Richard Overy: The Bombing War

by Overy, Richard

ISBN: 9780713995619

Published: 2013

In The Bombing War, Richard Overy gives the first full narrative account of the aerial devastation of the European continent during World War II. From Stalingrad to the ports of the French west coast, from Clydeside to Malta, bombing was experienced by millions of ordinary Europeans. Why the bombing was undertaken and how the bombed societies survived are the two key questions answered in this remarkable book. Before 1939 there were exaggerated ideas about what a bombing war could achieve, with Europeans prepared for a nightmarish and immediate war of obliteration. Bombing was supposed to shorten wars by destroying industry and paralyzing the enemy will. These expectations proved false. Bombing was a long drawn out affair, failed to undermine morale and imposed only limited economic damage. Yet the more bombing failed to deliver the expected knockout blow, the more effort went in to attacking cities and their civilian populations, eroding any legal or moral constraints that had...