James Holland

the biggest air battle of World War II

Big week

Andrew John Kinney

3.4 stars. While a lot of this book is quite interesting, the author's approach of telling the story of the air war in Europe via the personal histories of a handful of the airmen only works to a point. That is because the stories, no matter how tragic, or heroic, or godawful become, after the umpteenth iteration, repetitive. How many times can one hear about the twisting and turning of fighters in the skies over Germany and not think, yes, I've heard this before. That does not for a minute diminish the bravery of those who fought those battles, and by the way, my uncle was shot down over France, and my father trained B-24 crews, and flew observer missions with the Eighth Air Force, so I get what a monumental effort it was to defeat the Luftwaffe. 

Holland does a good job putting the eponymous Big Week in context, and he explains how crucial it was to the success of D-Day, and that's all to the good. He also describes Hap Arnold's belated realization that the key to winning the air war was to destroy the German fighters by drawing them out with bombing raids. Jimmy Doolittle understood that instinctively, and Tooey Spaatz likewise understood it sooner than most. Arthur Harris never really did understand it, and continued night bombing right to the end, with questionable effect on the German war effort, but dramatic effects on German cities like Dresden. While certainly area bombing affected German industry to a degree, it was the daylight bombing by the Americans, combined with long range fighters (the P-51) which ultimately reduced the Luftwaffe to a shadow of its former self, mainly by killing off the experienced German pilots. Because of the actions of the Eighth Air Force from January-May 1944, Allied forces landed at Normandy with air superiority, which was absolutely essential to the success of the invasion.

Holland also highlights the disarray of the German command, with Hitler repeatedly inserting himself into military decisions, always to the detriment of the German air effort. Hitler caused resources to be dispersed and frittered away on things like developing a heavy bomber, or the V-1 and V-2 missiles, or by witholding the ME262 jet fighter from use as a fighter because he thought it should be a bomber. Thank goodness for the typical incompetence of autocrats. And the book also highlighted the diminishing resources of the Reich in 1943-44, especially of oil, which meant that by 1944 German pilots could not be allowed adequate time to train in their aircraft before being thrown into combat. American fighter pilots were better trained because the US could afford the fuel to train them much longer, at least twice as long as German pilots entering service in late 1943 and after.

As I read this, I kept thinking how the book would have benefited from from a few pages of tabular data to present relative aircraft losses by the Allies versus the Germans, or available aircraft by type by month, etc. Nonetheless, many of the anecdotes were poignant, and worth reading. Most ETO airmen eventually experienced the same sad realization that combat infantrymen do: phase 1 - "I can't get killed"; phase 2 - (after having been shot at) "Wow, I could get killed, and I better be more careful"; phase 3 - (having had repeated near-death experiences, and having seen friends die) "I AM going to get killed, and it's only a matter of when". As the missions piled up, men knew that their luck was going to run out, and it was hard for them to hold it together, psychologically. I understood completely the feelings of relief of the British pilot who had to bail out of his burning plane over Germany, thinking "thank God, now I'm out of it, and I'll be a POW and not a coward who failed to do his duty". Because he'd been feeling on the verge of being unable to keep flying, and this was a man who was on his 51st mission, who had done far more than his share. And yet, if he had asked to be sent to non-flying duty, he would have had "lack of moral fibre" (LMF) stamped in his personnel file, the British acronym for cowardice, a career-ending finding which marked a man for life.

All in all, a worthwhile read which brings home the terrible cost of the air war, but with parts missing. Very little mention of the terrible, and often unnecessary destruction wrought on civilians, and zero mention of the horrors wrought by the Germans on occupied countries and the Jews. And as mentioned above, some numerical story telling would have helped. I did love the stories about USAAF Colonel Jimmy Stewart, who was as good a man as I always thought he was.

Big week the biggest air battle of World War II

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