Reaching for the Stars: A New History of Bomber Command in World War II - Softcover

Connelly, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860648053 ISBN 13: 9781860648052

Publisher: I.B.Tauris, 2002

Synopsis

This book shows why Bomber Command, in one of the largest and bloodiest campaigns of World War II, with 55,000 aircrew lost and more officer fatalities than in World War I, has received so much attention and yet is still a ""lost and black sheep"" among British wartime glories. This book provides a new and revisionary narrative of the campaign and is both a military history and an investigation of how the modern image has come about.

About this title

About the Author:

Mark Connelly has been British Academy Lecturer in History at Lancaster University and is now Reuters Lecturer in Media and Propaganda History at the University of Kent.

From Booklist:

This surprisingly good thing in a small package is the best introduction to Britain's Bomber Command's World War II operations to appear in some time. Beginning the war with inadequate equipment, training, and tactics, the command was obliged in 1942 to resort to night area bombing as the only way it had of striking back at Germany. The new tactics exacted a high toll in civilian lives but inflicted much more visible damage. For the rest of the war, Bomber Command committed its increasingly sophisticated resources to the area-bombing campaign, valuably contributing to the Allied effort, even if not as greatly as it might have. Wartime propaganda concealed first the early raids' ineffectiveness and later the human toll of successful area bombings. Subsequent revelations induced a postwar backlash against the command, which has denied due credit to its aircrews, more than half of whom were lost in combat. A serious contribution to World War II aviation history. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: I.B.Tauris
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1860648053
• ISBN 13: 9781860648052
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208