, would behave like animals of the wild, sometimes brutally
trampling people to death in a mad, insensate rush for safety.”
A dozen bombers, three hundred tons of bombs,
and insensate panic. Imagine the impact of hundreds of bombers dropping poison
gas and incendiary bombs as well as high explosives: It was a Dantean vision of
hell on earth. The prospect was so horrible that it led to a push for world
disarmament, which, given the helplessness of the League of Nations, was a
retreat from reality. At any event, events themselves were moving in a
different direction.
In England the pivotal events were
connected with the far-flung empire. In 1920 Winston Churchill was Colonial
Secretary when a rebellion against British occupation suddenly erupted in the
Euphrates valley. A bomber squadron was sent from Egypt, and the rain of bombs
from the air soon squelched the rebellion. Churchill was so impressed that he
asked Trenchard if the air force couldn’t all by themselves keep the peace in
Iraq, a traditional trouble spot then as it is now. Trenchard sent four
squadrons to Baghdad under the command of Dowding to replace the British ground
troops there, and they were immediately successful.
Dowding initiated a strict but workable plan.
As soon as any trouble developed, he would warn the offending villages first,
and then, if they didn’t surrender, he would send a few planes and drop a few
bombs, which served to clear things up. The British were able to maintain order
there for the next fifteen years, at a considerable savings in both money and
lives over the previous strategy of maintaining infantry and cavalry to wage
full-scale war against the rebellious tribes.
In Germany the impetus was the failure of the
Weimar Republic—a democracy forced on the people by the conquering powers of
the First World War and bitterly resented. It could not bring the people
together under the disheartening restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, and
conditions disintegrated into armed conflict between the forces of the left and
the right, the communists and the Nazis. When Hitler won out, the possibility
of universal disarmament was no longer viable. The question then became, in
England and France, which of the armed services should form the fulcrum of defence,
and in Germany, which should form the fulcrum of offense.
France reined itself in behind the Maginot Line,
as America did behind its oceans. In neither case was this a fortunate course
of action. Germany decided on mechanized ground warfare, with tanks replacing
horses and with small bombers acting as mobile artillery in support of the
tanks. England embraced the Douhet theory, fearing the bombardment of its
cities, and in consequence established Bomber Command of the RAF as its prime
deterrent throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
In 1929, Dowding came back from the Near East
and within a year assumed the role of Air Member for Research and Development,
and everything began to change. So. Here comes Dowding, and naturally he views
his new position as having to do with the research and development of better
bombers. He’s just come back from bombing the Iraqis and he knows how effective
that was. What’s more, the general mind-set among the Air Staff is based on
Trenchard’s view that the bomber is the backbone of the air force. This is
reinforced by all the research developments of the past two decades, for since
the Great War, the bomber has become faster than the biplane fighters. It is
better armed since its machine guns don’t have to fire through propellers and
therefore are not restricted to fire only intermittently, and it is now capable
of carrying several thousand
district were singularly liable to an unreasoning panic. . . . In the shelter
of the tube stations the distress of Jewish mothers and children was very
difficult to soothe. They would scream loudly. . . while bands, shedding every
vestige of manhood, would behave like animals of the wild, sometimes brutally
trampling people to death in a mad, insensate rush for safety.”
A dozen bombers, three hundred tons of bombs,
and insensate panic. Imagine the impact of hundreds of bombers dropping poison
gas and incendiary bombs as well as high explosives: It was a Dantean vision of
hell on earth. The prospect was so horrible that it led to a push for world
disarmament, which, given the helplessness of the League of Nations, was a
retreat from reality. At any event, events themselves were moving in a
different direction.
In England the pivotal events were
connected with the far-flung empire. In 1920 Winston Churchill was Colonial
Secretary when a rebellion against British occupation suddenly erupted in the
Euphrates valley. A bomber squadron was sent from Egypt, and the rain of bombs
from the air soon squelched the rebellion. Churchill was so impressed that he
asked Trenchard if the air force couldn’t all by themselves keep the peace in
Iraq, a traditional trouble spot then as it is now. Trenchard sent four
squadrons to Baghdad under the command of Dowding to replace the British ground
troops there, and they were immediately successful.
Dowding initiated a strict but workable plan.
As soon as any trouble developed, he would warn the offending villages first,
and then, if they didn’t surrender, he would send a few planes and drop a few
bombs, which served to clear things up. The British were able to maintain order
there for the next fifteen years, at a considerable savings in both money and
lives over the previous strategy of maintaining infantry and cavalry to wage
full-scale war against the rebellious tribes.
In Germany the impetus was the failure of the
Weimar Republic—a democracy forced on the people by the conquering powers of
the First World War and bitterly resented. It could not bring the people
together under the disheartening restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, and
conditions disintegrated into armed conflict between the forces of the left and
the right, the communists and the Nazis. When Hitler won out, the possibility
of universal disarmament was no longer viable. The question then became, in
England and France, which of the armed services should form the fulcrum of defence,
and in Germany, which should form the fulcrum of offense.
France reined itself in behind the Maginot Line,
as America did behind its oceans. In neither case was this a fortunate course
of action. Germany decided on mechanized ground warfare, with tanks replacing
horses and with small bombers acting as mobile artillery in support of the
tanks. England embraced the Douhet theory, fearing the bombardment of its
cities, and in consequence established Bomber Command of the RAF as its prime
deterrent throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
In 1929, Dowding came back from the Near East
and within a year assumed the role of Air Member for Research and Development,
and everything began to change. So. Here comes Dowding, and naturally he views
his new position as having to do with the research and development of better
bombers. He’s just come back from bombing the Iraqis and he knows how effective
that was. What’s more, the general mind-set among the Air Staff is based on
Trenchard’s view that the bomber is the backbone of the air force. This is
reinforced by all the research developments of the past two decades, for since
the Great War, the bomber has become faster than the biplane fighters. It is
better armed since its machine guns don’t have to fire through propellers and
therefore are not restricted to fire only intermittently, and it is now capable
of carrying several thousand
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