Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:39:16.655Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

16 - Churchill and the Bombing Campaign

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2023

Allen Packwood
Affiliation:
Churchill College, Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Through pinpointing how Churchill’s perceptions of aerial bombardment evolved across his political career, this chapter highlights the ambivalence and incongruence that dogged his bombing policy from its earliest days: ultimately arguing that his vacillating approach towards the Allied bombing campaign – and his eventual calculated detachment from it – was not out of character. The chapter begins by establishing his preliminary beliefs about aerial bombardment; next, it traces how his bombing theory converted into destructive reality, from ‘aerially policing’ the British Empire in the 1920s to the Combined Bomber Offensive; finally, it examines how Churchill attempted to reconcile his incriminating role in the German firestorms with a war-scarred Britain after 1945.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Biddle, T. D., Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002)Google Scholar
Blanco, R. L., The Luftwaffe in World War II: The Rise and Decline of the German Air Force (New York: Julian Messner, 1987)Google Scholar
Bowman, M., Bomber Command: Reflections of War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011)Google Scholar
Everitt, C. and Middlebrook, M., The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939–1945 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2014)Google Scholar
Garrett, S. A., The Bombing Campaign: The RAF. In Toye, R. (ed.), Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy and Statecraft (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 1938Google Scholar
Overy, R., The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War over Europe, 1940–1945 (New York: Penguin, 2013)Google Scholar
Overy, R., Churchill and Airpower. In Toye, R. (ed.), Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy and Statecraft (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 127–37Google Scholar
Overy, R., The Birth of the RAF (London: Allen Lane, 2018)Google Scholar
Ruane, K., Churchill and Nuclear Weapons. In Toye, R. (ed.), Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy and Statecraft (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 171–86Google Scholar
Taylor, F., Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 2005)Google Scholar
Todman, D., Britain’s War: A New World, 1942–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×