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"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 The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...
. His speech stated that contemporary
bomber aircraft A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an airc ...
had the performance necessary to conduct a
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 ...
campaign that would destroy a country's cities and there was little that could be done in response. It concluded that the conduct of future wars would require one to "kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves." At the time of the speech aircraft performance was rapidly improving and new techniques and construction methods were producing ever-larger aircraft. For a time, this resulted in a performance gap where multi-engine aircraft outperformed the single-engine fighter aircraft that would have to intercept them. This gap could be further widened through the use of night bombing, which made interception practically impossible. This state of affairs was relatively short-lived. By the mid-1930s the same techniques were being applied to fighter design, once again handing them a significant performance advantage that allowed them to chase down even the fastest bomber aircraft. During the same period, the introduction of
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
created an early warning system that gave interceptors sufficient time to climb to altitude before bombers arrived. The
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
suggested Baldwin was no longer correct, as
RAF Fighter Command RAF Fighter Command was one of the commands of the Royal Air Force. It was formed in 1936 to allow more specialised control of fighter aircraft. It served throughout the Second World War. It earned near-immortal fame during the Battle of Brita ...
's aircraft forced the Germans to abandon day bombing, and finally cancel the offensive altogether. Ultimately, even those developments proved too little in the face of a determined attack with large number of aircraft. From 1942, RAF Bomber Command's fleet grew so large, sending hundreds of bombers on single raids, that its destructive impact was not seriously affected even by strengthening German defences. The
US Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
's efforts initially fared poorly, but the introduction of
escort fighter The escort fighter was a concept for a fighter aircraft designed to escort bombers to and from their targets. An escort fighter needed range long enough to reach the target, loiter over it for the duration of the raid to defend the bombers, and ...
s completely upset the balance in favour of the attacker.


Baldwin's argument

Baldwin did not advocate total
disarmament Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, such as ...
but believed that "great armaments lead inevitably to war". However he came to believe that, as he put it on 9 November 1932, "the time has now come to an end when
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...
can proceed with
unilateral disarmament Unilateral disarmament is a policy option, to renounce weapons without seeking equivalent concessions from one's actual or potential rivals. It was most commonly used in the twentieth century in the context of ''unilateral nuclear disarmament'', a r ...
".. On 10 November 1932 Baldwin said: This speech was often used against Baldwin as allegedly demonstrating the futility of rearmament or disarmament, depending on the critic.


Theoretical basis

Many theorists imagined that a future war would be won entirely by the destruction of the enemy's military and industrial capability from the air. The 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 ...
, author of ''The Command of the Air'', was a seminal theorist of that school of thought. Before World War I,
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
The War in the Air'' concluded that aerial warfare could never be "won" in such a manner as bombing, but in 1936, he depicted a war starting suddenly with devastating air attacks on "Everytown" in the film '' Things to Come''. Likewise,
Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...
, in his 1930 novel '' Last and First Men'', depicts a very brief but devastating war in which fleets of bombers deliver huge payloads of
poison gas Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal dose) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious or perman ...
to the cities of
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, leaving most of the continent uninhabited. As late as 1939,
Nevil Shute Nevil Shute Norway (17 January 189912 January 1960) was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name, in order to protect ...
portrayed a war opening with a sudden air attack by bombers in his novel '' What Happened to the Corbetts''. At the time, bombers had a slight performance advantage over fighters by having multiple
engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...
and streamlined but heavy cantilever wing designs and so a successful interception would require careful planning to bring
interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are c ...
into a suitable defensive position in front of the bombers. Before
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 opposing ...
and the invention of
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
, detection systems were visual or auditory, which gave only a few minutes' warning. Against
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 ...
designs, those systems were marginally useful, but against 1930s aircraft flying at twice their speed or more, they did not provide enough time to arrange interception missions. The balance of force meant that bombs would be falling before the fighters were in position and there was little that could be done about it. For Britain, the answer was to concentrate on bomber production, primarily as a deterrent force. Before war began in 1939, such theories resulted in predictions of hundreds of thousands of
casualties A casualty, as a term in military usage, is a person in military service, combatant or non-combatant, who becomes unavailable for duty due to any of several circumstances, including death, injury, illness, capture or desertion. In civilian usag ...
from bombing. That year, military expert Basil Liddell Hart speculated, for example, 250,000 deaths and injuries could occur across Britain in the first week. Harold Macmillan wrote in 1956 that he and others around him "thought of air warfare in 1938 rather as people think of nuclear war today". The most influential among the few who disagreed with such views was
Hugh Dowding Air Chief Marshal Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, (24 April 1882 – 15 February 1970) was an officer in the Royal Air Force. He was Air Officer Commanding RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain and is generally c ...
, who led
RAF Fighter Command RAF Fighter Command was one of the commands of the Royal Air Force. It was formed in 1936 to allow more specialised control of fighter aircraft. It served throughout the Second World War. It earned near-immortal fame during the Battle of Brita ...
during the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
. Others included American Major
Claire 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 ...
, who argued against the so-called "
Bomber Mafia The Bomber Mafia were a close-knit group of American military men who believed that long-range heavy bomber aircraft in large numbers were able to win a war. The derogatory term "Bomber Mafia" was used before and after World War II by those in t ...
" at the
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 ...
, and Lieutenant Benjamin S. Kelsey, Fighter Projects Officer for 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 ...
, responsible for specifying American fighters that were capable of downing bombers.


Strategic bombing in combat

Later analysis of the strategic bombing during World War II indicated that Baldwin's statement was essentially correct in that bombers would get through but at a cost in aircrew and aircraft. Using the
Dowding system The Dowding system was the world's first wide-area ground-controlled interception network, controlling the airspace across the United Kingdom from northern Scotland to the southern coast of England. It used a widespread dedicated land-line telep ...
, fighters directed by radar were able to disrupt the German daytime offensive during the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
, forcing the
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
to turn to less accurate night-time bombing in
The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...
. The difficulties for
night fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...
s meant that was relatively unopposed, but the Blitz did not crush British civil morale. On 17 August 1943,
US Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
launched strategic bombing raids on the German cities of Schweinfurt and Regensburg with 376 B-17 bombers without long-range fighter escorts. The mission inflicted heavy damage on the Regensburg target but lost 60 bombers, or 16% of the force, with another 58–95 heavily damaged and a loss of 564 airmen killed, missing or captured. A second raid on 14 October with 291 bombers damaged ball bearing factories, halting production for six weeks, but resulted in the loss of 77 bombers, or approximately 26%, with damage to 121 more and 655 airmen killed or captured. Unescorted daylight bomber raids deep into Germany were suspended until February 1944. The
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
's
Bomber Command Bomber Command is an organisational military unit, generally subordinate to the air force of a country. The best known were in Britain and the United States. A Bomber Command is generally used for strategic bombing (although at times, e.g. during t ...
lost a total of 8,325 aircraft on bombing missions during the war, during a total of 364,514 sorties. That represents 2.3% losses per mission on average. However, loss rates over Germany were significantly higher: between November 1943 and March 1944, operations over that country resulted in an average 5.1% loss rate. The disparity in loss rates was reflected in the fact that at one point in the war, Bomber Command considered making sorties over France count as only a third of an op towards the "tour" total. Furthermore, the official loss rate figures never included aircraft crashing in the UK on their return (usually by damage sustained during the operation) even if the machine was a write-off or some or all of the crew were killed, which added at least 15% to the official loss figures. Losses on that scale could be made good through increased production and training efforts but at a great cost. Indeed, the size of Bomber Command's offensive grew throughout the war. The
United States Strategic Bombing Survey The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) was a written report created by a board of experts assembled to produce an impartial assessment of the effects of the Anglo-American strategic bombing of Nazi Germany during the European theatre o ...
came to the same conclusion. Douhet's belief that a small number of bombs would be successful in forcing a country to surrender proved to be incorrect, and bombing alone did not cause the collapse he had expected in either Britain or Germany. In the Pacific War, bombing missions were effectively conducted by both Japan and the Western Allies. Early in the war, Japanese carrier aircraft successfully destroyed or disabled the battleships of the
US Pacific Fleet The United States Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT) is a theater-level component command of the United States Navy, located in the Pacific Ocean. It provides naval forces to the Indo-Pacific Command. Fleet headquarters is at Joint Base Pearl Harbor� ...
at anchor in
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
and destroyed the great majority of bombers and defensive aircraft there and in the
Philippine Islands The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
. The US military could not make effective use of the single
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
installation based in Hawaii (it was used part-time as a training device) and visual spotters in the Philippines that should have provided an early warning to their fighter squadrons. In later stages, US bombers effectively destroyed many Japanese cities with conventional or incendiary bombs before the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


"The bomber will not always get through"

After World War II, the major powers built heavy strategic bombers to carry nuclear weapons. By the 1960s advances in ground-based radar, guided missiles, radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, and fighter planes greatly decreased the odds that bombers could reach their targets, whether they used the traditional high-altitude or newer low-altitude approach. One 1964 study of British V bombers estimated that a bomber that did not use chaff or other countermeasures would encounter an average of six missiles, each with a 75% chance of destroying its target. The study thus stated that "the bomber will not always get through", and advocated Britain emphasize the Polaris submarine missile instead. For similar reasons, the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
deployed Polaris submarines during that decade. At that time, it shifted aircraft carriers away from delivering strategic nuclear weapons to a role suited for both general nuclear and limited non-nuclear wars. The
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, 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 ...
found converting its large fleet of manned bombers to non-nuclear roles more difficult. It attempted to redesign the B-70 Valkyrie high-altitude supersonic bomber project as a platform for
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
and launch of
standoff missile Standoff weapons are missiles or bombs which may be launched from a distance sufficient to allow attacking personnel to evade the effect of the weapon or defensive fire from the target area. Typically, they are used against land- and sea-based targ ...
s such as the Skybolt. Skybolt was cancelled in 1962 after testing failures. A 1963 study stated "Long-range technical considerations, of course, militate against the perpetuation of the manned bomber".


Recent reuse of phrase

In the 21st century, the phrase was reused to refer to
suicide bombers A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...
and the inability of legislation or security to stop someone intent on blowing something up..


See also

* Appeasement * Carpet bombing * ''
Guilty Men ''Guilty Men'' is a short book published in Great Britain in July 1940 that attacked British public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. A classic denunciation of the former government policy, i ...
'' *
Mutual assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...
* ''
Schnellbomber A ''Schnellbomber'' (German; literally "fast bomber") is a bomber that relies upon speed to avoid enemy fighters, rather than relying on defensive armament and armor. Concept The concept developed in the 1930s when it was believed that a ver ...
'' *
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 ...
*
Roerich Pact The Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments or Roerich Pact is an inter-American treaty. The most important idea of the Roerich Pact is the legal recognition that the defense of cultural objects is ...
*
Total war Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combata ...


References


External links


''Hansard'' text of the 10 November 1932 debate and Baldwin's speech
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bomber Will Always Get Through, The 1932 speeches Strategic bombing Military theory 1932 in the United Kingdom Stanley Baldwin Speeches in the Parliament of the United Kingdom Military history of the United Kingdom 1932 in military history