89. Robert F. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force (Maxwell AFB, AL: 1971), 28.
90. NARA, RG 165/888, Maj. Gen. Hugh Drum, ‘Information on Aviation and Department of National Defense’, 1 May 1934, 3.
91. M. Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919–1939 (Washington, DC: 1987), 325–9; Alfred Goldberg (ed), A History of the United States Air Force, 1907–1957 (Princeton, NJ: 1957), 40–41.
92. NARA, RG 18/223, Box 4, memorandum for the CoS, 4 Apr 1932, 9.
93. NARA, RG 18/229, Patrick papers, Fort Leavenworth lecture, March 27 1924, 1–2, 7–8.
94. Ibid., lecture to the Air War College, ‘Air Tactics’, Nov 1923, 1, 14–15; LC, Mitchell papers, Box 27, ‘Aviation in the Next War’ and ‘Give America Airplanes’; William Mitchell, Winged Defense (New York: 1925), 4–6, 214–16.
95. USAFA, Hansell papers, Ser III, Box 1, Folder 1, ‘Fairchild lecture’, 1 Dec 1964, 8; USAFA, McDonald papers, Ser V, Box 8, Folder 8, ‘Development of the U.S. Air Forces’ Philosophy of Air Warfare prior to our Entry into World War II’ [n.d.], 15–16.
96. LC, Andrews papers, Box 11, Maj. Harold George, ‘An Inquiry into the Subject War’, 17.
97. Konvitz, ‘Représentations urbaines’, 834–5. Gian Gentile, How Effective is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World War II to Kosovo (New York: 2000), 16–18; Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 161–4.
98. LC, Andrews papers, Box 11, Carl Spaatz, ‘Comments on Doctrine of the Army Air Corps’, 5 Jan 1935; R. W. Krauskopf, ‘The Army and the Strategic Bomber 1930–1939: Part I’, Military Affairs, 22 (1958/9), 94.
99. NARA, RG 94/452.1, General Oscar Westover to General Marlin Craig, 4 Dec 1936; Henry Arnold to Adjutant-General, 11 Sept 1936; Air Corps Materiel Division to the chief of the air corps, 14 Apr 1937; General Embick for the chief of staff, ‘Changes in Fiscal Year 1938 Airplane Program’, 16 May 1938.
100. NARA, RG 94/452.1, memorandum for the chief of staff (Gen. George Marshall), 21 Sept 1939; RG 94/580, Gen. George Strong to the chief of staff, 10 May 1940; memorandum, ‘Army’s Second Aviation Objective’, 28 Feb 1941; R. W. Krauskopf, ‘The Army and the Strategic Bomber 1930–1939: Part II’, Military Affairs, 22 (1958/9), 211–14. On Roosevelt see Jeffery Underwood, The Wings of Democracy: The Influence of Air Power on the Roosevelt Administration 1933–1941 (College Station, TX: 1991), 135–7.
101. TNA, AIR 9/8, Notes on a possible ‘Locarno War’, 2 May 1929.
102. Ibid., CoS Paper 156, ‘Note by the First Sea Lord’, 21 May 1928; CAS, ‘Note upon the memorandum of the Chief of the Naval Staff’ [n.d. but May 1928]; ‘Notes for Address by CAS to the Imperial Defence College on the War Aims of an Air Force’, 9 Oct 1928, 1.
103. RAFM, Saundby papers, AC72/12, Box 3, lecture, ‘The Use of Air Power in 1939/45’ [n.d.], 2–3; TNA, AIR 9/39, lecture by Air Vice-Marshal A. S. Barratt, ‘Air Policy and Strategy’, 23 Mar 1936.
104. TNA, AIR 9/8, Address by the CAS, 9 Oct 1928, 5.
105. Richard Overy, ‘Allied Bombing and the Destruction of German Cities’, in Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, Bernd Greiner (eds), A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945 (Cambridge: 2005), 278–84.
106. NARA, RG 18/223, Box 1, RAF War Manual, Pt I, May 1935, 57.
107. See e.g. Priya Satia, ‘The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control and the British Idea of Arabia’, American Historical Review, 111 (2006), 25–38. A more favourable interpretation in Sebastian Ritchie, The RAF, Small Wars and Insurgencies in the Middle East, 1919–1939 (Northolt: 2011), esp. 78–83.
108. John Slessor, The Central Blue: Recollections and Reflections (London: 1956), 65–6.
109. H. G. Wilmott, ‘Air Control in Ovamboland’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, 83 (1938), 823–9.
110. CCO, Portal papers, Folder 2/File 2, Portal to Churchill, 25 Sept 1941, encl. ‘The Moral Effect of Bombing’, 1; see too Charles Portal, ‘Air Force Co-operation in Policing the Empire’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, 82 (1937), 343–57.
111. Jones, Beginnings of Strategic Air Power, 107–8.
112. Ibid., 123.
113. Ibid., 118–21.
114. TNA, AIR 9/92, First Meeting of the Bombing Policy Sub-Committee, 22 Mar 1938, 1–2, 6–9.
115. Ibid., Note on A.T.S. bombing trial results [n.d.].
116. Ibid., minutes of meeting, Deputy Director of Plans, 23 Mar 1939.
117. TNA, AIR 14/225, Ludlow-Hewitt to Under-Secretary of State, Air Ministry, 30 Aug 1938. See too Charles Webster, Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 4 vols (London: 1961), vol 1, 100.
118. TNA, AIR 9/8, Air Staff memorandum, 15 Jan 1936, 2–3, 5; AIR 9/77, Operational Requirements Committee, minutes of meeting, 11 Aug 1938, 4.
119. TNA, AIR 9/8, note from Harris to deputy chief of the air staff, 24 Sept 1936.
120. USAFA, McDonald papers, Ser V, Box 8, Folder 8, ‘Development of the U.S. Air Forces Philosophy of Air Warfare’, 3, 15. Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: 1987), 53–6.
121. NARA, RG 18/223, Box 4, memorandum for the chief of staff, 4 Apr 1932; Arnold to the chief of the air corps, ‘Cumulative Production of Airplanes of Mobilization Planning’, 24 Mar 1931. On Britain see Sebastian Ritchie, Industry and Air Power: The Expansion of British Aircraft Production, 1935–1941 (London: 1997); George Peden, Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs (Cambridge: 2007), 137–40, 158–61. This is the thrust of David Edgerton, Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War (London: 2011), esp. ch 1.
122. Oliver Stewart, ‘The Doctrine of Strategical Bombing’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, 81 (1936), 97–8.
123. TNA, AIR 9/39, ‘Air Policy and Strategy’, 23 Mar 1936, 5–6.
124. USAFA, McDonald papers, Ser V, Box 8, Folder 8, ‘Development …’, 13–15.
125. William Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934–1941 (London: 1941), 160.
126. Edward Stebbing, Diary of a Decade: 1939–1950 (Lewes: 1998), 3–4.
2. THE FIRST STRATEGIC AIR OFFENSIVE
1. Grigore Gafencu, The Last Days of Europe: A Diplomatic Journey in 1939 (London: 1947), 65–6.
2. William Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934–1941 (London: 1941), 388–9, entry for 4/5 Sept 1940; Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen. Band II: Erster Halbband (Munich: 1965), 1,580.
3. Heinz(ed) Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich: Die geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS 1938–1945, 17 vols (Herrsching: 1984), vol 5, 1,549, Report 9 Sept 1940.
4. See the discussion in Horst Boog, ‘Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa 1943–1944’, in Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs, Detlef Vogel, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 7: Das Deutsche Reich in der Defensive (Stuttgart: 2001), 323–7.
5. Karl-Heinz Völker, Dokumente und Dokumentarfotos zur Geschichte der Deutschen Luftwaffe (Stuttgart: 1968), 469–71, doc 200, ‘Luftkriegführung’, Mar 1940. For the best account see James Corum, The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940 (Lawrence, KS: 1997).
6. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.11, Luftwaffe Generalstab, ‘Merkblatt für den Einsatz der Fliegertruppe zur unmittelbaren Unterstützung des Heeres’, 1 July 1939, 1–8.
7. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.13, Luftwaffe Führungsstab, ‘Bestimmungen für die Verständigung zwischen Truppenteilen am Boden und fliegenden Verbände’, 6 Apr 1940.
8. M. Bernard Davy, Air Power and Civilization (London: 1941), 129–30.
9. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.386, Luftflotte 4 Report, ‘Angriff auf Warschau’, 16 Sept 1939.
10. Ibid., operational orders, Luftflotte 4, 23 Sept 1939; AHB, Translations: Second World War, vol 9, VII/132, ‘German Bombing of Warsaw and Rotterdam’, 1–2.
11. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.386,
Foreign Office to von Richthofen, 24 Sept 1939; Heeresgruppe Nord to von Richthofen, 25 Sept 1939.
12. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.386, Luftflotte 4 operational orders 24 Sept 1939; operational orders 25 Sept 1939; telephone message 27 Sept 1939. See too Boog et al., DRZW: Band 7, 323–4.
13. AHB Translations, vol 9, VII/132, ‘German Bombing of Warsaw and Rotterdam’, 1.
14. Andrew Klukowski, Helen Klukowski (eds), Diary from the Years of Occupation: Zygmunt Klukowski (Urbana, IL: 1993), 6, 9–10.
15. Chaim Kaplan, Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan (London: 1966), 11, 18.
16. TNA, FO 371/23105, Kennard to Foreign Office, 3 Sept 1939.
17. AHB Translations, vol 2, VII/33, German Air Force General Staff, ‘The Luftwaffe in Poland’, 11 July 1944, 7.
18. Ibid., 2.
19. Kaplan, Scroll of Agony, 17–19.
20. James Corum, Wolfram von Richthofen: Master of the German Air War (Lawrence, KS: 2008), 173–4. For a figure of 40,000 dead, Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (London: 2012), 82.
21. FDRL, President’s Personal Files 554, Biddle to Roosevelt, 10 Nov 1939.
22. Nicola Della Volpe, Difesa del territorio e protezione antiaerea, 1915–1943: storia, documenti, immagini (Rome: 1986), 215, minutes of the 17th Meeting of the Supreme Commission for the Defence, Feb 1940.
23. AHB Translations, vol 9, VII/132, ‘German Bombing of Warsaw and Rotterdam’, 2.
24. Leo Polak, ‘De hel van Rotterdam’, KIJK, 6 (2010), 22; Hans van der Pauw, Rotterdam in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Rotterdam: 2006), 848–52; A. Korthals Altes, Luchtgevaar: Luchtaanvallen op Nederland 1940–1945 (Amsterdam: 1984), 45–54. The estimates vary between 800 and 980, but some of the figures include deaths from earlier bombing raids and from artillery fire. Altes suggests a minimum of 600 (54).
25. Albert Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring (London: 2007), 56–8.
26. RAFM, Saundby papers, Box 3, RAF Staff College lectures, Pt 9, ‘Operations 1939–1942’, Mar 1944, 13.
27. Gérard Chauvy, Le drame de l’armée française du Front populaire à Vichy (Paris: 2010), 544–5.
28. Ibid., 27; Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, 1933–1945 (London: 1983), 70–2.
29. Hanna Diamond, Fleeing Hitler: France 1940 (Oxford: 2007), 45–9. I am also grateful to Martin Alexander for allowing me to see his unpublished article, ‘Retreat, Resistance, Resignation: French Responses to Invasion in 1940’.
30. BA-MA, RL2 III/707b, ‘Einsatzbereitschaft Luftwaffe und Verluste: Stand 29 Juni 1940’; AHB Translations, vol 7, VII/107, Luftwaffe Strength and Serviceability Tables, Aug 1938–Apr 1945.
31. Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant, 1937–1945 (London: 2001), 63.
32. IWM, EDS collection, OKW, Aktennotiz, 12 June 1940; von Below, At Hitler’s Side, 63–4. See too Henrik Eberle, Matthias Uhl (eds), The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin (London: 2005), 65. The dossier described a dinner on 24 June with Jodl, Keitel and Martin Bormann at which Hitler was alleged to have said: ‘The western European problem has now been solved. All that remains for us now is to deal with the Soviet Union.’
33. Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945 (London: 1990) hereafter FCNA, 110–11, Conference with the Führer, 20 June 1940; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (ed), Generaloberst Halder: Kriegstagebuch (Stuttgart: 1963), 3 vols, II, 3, entry for 1 July 1940.
34. AHB Translations, vol 2, VII/26, ‘The Course of the Air War Against England’, 22 Nov 1939; VII/30, Col. Schmid, ‘Proposal for the Conduct of Air Warfare against Britain’, 22 Nov 1939, 2–4.
35. Walther Hubatsch (ed), Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegführung (Munich: 1965), 46–9, Weisung Nr. 9.
36. Galeazzo Ciano, Diario 1937–1943, ed. Renzo De Felice (Milan: 1990), 451, entry for 7 July 1940; FCNA, 112–13, ‘The War Against England’, 7 July 1940.
37. Hubatsch, Hitlers Weisungen, 71–2, Directive no. 16.
38. von Below, At Hitler’s Side, 68; Shirer, Berlin Diary, 356–7. The speech in Domarus, Reden: Band II, erster Halbband, 1,558: ‘once again an appeal to reason even in England’.
39. AHB Translations, vol 1, VII/21, ‘First Deliberations Regarding a Landing in England’, 12 July 1940; Operations Staff memorandum, 13 Aug 1940: ‘the Duce could be made to understand that we are fighting this war together, and not on parallel lines’. See too Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 1939–45 (London: 1964), 109–10; Basil Collier, The Defence of the United Kingdom (London: 1957), 499–50, App xxviii. For Hitler’s agreement see Percy Schramm (ed), Kriegstagebuch des OKW (hereafter KTB/OKW): Band 1, Teilband 1, 1940–1941 (Bonn: 2005), 23–4, entry for 12 Aug 1940
40. von Below, At Hitler’s Side, 63–4: ‘He wished that Britain would terminate this war in the West because the coming conflict with the Soviet Union was unavoidable and he did not want an enemy front and rear.’
41. FCNA, 122–5, ‘Conference on July 31 1940’; Jürgen Förster, ‘Hitler Turns East – German War Policy in 1940 and 1941’, in Bernd Wegner (ed), From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939–1941 (Oxford: 1997), 117–24.
42. BA-MA, RL2–IV/27, Otto Bechtle, ‘Der Einsatz der Luftwaffe gegen England, 1940–1943’, 2 Apr 1944, 1.
43. BA-MA, RL8/1, Generalkommando I Fliegerkorps, ‘Gedanken über die Führung des Luftkrieges gegen England’, 24 July 1940, 1.
44. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.56, Orientierungsheft Grossbritannien, 1 June 1939, Anlage 19, 23.
45. Ibid., f.500, o.725168, d.319, Luftwehrgeographische Beschreibung von Grossbritannien, 7 Feb 1940, 99.
46. BA-MA, RL8/1, Kriegstagebuch, I Fliegerkorps, 15 July 1940.
47. TNA, AIR 16/432, Home Security Intelligence Summary, 31 July 1940.
48. TNA, MEPO 2/6335, Metropolitan Police reports, Balham HQ, 2 and 9 Sept 1940.
49. TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.14, Luftwaffe Führungsstab, ‘Bemerkungen zum Einsatz der Luftwaffe’, Nr. 8, 26 July 1940, 1–3.
50. AHB Translations, vol 1, VII/21, ‘First Deliberations’, 12 July 1940, 2–3.
51. BA-MA, RL8/1, I Fliegerkorps, ‘Gedanken über die Führung des Luftkrieges gegen England’, 24 July 1940, 1.
52. Ibid., 2; TNA, AIR 40/2444, Bechtle lecture, 2 Feb 1944, 2–4.
53. Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich, vol 5, 1,424, Report 29 July 1940; 1,441, Report 5 Aug 1940.
54. TNA, AIR 20/8693, Testimony of Hermann Göring taken at Nuremberg, 6 Apr 1946 (interviewed by Hilary St George Saunders), 2, 14.
55. von Below, At Hitler’s Side, 70; AHB Translations, vol 1, VII/21, OKW to Göring, 30 July 1940.
56. Hubatsch, Hitlers Weisungen, 75–6; AHB Translations, vol 1, VII/21, OKW (Keitel), ‘Operation Sea Lion’, 1 Aug 1940.
57. Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich, vol 5, 1,449, Report 8 Aug 1940; 1,461–2, Report 12 Aug 1940; Shirer, Berlin Diary, 366.
58. TNA, AIR 40/2444, Bechtle lecture, 7; Gerwin Strobl, The Germanic Isle: Nazi Perceptions of Britain (Cambridge: 2000), 100–101, 164–5, 182–3.
59. AHB Translations, vol 7, VII/107, Quartermaster Strength and Serviceability Tables.
60. Alfred Price, The Luftwaffe Data Book (London: 1997), 32–8.
61. On Göring, Richard Overy, Goering: Hitler’s Iron Knight (3rd edn, London: 2012); Stefan Martens, Hermann Göring: Erster Paladin des Führers und Zweiter Mann im Reich (Paderborn: 1985); Alfred Kube, Pour le Mérite und Hakenkreuz: Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich (Munich: 1986).
62. Ernest Evans, ‘Göring – beinahe Führer: Teil I’, Interavia, 1 (Aug 1946), 17.
63. BA-B, RL3/246, letter from Heinrich Koppenberg (chairman of Junkers) to Göring, 11 Aug 1939; RL3/247, ‘Besprechungsniederschrift 12/13 Jan 1939, Nachbau Ju88’. See too Lutz Budrass, Flugzeugindustrie und Luftrüstung in Deutschland 1918–1945 (Düsseldorf: 1998), 622–4.
64. Details from Manfred Griehl, Jun
kers Ju88: Star of the Luftwaffe (London: 1990), ch 3; William Green, Warplanes of the Third Reich (London: 1970), 448ff.
65. Willy Ley, Bombs and Bombing (New York: 1941), 28–31, 40–43; on bomb loads see TsAMO, f.500, o.12452, d.14, ‘Bemerkungen zum Einsatz der Luftwaffe’, 26 July 1940, 2.
66. Alfred Price, Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare, 1939–1945 (London: 2005), 21–47.
67. Details in Kenneth Wakefield, The First Pathfinders: The Operational History of Kampfgruppe 100, 1939–1941 (London: 1981), 28–34.
68. TNA, AIR 20/335, RAF Wireless Intelligence Service, Periodical Summary 15, 7 June 1941.
69. TNA, PREM 3/29 (3), ‘Summarised Order of Battle’, 9 Aug 1940. Collier, The Defence of the United Kingdom, gives a figure of 57 squadrons for 8 August.
70. Colin Dobinson, AA Command: Britain’s Anti-Aircraft Defences of the Second World War (London: 2001), 234–5, 512, 528–9; Alexander Rose, ‘Radar and Air Defence in the 1930s’, Twentieth Century British History, 9 (1998), 240–45.
71. AHB, ‘Battle of Britain: Despatch by Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, 20 Aug 1941’, 8.
72. Colin Dobinson, Building Radar: Forging Britain’s Early-Warning Chain, 1935–1945 (London: 2010), 302–5, 318; AHB, ‘Battle of Britain Despatch’, 9–10.
73. TsAMO, f.500, o.725168, d.110, Operations Staff, ‘Die britische Fliegertruppe: 1.1.1941’, 5–6, for a good example of this misconception. Aircraft, it was assumed, were directed by radio from the ground. See Sebastian Cox, ‘A Comparative Analysis of RAF and Luftwaffe Intelligence in the Battle of Britain’, Intelligence and National Security, 5 (1990), 426–7, 435–7.
74. TNA, AIR 8/463, Air Ministry minute, 8 July 1940; Air Staff minute, ‘Present and Future Strength of the German Air Force’, [n.d.]; German figures in AHB Translations, vol 7, VII/107, Quartermaster Strength and Serviceability Tables; Air Fleet strengths from Collier, Defence of the United Kingdom, 452, App xi. On aircraft ranges see AIR 20/313, Air Ministry memorandum, ‘Extension of the Air Defence of Great Britain Necessitated by the Defeat of France’, 5 July 1940.
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