The ultimate history of the Blitz and bombing in the Second World War, from Wolfson Prize-winning historian and author Richard OveryThe use of massive fleets of bombers to kill and terrorize civilians was an aspect of the Second World War which continues to challenge the idea that Allies specifically fought a 'moral' war. For Britain, bombing became perhaps its principal contribution to the fighting as, night after night, exceptionally brave men flew over occupied Europe destroying its cities. The Bombing War radically overhauls our understanding of the War. It is the first book to examine seriously not just the most well-known parts of the campaign, but the significance of bombing on many other fronts – the German use of bombers on the Eastern Front for example (as well as much newly discovered material on the more familiar 'Blitz' on Britain), or the Allied campaigns against Italian cities. The result is the author's masterpiece – a rich, gripping, picture of the Second World War and the terrible military, technological and ethical issues that relentlessly drove all its participants into an abyss.[Contain tables. Best viewed with CoolReader.]
ADD: aviatsiya dalnego deystviya (Long-Range Aviation, USSR)
AI: Airborne Interception (British night-fighter radar)
AON: aviatsya osobovo naznachenya (Strategic Air Reserve, USSR)
ARP: Air Raid Precautions
AWPD: Air War Plans Division
BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
BBSU: British Bombing Survey Unit
BMW: Bayerische Motorenwerke
CBO: Combined Bomber Offensive
CCS: Combined Chiefs of Staff
COSI: Comité Ouvrier de Secours Immédiat (Committee for Workers’ Emergency Assistance)
DBA: dalnebombardirovochnaya aviatsiya (Soviet Long-Range Aviation)
DiCaT: Difesa Contraerea Territoriale
Do: Dornier
Fw: Focke-Wulf
GAF: German Air Force
GHQ: General Headquarters (USA)
GL-1: Gun-Laying radar
He: Heinkel
JIC: Joint Intelligence Committee (UK)
JPS: Joint Planning Staff
Ju: Junkers
LaGG: Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov
LMF: lack of moral fibre
MAAF: Mediterranean Allied Air Forces
MAP: Ministry of Aircraft Production
Me: Messerschmitt
MEW: Ministry of Economic Warfare
MiG: Mikoyan & Gurevich
MO: Mass Observation
MP: Member of Parliament (UK)
MPVO: mestnaia protivovozdushnaia oborona (Main Directorate of Local Air Defence, USSR)
NCO: Non-commissioned officer
NFPA: National Fire Protection Association
NFS: National Fire Service
NKVD: narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, USSR)
NSV: Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People’s Welfare)
ORS: Operational Research Section
OSS: Office of Strategic Services (USA)
OTU: Operational Training Unit
PVO: protivovozdushnaia oborana strany (National Air Defence, USSR)
PWB: Psychological Warfare Branch (USA)
PWE: Political Warfare Executive
RAF: Royal Air Force
R&E: Research and Experiments Department (UK)
RFC: Royal Flying Corps
RLB: Reichsluftschutzbund (Reich Air Protection League)
RM: Reichsmark
SA: Sturmabteilung (literally ‘storm section’)
SAP: Securité Aérienne Publique (Public Air Protection)
SD: Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service – German secret home intelligence)
SHAEF: Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
SIPEG: Service Interministériel de Protection contre les Événements de Guerre (Interministerial Protection Service against the Events of War)
SNCF: Societé nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (French National Society for Railways)
SS: Schutzstaffel (literally ‘protection squad’)
T4: Tiergarten-4 (cover name for German euthanasia programme)
TFF: Target-Finding Force (UK)
UNPA: Unione Nazionale Protezione Antiaerea (National Union for Anti-Air Protection)
USAAF: United States Army Air Forces USSBS United States Strategic Bombing Survey
USSTAF: United States Strategic and Tactical Air Forces
VNOS: vozdusnogo nablyudeniya, opovescheniya i svyazi (Air Observation Warnings and Communication, USSR)
VVS: voyenno-vozdushnyye sily (Military Air Forces, USSR)
WAAF: Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
WVS: Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions (UK)
Yak: Yakovlev
Between 1939 and 1945 hundreds of European cities and hundreds more small townships and villages were subjected to aerial bombing. During the course of the conflict a staggering estimate of around 600,000 European civilians were killed by bomb attack and well over a million more were seriously injured, in some cases physically or mentally disabled for life. The landscape of much of Europe was temporarily transformed into a vision of ruin as complete as the dismal relics of the once triumphant Roman Empire. To anyone immediately after the end of the war wandering through the devastated urban wastelands the most obvious question was to ask how could this ever have been agreed to; then, a second thought, how would Europe ever recover?
