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Bomber Harris: His Life and Times. By Henry Probert. London: Greenhill Books, 2001. ISBN 1-85367-473-7. Photographs. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 418. $34.95.
Wilfrid Freeman: The Genius Behind Allied Survival and Air Supremacy, 1939 to 1945. By Anthony Furse. Staplehurst, U.K.: Spellmount, 2000. ISBN 1-86227-079-1. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 352. $39.95.
These excellent biographies spotlight two Royal Air Force (RAF) wartime leaders, Arthur Harris and Wilfrid Freeman. Harris achieved fame as the controversial leader of Bomber Command, while Freeman, a brilliant staff officer and administrator, is a largely unknown figure to students of World War II.
Henry Probert, the former head of the RAF's history program, is extremely knowledgeable of Bomber Command's role in World War II, while also being intimately familiar with Harris's private papers. The result is a balanced treatment.
Harris was named chief of Bomber Command in February 1942 when Britain was reeling. It had been pushed off the Continent at Dunkirk, and was losing ships at an alarming rate to German submarines. Surrender was unthinkable, but the only way to strike back was through the air. Unfortunately, German air defenses made daylight attacks prohibitively costly. Bomber Command moved to the cover of night, but this made their attacks highly inaccurate.
Probert stresses that Harris did not originate the strategy of night area bombing to destroy civilian morale-Churchill and the Air Ministry had already set that course. Rather, it was Harris's job to implement that strategy. He did so with a determination and single-mindedness that was extraordinary.
By the end of the war the area bombing campaign...