Oh no!  Not another book on the strategic bombing campaign over Germany!  How many times can the tale be told?

             Fortunately, author Jay A. Stout brings a perspective to this work that other authors have not: that of a man who knows what’s important about air combat because he’s been there and done that.  As a retired Marine Aviator with combat experience in the first Gulf War, Stout knows the questions to ask and the answers to seek out and explain. His story doesn’t deal with all the famous aces - though a few make their appearances - but rather with the war the was experienced by the majority of those who fought it: the wingmen, the gunners, the ground crews, those largely-unsung participants whose efforts made the ultimate victory possible. 

             Stout fills in the background that led to the success of the U.S. strategic bombing campaign, giving the story of how the U.S. Army Air Force came to be the force it was under the leadership of Hap Arnold, and going deep into the politics of all that, without which one really doesn’t understand the achievement.  In so doing, he also brings out the belief of Arnold and his fellow airpower devotees in the power of the bomber, in Air Marshall Hugh Trenchard’s statement that “the bomber will always get through,” which led to their greatest difficulty: the failure to develop an effective escort fighter from the beginning. 

            There is also an excellent explanation of how the strategy that would form the basis of victory was developed, relating the creation of AWPD-1, which outlined the three major assignments for the USAAF in the event of war: the execution of a strategic aerial offensive against Germany, air operations to support a defensive strategy in the Pacific, and the air defense of the Western Hemisphere.  It was here that the mission to “kill the Luftwaffe” was formed, with the main emphasis of the strategic campaign being against the support system of the Luftwaffe.  Clearly demonstrating the political acumen necessary to get such a plan accepted by a military and political establishment that did not understand or trust the concept of strategic air power, Stout lauds Arnold for overseeing the creation of AWPD-1, which was accepted by the military high command and Roosevelt on September 25, 1941, as Arnold’s single most important success. “Perhaps the most clever aspect of the plan was that it was written along a tightrope that was bold enough to advance the doctrine of strategic air operations, but not so aggressive as to be dismissed out of hand... AWPD-1 was so important, so ‘on the mark,’ that it was recognizable at the core of every U.S. strategy from the time it was accepted until the end of the war.”

             The follow-up to AWPD-1 was AWPD-42, accepted a year later, which made the destruction of the Luftwaffe the overriding immediate priority and the destruction of aircraft and engine plants the top enabling priority.  This created the targets and the strategy of the air war in Europe as it unfolded from the Spring of 1943 onwards.

             Coupled with the strong explanation of the development of the underlying strategy, Stout demonstrates that the air war in Europe was one overall campaign.  Too many authors have seen the Eighth Air Force in Britain and the Fifteenth Air Force in Italy as somehow fighting two different wars - which it may well have felt like to the crews - but this is false.  The campaign against the Luftwaffe was a fight won with two fists, a solid left followed by a hard right.

             Stout’s account also pulls no punches in describing the shortcomings of the air campaign, how the Eighth was committed to combat before it was really ready due to the politics of the situation, that the bombers had to be seen to be operating, and was then weakened by siphoning off units for the unplanned event of the invasion of North Africa, which prevented the Eighth from developing its strength and hitting the Luftwaffe before that force was fully prepared to engage the Americans.  There are no punches pulled in describing the defeat of the “self-defending bomber” in the unescorted deep-penetration daylight raids of the summer and fall of 1943, culminating in the Luftwaffe’s defeat of the daylight campaign on October 14, 1943, the second mission to Schweinfurt known as “Black Thursday.”

            The true strength of the American forces lay in their response to this defeat.  When the Luftwaffe had faced a similar event over London in September, 1940, Britain was saved from invasion when Germany turned away from that decision.  The Allied air campaign was crucial if there was ever to be an invasion and liberation of Europe, and the fact that the leadership of the Air Forces held firm, did not allow a decision to join the RAF in the night bombing campaign to happen, and moved decisively to adopt the serendipitously-developed P-51 Mustang as the escort fighter they had needed from the outset would lead directly from their worst defeat to their greatest victory, seven and a half months later: June 6, 1944, when the Luftwaffe was unable to oppose the invasion of Normandy.

             Here is where Stout’s background as a combat flyer comes to the fore, in his account of the 1943-44 campaign.  He wisely focuses not on the men whose names are well-known to anyone who has studied this history, but rather keeps his focus on the work of those whose names aren’t in the history books: the air crew who threw up out of fear every time the boarded their airplane before climbing aboard and making the mission regardless, and the ground crews who froze on open hard stands in the English winter and sweated in the open revetments under the hot sun of an Italian summer to keep the planes in the air.  These men were the backbone of the victory.

             I think I have read just about every major and most of the minor books about the air war in Europe.  Stout’s book joins the first rank for its lucid explanation of how the air war came to be, and how it was fought to a successful conclusion.  I rank it up there with Roger Freeman’s “The Mighty Eighth,” Donald L. Miller’s “Masters of the Air,” and Max Hastings’ “Bomber Command” as essential reading to comprehend this vast topic.

 “The Men Who Killed The Luftwaffe” is available at Amazon.com

 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search‑alias%3Dstripbooks&field‑keywords=Stout%3A+%22The+Men+Who+Killed+The+Luftwaffe%22&x=16&y=18   

Tom Cleaver

June 2011

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