The Bomber Mafia were a close-knit group of American military men who believed that long-range

heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the larges ...

aircraft in large numbers were able to win a

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

. The derogatory term "Bomber Mafia" was used before and after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

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. The bomber mafia succeeded in their goal to have extensive bomber fleets in the US military, but they failed in their wish to achieve pinpoint targeting precision during World War II. Instead, the bomber fleets were a major factor in the general American war effort, helping to reduce the enemy fighting power, especially in Japan where they destroyed the largest cities by shifting to area incendiary bombing tactics. After the war, the 20 years of foundational work by the bomber mafia resulted in the separation of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

from the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

to become an independent military arm. The bomber mafia's strategic doctrine, changed by war and experience, helped shape the mission of the new Air Force and its

Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile ...

. Many years later a related term "

Fighter Mafia The Fighter Mafia was a controversial group of U.S. Air Force officers and civilian defense analysts who, in the 1960s and 1970s, advocated for fighter design criteria in opposition to those of the design boards of the time. Their assertions includ ...

" described those within the Air Force that favored lightweight fighters good at dog-fighting instead of heavy missile-firing fighters.

Origins

Developed over the years 1926–1929 at

Air Corps Tactical School The Air Corps Tactical School, also known as ACTS and "the Tactical School", was a military professional development school for officers of the United States Army Air Service and United States Army Air Corps, the first such school in the world. C ...

(ACTS) at

Langley Field Langley may refer to: People * Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name * Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer * Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perform ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, a forward-looking doctrine of daylight precision bombing was promulgated by Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell who advocated a greatly expanded role for the bomber force. After graduating from ACTS in 1931, Mitchell protégée

Harold L. George Harold Lee George (July 19, 1893 – February 24, 1986) was an American aviation pioneer who helped shape and promote the concept of daylight precision bombing. An outspoken proponent of the industrial web theory, George taught at the Air Corps T ...

stayed at the school to refine and teach the new bombing theory, soon recruiting as teachers his former students

Haywood S. Hansell Haywood Shepherd Hansell Jr. (September 28, 1903 – November 14, 1988) was a general officer in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II, and later the United States Air Force. He became an advocate of the doctrine o ...

, Donald Wilson and

Laurence S. Kuter General Laurence Sherman Kuter (May 28, 1905 – November 30, 1979) was a Cold War-era U.S. Air Force general and former commander of the North American Air Defense Command ( NORAD). Kuter (pronounced COO-ter) was born in Rockford, Illinois i ...

as fellow bomber advocates. These four instructors, the core of US bomber advocacy, argued that an enemy's army and navy could be defeated intact due to the destruction of industrial and military targets deep within enemy-held territory. This theory was first espoused by Italian General

Giulio Douhet General Giulio Douhet (30 May 1869 – 15 February 1930) was an Italian general and air power theorist. He was a key proponent of strategic bombing in aerial warfare. He was a contemporary of the 1920s air warfare advocates Walther Wever, Billy ...

, though his ideas included the

terror bombing Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematic ...

of population centers that the American theorists eschewed. In contrast, American theorists devised a strategy of pin-point bombing that targeted the enemy economy and the production of weapons.Belote, Howard D. (1999)
"Warden and the Air Corps Tactical School: What Goes Around Comes Around."
''Airpower Journal'', Fall 1999. Though unproven, the major attraction of this sort of

strategic bombing Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...

doctrine was that a war was expected to be won relatively quickly, with minimal casualties, and that grinding, static

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became a ...

as seen in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

could be avoided. In November 1932 when British Lord President of the Council

Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...

said "

the bomber will always get through "The bomber will always get through" was a phrase used by Stanley Baldwin in a 1932 speech "A Fear for the Future" given to the British Parliament. His speech stated that contemporary bomber aircraft had the performance necessary to conduct a s ...

", he was talking about the terror bombing of cities. The US Bomber Mafia agreed with Baldwin only in that the bomber would prevail in its mission. They intended the mission to be against military and industrial targets, not populations. To effect this doctrine, the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

would need to expend the majority of its resources in amassing a fleet of self-defending heavy bombers, and in the training and maintenance of a great many airmen to fill aircrew and ground crew positions. The ACTS officers who believed in the heavy bomber doctrine realized that any other Air Corps expenditures such as for

tactical bomber Tactical bombing is aerial bombing aimed at targets of immediate military value, such as combatants, military installations, or military equipment. This is in contrast to strategic bombing, or attacking enemy cities and factories to cripple fut ...

s and

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

would take away from the proposed large fleet of heavy bombers. Moreover, the men realized that the United States government would have to reduce funding to naval and ground forces in order to establish a great air fleet. To implement these changes, the ACTS instructors began to instill a sense in their students that a separate and independent air arm of the type described earlier by Mitchell, to be called the

, was the way forward. As a compromise first step, the General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force was established within the Army Air Corps in 1935, commanded by General

Frank M. Andrews Lieutenant General Frank Maxwell Andrews (February 3, 1884 – May 3, 1943) was a senior officer of the United States Army and one of the founders of the United States Army Air Forces, which was later to become the United States Air Force. ...

, a strategic bombing advocate. Andrews staffed the command with like-minded officers such as Henry H. "Hap" Arnold. Although flawed and tested only under optimal conditions, the doctrine (originally known as the "

industrial web theory Industrial web theory is the military concept that an enemy's industrial power can be attacked at nodes of vulnerability, and thus the enemy's ability to wage a lengthy war can be severely limited, as well as his morale—his will to resist. The th ...

") became the primary airpower strategy of the United States in the planning for World War II. Members of the "Bomber Mafia" produced the two airpower war plans ( AWPD-1 and AWPD-42) that guided the wartime expansion and deployment of the Army Air Forces.

Opposition

The term "Bomber Mafia" came from the sometimes bitter debates between

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

staff and Air Corps men who observed, and argued with, the insistence by instructors and students of the ACTS that heavy bombers were the new primary weapon of war, and that a separate air arm was required to command them. For the first few years, the strongest voice at ACTS ''against'' the bomber doctrine was Captain (later General)

George C. Kenney George Churchill Kenney (August 6, 1889 – August 9, 1977) was a United States Army general during World War II. He is best known as the commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), a position he held between Augu ...

who called for the use of air power to attack enemy fighting units on the ground. He advocated the close coordination of air and ground forces, with an emphasis on

medium bomber A medium bomber is a military bomber Fixed-wing aircraft, aircraft designed to operate with medium-sized Aerial bomb, bombloads over medium Range (aeronautics), range distances; the name serves to distinguish this type from larger heavy bombe ...

s and

fighter bomber A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. It differs from bomber and attack aircraft primarily in its origins, as a fighter that has been adapted into other roles, wh ...

s. Kenney left ACTS in 1929, and heavy bomber doctrinarians filled the vacancy. The doctrine also ran counter to the theories of Billy Mitchell himself, who espoused that pursuit support was essential for daylight bombing operations. As an expert in the use of air units to aid artillery and infantry, Gordon P. Saville held to the concept of tactical air power through his time as ACTS instructor from 1934 to 1936. Later, Saville successfully implemented his ideas in the Mediterranean Theater. Captain

Claire Lee Chennault Claire Lee Chennault (September 6, 1893 – July 27, 1958) was an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the "Flying Tigers" and the Chinese Air Force in World War II. Chennault was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fighte ...

, senior instructor in fighter tactics at ACTS, was a vocal Air Corps officer who challenged the bomber mafia for more than a decade; he was forced into early retirement in 1937, leaving the precision bombing advocates unopposed.Severs, 1997 The teaching of fighter ("pursuit") tactics declined, though

Earle E. Partridge Earle Everard "Pat" Partridge (July 7, 1900 – September 7, 1990) was a four-star general in the United States Air Force and a Command Pilot. Biography Earl Partridge graduated Ashby High School, Ashby, Massachusetts in 1917. Partridge enliste ...

and Hoyt S. Vandenberg continued to discuss the role of the fighter. Other opposition was more subtle. USAAC Fighter Projects officer Lieutenant

Benjamin S. Kelsey Benjamin Scovill Kelsey (March 9, 1906 – March 3, 1981) was an American aeronautical engineer and test pilot. Serving as America's chief fighter projects officer, he helped bring success in World War II to the United States Army Air Forces ...

appreciated that a large bomber fleet would be able to perform many military tasks, not just strategic bombing, and felt that the force's doctrine should remain flexible to meet any demand. 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. Kelsey formulated a new "interceptor" class of aircraft in order to sustain his idea that a well-armed fighter aircraft could successfully attack enemy bombers, and that, given

drop tank In aviation, a drop tank (external tank, wing tank or belly tank) is used to describe auxiliary fuel tanks externally carried by aircraft. A drop tank is expendable and often capable of being jettisoned. External tanks are commonplace on modern ...

s for long range, it could defend friendly bombers all the way to the target and back. The Bomber Mafia, through a "failure of imagination" in not expanding the doctrine to include establishing air superiority as a prerequisite for success, would not accept either of these concepts—they believed the heavy bomber fleet could protect itself, and thus they contributed to the delay in the development of a long-range escort fighter until two years into the war. However, the doctrine nonetheless became the foundation for the separation of the Air Force from the Army, and the basis for modern airpower theory. Hansell concurred that both the theorists and the authors of the AWPD-1 war plan (of which he was both) made a serious mistake in neglecting long-range fighter escort in their ideas. Hansell wrote:

It was recognized that fighter escort was inherently desirable, but no one could quite conceive how a small fighter could have the range of the bomber yet retain its combat maneuverability. Failure to see this issue through proved one of the Air Corps Tactical School's major shortcomings.

Advocates

Instructors

, leading theoristMiller, 2006, pp. 38–42 * Haywood S. Hansell, Jr. * Donald Wilson *

* John F. Curry, ACTS commander 1931–1935 *

Thomas DeWitt Milling Thomas DeWitt Milling (July 31, 1887 – November 26, 1960) was a pioneer of military aviation and a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was the first rated pilot in the history of the United States Air Force. He received his flig ...

, first school Officer-In-Charge *

Odas Moon Odas Moon (February 11, 1892 – November 19, 1937) was an American aviation pioneer who was among a team of United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) aviators to break endurance records by performing aerial refueling. Moon was a founding member of the ...

Robert Olds Robert Olds (June 15, 1896 – April 28, 1943) was a general officer in the United States Army Air Forces, theorist of strategic air power, and proponent of an independent United States Air Force. Olds is best known today as the father of Brig. ...

Kenneth N. Walker Brigadier general (United States), Brigadier General Kenneth Newton Walker (17 July 1898 – 5 January 1943) was a United States Army aviator and a United States Army Air Forces general who exerted a significant influence on the development ...

Robert M. Webster Robert Morris Webster (October 19, 1892 – March 1, 1972). Retrieved on November 5, 2009. was a United States Air Force major general who was an early advocate of daylight precision bombing as a war-winning strategy. A rated command pilot, he c ...

Graduates

* Henry H. "Hap" Arnold *

Jimmy Doolittle James Harold Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his daring raid on Japan during World War II. He also made early coast-to-coast flights ...

Ira C. Eaker General (Honorary) Ira Clarence Eaker (April 13, 1896 – August 6, 1987) was a general of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Eaker, as second-in-command of the prospective Eighth Air Force, was sent to England to form and ...

* Oliver P. Echols *

Muir S. Fairchild General (United States), General Muir Stephen Fairchild (September 2, 1894 – March 17, 1950) was a United States Air Force officer and the service's second Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, Vice Chief of Staff. Early service ...

(also an ACTS instructor) Boyne, Walter J.br>"The Tactical School"
in ''Air Force Magazine'', September 2003. *

Barney M. Giles Barney McKinney Giles (September 13, 1892 – May 6, 1984) was an American military officer who helped develop strategic bombing theory and practice. Giles stepped outside established bomber doctrine during World War II to develop long-range cap ...

Curtis LeMay Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was an American Air Force general who implemented a controversial strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. He later served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air ...

* Emmett "Rosie" O'Donnell, Jr. * Carl A. Spaatz * Hoyt S. Vandenberg

Legacy

, the Bomber Mafia's theory of the primacy of unescorted daylight strategic bombing was proved wrong.Lee, 1997, pp. 219–220. Fleets of heavy bombers were not able to achieve victory without the cooperation of the Army and Navy, and required the protection of long-range fighters for deep penetration missions. Overall casualties in the war were not minimal, and victory did not come significantly more quickly. Precision in bombing was not achieved until long-range fighter escorts became available and air superiority was achieved, as opponents had warned. The strategic bombing concept, however, was a major factor in the eventual victory and became the first core doctrine of the independent

. Its proponents continued to promote the doctrine into the

Atomic Age The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the ''Trinity'' test in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, during World War II. Although nuclear chain reaction ...

, forming the

to carry out a vision modified to fit the needs of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

and the threat of

nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear ...

. The Bomber Mafia was gradually replaced in the 1950s and 1960s by advocates of

intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...

warfare. In his 2021

popular history Popular history is a broad genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis. The term is used in contradistinction to professio ...

book ''

The Bomber Mafia ''The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War'' is a 2021 book by Malcolm Gladwell that examines the US Bomber Mafia of World War II, which advocated precision aerial bombing as a means to win a war. G ...

'',

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...

wrote that the idea of precision bombing stayed alive in the US military, with greater accuracy obtained in the 1990s through to the present with

guided bomb A guided bomb (also known as a smart bomb, guided bomb unit, or GBU) is a precision-guided munition designed to achieve a smaller circular error probable (CEP). The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the retroactive renaming of ...

s, such that a modern

laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly p ...

or missile might be expected to destroy not just a single building but a single room in the building, minimizing collateral damage. Gladwell opined that the moralistic, casualty-avoiding ideas of Haywood Hansell stayed relevant for many years while the heavy death toll of area bombing fell out of favor. In that sense, Gladwell wrote that Hansell "won the war."

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Finney, Robert T. (1955). ''History of the Air Corps Tactical School 1920–1940'', Air Force Historical Division, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. (Air Force Historical Study No. 100
PDF of March 1955 edition photostat

1998 scanned edition, with photographs
*Lee, Loyd E.;

Robin D. S. Higham Robin David Stewart Higham (June 20, 1925 – August 27, 2015) was a British-American historian, specializing in aerospace and military history, who also served as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Early life and fam ...

(1997)
''World War II in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with general sources: a handbook of literature and research''
Greenwood Publishing Group. *McFarland, Stephen L.; Richard P. Hallion (2008)
''America's Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910–1945''
University of Alabama Press, 2008. *Miller, Donald L. (2006)
''Masters of the air: America's bomber boys who fought the air war against Nazi Germany''
Simon and Schuster. *Murray, Williamson;

Allan R. Millett Allan R. Millett (born October 22, 1937) is a historian and a retired colonel in U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. He is known for his works on the Korean War, but he has written on other military topics. Early life Millett is the son of John D. Mille ...

''Military innovation in the interwar period''
Cambridge University Press, 1998. *Nalty, Bernard C. (2003)
''Winged Shield, Winged Sword 1907–1950: A History of the United States Air Force''
The Minerva Group, Inc. *Overy, Richard J. (2005)
''The Air War, 1939–1945''
Brassey's. *Severs, Hugh G. (1997)
''The Controversy Behind the Air Corps Tactical School's Strategic Bombardment Theory: An Analysis of the Bombardment Versus Pursuit Aviation Data Between 1930–1939''
Defense Technical Information Center {{Good article 1926 establishments in Virginia 1960s disestablishments in the United States Organizations established in 1926 Organizations disestablished in the 1960s United States Army Air Forces United States Army aviation 20th-century history of the United States Air Force United States Army in World War II Strategic bombing History of Hampton, Virginia