The Bomber Mafia

 By Malcolm Gladwell

Adult Non Fiction

Reviewed by Angela-Manitou Branch Administrator

    With his usual blend of tongue-in-cheek humour and skill, Malcom Gladwell tells the true story of the forerunners of military precisions bombing.  The Bomber Mafia was a small group of U.S. pilots who survived the crude air battles of WWI and went on to develop a new vision for air warfare.

    As WWII rages, the group's leader, General Haywood Hansell proposes a revolutionary new idea to precisely bomb key enemy targets such as aircraft factories. This would help avoid the thousands of civilian casualties being caused by the standard, indiscriminate blanket bombings of cities by both the Germans and the Allies.

    Sadly, the technology of the day wasn't up to the task, so the philosophy of another U.S. General, Curtis Le May prevailed, and the mass bombings continued.  Around the same time came the development of napalm, which was being used with unimaginable consequences against Japan, before atomic bombs devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Gladwell discusses the brutal and obsessive nature of LeMay and Hansell, and the role they both played in the war on Japan.  This is a fascinating account of the psychology of wartime leadership and the things that humanity is willing to accept under crisis conditions.  Conditions that, in peace times, it would (rightly) condemn.

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Large Print edition