The bomber will always get through
The bomber will always get through was a phrase used by Stanley Baldwin in 1932, in the speech "A Fear for the Future" to the British Parliament.[1] The argument was that, regardless of air defences, sufficient bomber aircraft will survive to destroy cities.[2]:18–9
Baldwin did not advocate total disarmament but believed that "great armaments lead inevitably to war".[3] 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 can proceed with unilateral disarmament".[4] On 10 November 1932 Baldwin said:
I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through, The only defence is in offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves...If the conscience of the young men should ever come to feel, with regard to this one instrument [bombing] that it is evil and should go, the thing will be done; but if they do not feel like that – well, as I say, the future is in their hands. But when the next war comes, and European civilisation is wiped out, as it will be, and by no force more than that force, then do not let them lay blame on the old men. Let them remember that they, principally, or they alone, are responsible for the terrors that have fallen upon the earth.[4]
This speech was often used against Baldwin as allegedly demonstrating the futility of rearmament or disarmament, depending on the critic.[5]
At the time bombers had a slight performance advantage over fighters due to having multiple engines, so a successful interception would require careful planning in order to get fighters into a suitable defensive position location in front of the bombers. Before World War II and the invention of radar, detection systems were visual or auditory, which gave only a few minutes' warning, not nearly enough to arrange such a mission. This balance of force meant that bombs would be falling 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.
Many theorists, especially in Britain, 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, author of The Command of the Air, was a seminal theorist of this school of thought.[6] H.G.Wells' pre-World War I novel 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 "Anytown" in the film Things to Come.
The most influential among the few who disagreed with Baldwin's view was Hugh Dowding, who led RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.[2]:18 Others included Americans Major Claire Chennault, who argued against the so-called Bomber Mafia at the Air Corps Tactical School,[7][8] and Lieutenant Benjamin S. Kelsey, Fighter Projects Officer for the United States Army Air Corps.[9][10]
In recent years, the phrase has been resurrected to refer to suicide bombers and the inability of legislation or security to stop someone intent on blowing something up.[11][12][13]
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- ^ Mr Baldwin on Aerial Warfare — A Fear For The Future, London, ENG, UK: The Times, 11 November 1932, p. 7 column B.
- ^ a b Korda, Michael (2009). With Wings Like Eagles. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-173603-2.
- ^ Middlemas and Barnes, p. 722.
- ^ a b Middlemas and Barnes, p. 735.
- ^ Middlemas and Barnes, p. 736.
- ^ Bomber Theory, UK: School net, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVbombertheory.htm.
- ^ Greer, Thomas H. (1985). The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm, 1917–1941 USAF Historical Studies No. 89. Office of Air Force History, p. 63–65.
- ^ Boyne, Walter. "The Tactical School". AIR FORCE Magazine. http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2003/September%202003/0903school.aspx. Retrieved July 27, 2008.
- ^ Bodie, Warren M. (1991). The Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Widewing Publications. pp. 16–17. ISBN 0-9629359-5-6. http://books.google.com/?id=KzHpAAAACAAJ.
- ^ Kelsey, Benjamin S. (1982). The Dragon's Teeth?: The Creation of United States Air Power for World War II. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 0874745748. http://books.google.com/?id=sq64AAAAIAAJ.
- ^ The bomber will always get through, Daily reckoning, http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Featured/TheBomberWillAlwaysGetThrough.html.
- ^ The bomber will always get through, ENG, UK: The Economist, 6 October 2005, http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QQRRGST.
- ^ Bishop, Patrick (2004-12-03), The bomber will always get through, be he ETA or al-Qa'eda, ENG, UK: The Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/03/12/do1201.xml.
