Masters of the Air

Our current favorite show is Apple TV’s Masters of the Air, created by the same team as Band of Brothers and the Pacific. It is a remarkably realistic and compelling depiction of the American 8th Air Force and 100th bomber group in World War 2. The underlying stories are based on Donald Miller’s book of the same name. The show rightly focuses on the tremendous risks that bombers faced - serving in the 8th Air Force’s was the 3rd most dangerous combat branch in the entire war after being a Japanese kamikaze pilot or in a German U-boat.

But how effective was bombing Germany was in terms of shortening the war? The scholarly consensus downplayed the effectiveness of strategic bombing. This is reflected in best documentary series on the war: The World at War (1973).

Episode 3 of Masters of the Air captures the iconic raid on Schweinfurt and Regensburg in June 1943 (and the second raid on Schweinfurt in October 1943). This destroyed 50% of ball-bearing equipment. But the losses were huge: 24 flying fortresses lost on the attack on Schweinfurt and 36 on Regensburg or 16% of the combined force. In the show, we see Lt. Biddick, played by Barry Keoghan, die in this raid.

But what does the latest scholarly work say about the impact of 8th Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign? And what does the economic approach to war tell us?

The Myth of Decisive Battle

Before we get to the value of the economic approach to war, a myth needs to be laid to rest. That is the myth of the decisive battle.

Traditional scholarship centers decisive battles. We’re told that Stalingrad or Kursk or El Alamein (I guess only by Brits) were the decisive battles of World War II. The decisive battle is appealing because it condenses the horrors of war into a single moment of decision. Modern generals still study Cannae in the hope of replicating a battle of annihilation (though of course, Cannae was not decisive).

Stalingrad did not destroy the offensive capabilities of the Wehrmacht. So why is it seen as decisive? Perhaps because of the losses sustained. The 6th Army was all but wiped out, as was the 4th Panzer army (total Axis losses were in the 800k-1 million range though many of these were Romanian and Italian allies). 900 fighter aircraft and around 1500 tanks were destroyed.

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