This is an account of a team of elderly minds in the USA airforce who ended up being focused on accuracy battle to decrease innocent noncombatant casualties and also quicken completion of problem by strategically bombing factories and also battle production vital for your enemys ability to continue to combat on. I immediately thought, Oh yeah? Do you know if the book had more/different material than the podcast? Relevance; Rating; Price (Ascending) Most Recent; View: Filter. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine for over 25 years and was named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Most Influential People. Malcolm Gladwell's "The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War" is a kind of love song to the United States Air Force, which is surprising, because. Can the less humane way actually save more lives in the long run. He basically reported that he hired hackers to pull the criteria for university rankings. [9], When the United States entered World War II, the Bomber Mafia's doctrine proved of little military use and costly in implementation with the realities of current technology under real-world combat conditions. Many of my academic friends have warned me to take his conclusions with at least a few grains of salt. Gladwell delves deep into how the Norden didnt quite deliver for Hansell in Europe and how the (as-yet-undiscovered) jetstream made it even more difficult to use in American bombing raids over Japan. The system was then implemented in The second world war to varying outcomes. Please simply click here to enter your email address (no additional purchase required) and you will receive the Listeners Guide. by . The print has its merits of being able to take your time to know the history of . Talking to Strangers is a classically Gladwellian intellectual adventure, a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. Kennedy stated there were "gaps in [Gladwell's] account", and cites the RAF Bomber Command's attempt at careful bombing as an example. [2] In November 1932 when British Lord President of the Council Stanley Baldwin said "the bomber will always get through", he was talking about the terror bombing of cities. The B-29s were capable of making the 3,000+ mile round trip from Guam to Japan. James Grosjean Strategy Cards (ShopLVA Exclusive), Las Vegas Advisor Membership + Member Rewards, Other Games, Weird Rules, Promos, Side Bets, Podcast - former surveillance operator Junior. Subscribe to the Military.com newsletter to have military news, updates and resources delivered straight to your inbox. This was a team of obsessive however significant men who wanted to prevent the British approach in any way prices as their aircrews were trained with computer system like bombsights, and also needed to plunder in clear skies from high mindset. While one is a celebrated hero, the other was an idealist whose concepts allowed him to be sidelined in the annals of background. In The Bombing plane Mafia, he hones in on a specific period of history. Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isnt true? Bomber Mafia is story of efficiency, morality and technology. It's pretty much about the history of how the military went from ground wars to air wars and theoretically . Block buster films have actually made World War II seem even more actual and technically skilled in all things armed forces yet this book was needed for me to grasp the relevance of war in the 1940s. The American militarys precise new way of information-based warfare so far has been tested only in relatively small and short bombing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, the gunboat wars of our time. Hansell was not the moral opposite of LeMay. Once you are in a way, are some forms of bombing more humane than others? A second shell hit the radio compartment, cutting the legs of the radio operator off at the knees. Please check back soon for future events. The Bombing plane mafia under Hansell are bent on reduce the destruction as well as focused on throwing a spanner in the works of battle. Those fools can really do some damages if you capture one in the kisser. [14] Because of his lower rank, he was in no position to challenge the bomber mafia, and instead strove to work around their restrictions on pursuit aircraft. Malcolm Gladwell's extraordinary new book, "The Bomber Mafia," tells the story of a group of pilots who met on a muggy airbase in central Alabama and hatched a plan to revolutionize warfare. and Terms of Use, 2023 Hachette Book Group | Terms of Use | But it was news to me. [21] The book debuted and peaked at number two on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction on May 16, 2021.[28]. What of the infinitely long nights of millions of concentration camp prisoners? Please take a moment to review it. An exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. We won the war when we did because our aircraft carriers were luckily out of Pearl Harbor when it was invaded, we were never going to lose but our task would have become daunting if we had to re-build our aircraft carrier fleet in my opinion Germany invaded Russia for its oil, oil was and is the commodity needed for modern militaries, Your email address will not be published. In World War II, the Bomber Mafia's theory of the primacy of unescorted daylight strategic bombing was proved wrong. Por Vs. Para Mafia Game. This was all in one plane. In The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times bestsellers including Talking to Strangers and host of the podcast Revisionist History, uses original interviews, archival footage and his trademark insight to weave together the stories of a Dutch genius and his That Japanese cities were bombed beyond those I found out about, in a fashion I rarely want to picture. And interesting. The additional we obtain from these events the less we appear to appreciate it was a various time and lacking much of the technology we currently take for given. 4.9 . The pilot kept flying.. or ask your favorite author a question with The words Bomber Mafia refer to a group of American pilots in the 1930s stationed at what was then called Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama. On page 127 of the hard copy, Gladwell got it backwards when he stated heavily laden B-29s headed for a Japan bombing run had to wait for a tailwind to be able to take off. We are excited to provide you an exclusiveListener'sGuidethat offers an inside look at the production process, archival imagery, and commentary from Malcolm and the producers and engineers involved with this extraordinaryproject. The derogatory term "Bomber Mafia" was used before and after World War II by those in the military who did not share their belief, and who were frustrated by the insistence of the men that the heavy bomber should take a primary position in planning and funding. Overall casualties in the war were not minimal, and victory did not come significantly more quickly. Those are exactly the same, but there's a lot more to the book. [12] The teaching of fighter ("pursuit") tactics declined, though Earle E. Partridge and Hoyt S. Vandenberg continued to discuss the role of the fighter. The American military leaders, however, convinced their allies to let them pursue precision bombing, based on the Bomber Mafias philosophy of taking out vital choke points. He bled to death. Chapter 3 is about the British and American bombing campaign against Germany in 1943. How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? In one day in March, 1945, more than 400 B-29s totally burned 16 square miles of Tokyo killing far more than 100,000 people. Sorry, but these apps are not currently supported: Stitcher, Podbean, or NPR One. In Chapters 4 and 5, Gladwell provides background about Hansell and LeMay, and outlines the Americans bombing mission on Germanys ball-bearing factories, led by Hansell with LeMay a participant. Since I had the ability to concentrate on guide as a historical message, I had much more success following along. Regardless, it was estimated that there would have been 2 MILLION American casualties had there been an invasion. To bombing experts, parks are nettlesome firebreaks that interfere with a target citys combustibility. When he is introducing characters and showing them in conflict, The Bomber Mafia is gripping. After the undeniable horrors of the Great War, a group of Army Air Corps generals spent much of the 1930s brainstorming ways to use airpower to make war bombing more strategic while keeping casualties to a minimum. The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation and the Longest Night of the Second World War, by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Co., New York, 2021, $27. It is also the story of the ascent of Air force. You can listen in your preferred podcast app (See below for a complete list of supported apps). They believed that war could thus be waged more humanely because collateral damage, including civilian deaths, could be minimized and wars ended faster. Would this audiobook be appropriate for a teen with an interest in military history? It's true: The audiobook breaks conventional audiobook standards, as this is a well-produced audio experience. As a key member of the Bomber Mafia, Hansells theories of precision bombing had been foiled by bad weather and human error. He advocated the close coordination of air and ground forces, with an emphasis on medium bombers and fighter bombers. The Sound features songs, audio effects, spoken archival interviews, even one by Ronald Reagan and also Gladwells voice was best for the narrative. Norden, LeMay, the Air force, DuPont, a complete range of personalities that created methods to make war much more effective, with the hope that this war would certainly be the last. A novelty of this book is that Gladwell says it began as an audiobook and then became a written one, reversing the usual process. Kurt Vonneguts seminal publication Slaughterhouse five took the allied battle (pointless) of Dresden with the POV of Prisioners of war. Your email address will not be published. It certainly is arguable that others, like Gen. George C. Marshall, were just as important, but Gladwell simply tosses out the claim about Stimson and hurries on. The biggest runs against a strategic target, specifically a ball bearing factory, largely was a failure. Reader Q&A,