To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority over Germany, 1942–1944 by Stephen L. McFarland, Wesley P. Newton

Abstract

958 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Marne in 1914, Canadian troops won a clear-cut victory for the Allied cause by advancing two-and-a-half miles in a matter of three days, thus attaining all of their objectives while suffering a casualty rate of only 16 percent. New weapons, new communications, new tactics, new intelligence methods, and meticulous preparation for the attack made the capture of Vimy Ridge possible; yet some oddly archaic touches in Rawling’s account surely demonstrate a residual rigidity in British (and Cana­ dian) military management. For, as he baldly remarks, “Cavalry did manage to engage the enemy, but suffered heavy casualties from German machine guns” (p. 125). In short, Rawling supports his central thesis convincingly enough, but the positive tone he adopts in describing Canadian technological and organizational responses to the battle experience of World War I strikes me as rather too kind to the brass hats. William H. McNeill Dr. McNeill is professor of history emeritus of the University of Chicago. To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority over Germany, 1942— 1944. By Stephen L. McFarland and Wesley P. Newton. Washing­ ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 328; illus­ trations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $35.00. According to Stephen McFarland and Wesley Newton, the history of the United States Eighth Air Force’s conquest of aerial superiority in protracted struggle against the German Luftwaffe from 1942 through 1944 is the untold story of World War II. Most observers have regarded the securing of aerial superiority as an intermediate step in winning the war, while the air force’s official history of the war essentially disregarded it. In To Command the Sky, McFarland and Newton have written the hrst book to examine the evolution of the doctrine of air superiority, the struggle to gain it over Europe, and its importance for the final victory over Germany. They contend that the answers to the questions of whether and how strategic bombing contributed to Allied victory lie in analysis of the struggle to achieve aerial superiority. In an aerial battle of attrition that they term the “trench warfare” of World War II, the Eighth Air Force forced the Luftwaffe to defend the Reich and then destroyed it in combat, allowing strategic bombing and the Allied invasion of Normandy. The authors begin their story with the origins of the question of aerial superiority in World War I and the evolution of attitudes about the importance of fighter aircraft in the interwar years. After tracing the perceptions of early theorists like Douhet and commanders like Trenchard and Mitchell, they explain that in the 1920s the air arm downgraded pursuit in favor of the bomber, which would secure TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 959 aerial superiority in a precision strategic bombing campaign. When the United States Army Air Force entered the war, it consequently ignored the long-range fighter and adhered to the doctrine that strategic bombers would achieve superiority by striking the sources of aircraft supply and then meeting and beating the Luftwaffe in the air in a frontal assault on Germany. This study is not one-sidedly devoted to American developments. The authors examine German fighter development and fighter pilot training during the 1930s and into World War II, making very clear the tremendous significance—and the usual omission in discussions of the war—of training large numbers of pilots for the coming battle of attrition. McFarland and Newton examine the unfolding of the air opera­ tions over the Continent. In a discussion that is both anecdotal and analytical, they explain the roles of American commanders like Arnold, Eaker, Spaatz, Doolittle, Hunter, and Kepner and the reasons for changes in command. They trace the development of German fighter defenses, the Luftwaffe’s failure to train adequate pilots for attrition warfare, and its weakness in bad weather flight training. They conclude that as of late 1943, after the titanic struggle over Schweinfurt, the Eighth Air Force was losing the war of attrition. German war production was expanding even as the Eighth strove to destroy it. American advocates of the strategic bomber had not recognized the value of aerial superiority and had not realized...