Keeping the crews at the sharp end apprised of their contribution to the whole effort does appear to have been one of the keys to maintaining Bomber Command’s morale as a whole at a reasonable level. Whatever criticisms we may level at Arthur Harris for his lack of strategic vision and dogmatism over the merits of area versus precision bombing, he was very popular with the aircrews because he believed in speaking frankly about Bomber Command’s successes and failures, and his enthusiasm and determination filtered right down to grass-roots level. Even when Bomber Command was facing crippling losses during 1943 and 1944 during the Battles of Berlin and the Ruhr, when a heavy bomber crew faced less than a 44 per cent chance of surviving a first tour of operations, Harris remained a popular C-in-C. One former Right Sergeant said of him: ‘We had all the confidence in the world in his strategy. We felt that we and we alone in Bomber Command were winning the war.’83 It required a unique type of leadership to convince aircrews to keep on putting themselves in harm’s way, with little chance of survival. Harris had that ability, and his leadership style is worthy of a much larger study.84 Harris, for his part, had tremendous admiration for the bomber crews under his command. He said:
‘There are no words with which I can do justice to the aircrew who fought under my command. There is no parallel in warfare to such courage and determination in the face of danger over so prolonged a period, of danger which at times was so great that scarcely one man in three could expect to survive his tour of thirty operations… It was, moreover, a clear and highly conscious courage, by which the risk was taken with calm forethought, for their aircrew were all highly skilled men, much above the average in education, who had to understand every aspect and detail of their task. It was, furthermore, the courage of the small hours, of men virtually alone, for at his battle station the airman is virtually alone. It was the courage of men with long-drawn apprehensions of daily “going over the top”.’85
It is interesting that Harris chose to use a First World War image, and it was entirely fitting, given the enormous casualty rate in Bomber Command (49,585 killed in combat, with another 8,117 lost in non-operational flying), which paralleled 1914–18’s battlefield losses.86 Bomber Command’s own record demonstrated that to serve as aircrew was anything but a safe option. Further, it imposed unnatural strains on individuals, and demanded levels of technical proficiency largely unparalleled in the other services. As is often the case, many of the fundamental principles of strategic bombing were identified, at least by the RNAS, in the First World War, but were subsequently forgotten, so that a second generation of airmen had painfully to relearn the lessons. For this reason, and the fact that we are dealing with human endeavour, there were many parallels between the First and Second World War experiences.
Notes on contributors
Dr Christina J.M. Goulter,
Christina J.M. Goulter was educated at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and King’s College, London, where she took her PhD in 1993. She worked for two years as a historian at the Ministry of Defence, London, and was later Associate Visiting Professor of Strategy at the United States Naval War College. She is the author of A Forgotten Offensive. Royal Air Force Coastal Command’s Anti-Shipping Campaign, 1940–1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1995).
Recommended reading
Bartlett, C. P. O., Bomber Pilot, 1916–1918 (London: Ian Allan, 1974)
Goulter, C. J. M., A Forgotten Offensive: Royal Air Force Coastal Command’s Anti-Shipping Campaign, 1940–1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1995)
Harris, A., Bomber Offensive (London: Greenhill Books, 1990) Despatch (reprinted by Frank Cass, London, 1995)
Hastings, M., Bomber Command (New York: Dial Press, 1979)
Messenger, C., Bomber Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive, 1939–1945 (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1984)
Terraine, J., The Right of the Line: The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939–1945 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985)
Webster, C. F. and Frankland, N., The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 1939–1945 (London: HMSO, 1961)
Wells, M., Courage and Air Warfare (London: Frank Cass, 1995)
Williams, G. K., Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I (Maxwell Air Force Base, Air University Press, 1999)
Wise, S. F., Canadian Airmen in the First World War, Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Vol I (University of Toronto Press, 1980)
Raleigh, W. and Jones, H., The War in the Air (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922), Vols I-VI
Niall Barr
The numerous campaigns fought in the deserts of the Middle East during both World Wars form only one era in a long history of warfare in the region. The first recorded battle in history took place at Megiddo in Palestine between the Hittites and the Egyptians in 1468BC. During Allenby’s 1917–18 campaign in Palestine, soldiers could not help but be aware that they were fighting in regions that had a long history of warfare. The British troops who marched across the Sinai desert in 1917 came upon dusty villages and towns whose names had been learned by heart at Sunday school and Bible class:
‘And so we got to the end of the sand after a good many weeks and came to the first village in Palestine and that after seeing nothing but sand for weeks and possibly months it was – one saw this green and gold of – of what I suppose to the old Israelites was the promised land and one can well understand the aptness of the description.’1
The news that the British Army was fighting in Palestine, and that the news reports mentioned familiar, if exotic, names created a sensation in Britain. This gave the capture of Jerusalem in December 1917 a heightened significance, and some British troops even had the unusual distinction of fighting in the holy places. One British sapper was ordered:
‘… to make sure that in the Holy Sepulchre there was no Turks lying about. So, “Go in there with your platoon again, Mathews. And make sure there’s nobody about. If there is boys, you know what to do.” So Mathews went in with his platoon and we advanced. And there was nobody there. They’d all gone.’2
Clearly, for this toughened veteran, there was no real difference where he fought. While Allenby’s men were familiar with many of the place names that they fought over, the commander of the British 60th Division was surprised to find himself connected to a previous English commander during the advance on Jerusalem. When his staff officers complained that they could not find any wells in the area around the town of Qaryet el ’Inab on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, General Sir John Shea went to the local monastery to see if the monks could help him. He related that the abbot:
‘…looked at me, and then he half smiled, and said, “General, you are the second General who found