The Bomber Mafia
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War
By: Malcolm Gladwell
[Nominated for ‘Best History/Biography’ category of the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge]
“This is a story of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer. A band of brothers in central Alabama. A British psychopath. Pyromaniacal chemists in a basement lab at Harvard. It’s a story about the messiness of our intentions, because we always forget the mess when we look back. And at the heart of it all are Haywood Hansel and Curtis LeMay, who squared off in the jungles of Guam.”
I’ve enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s books. I’ve read Outliers and Talking to Strangers and found both of them very interesting and informative.
The Bomber Mafia has a little bit different bent. It’s more focused on history than on social psychology. Gladwell wrote this book because it’s a topic he’s loved his entire life. You can definitely tell his passion in his writing and his research was very thorough.
Hansel vs LeMay
Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay; Brig. Gen. Haywood S. Hansell, Jr.; Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, Chief of Staff for Hansell. (Army Air Force photo)
World War I was a horrific and bloody war. Part of the reason for this was the inability for planes to target the bombs they dropped. Planes were new to the scene and technology had a long way to go.
A group of men in Alabama theorized that wars would be better fought by targeted attacks. Find the most important factories or operations and take them out. Targeted attacks could cripple the economy, access primary resources, halt or the country’s ability to build weapons. (Like ball bearings! Because… mechanics!)
This group started to be called the Bomber Mafia— not as a compliment, but the group thought the label “suited them.”
“They weren’t just advancing a technological argument. They were also advancing a moral argument about how to wage war.”
The three prongs were: High altitude, daylight, and precision bombing. These were the opposite of methods employed up until this time.
Hansel subscribed to this theory. Targeted attacks would be more effective and take less citizen lives.
LeMay on the other hand, forged war differently. Carpet bombing was more his style. His justification was that a lot of production happened in people’s homes.
“LeMay would have said that it was the responsibility of a military leader to make wars as short as possible. That it was the duration of war, not the techniques of war, that caused suffering.”
Killing citizens would create more fear and cause a country to surrender earlier to protect its people.
Gladwell makes a pretty pointed remark about these two, in case you weren’t sure who was the good guy and who was the bad guy: “Haywood Hansel sided with Jesus on that question: you should never do evil so that good may come. But LeMay would have thought long and hard about going with Satan.”
Maybe it’s not so cut and dry. I honestly don’t know much about how war works to tell you if his judgment is wrong. Reading this book and using my common sense tells me that pinpointing attacks is a more effective and better moral choice than just bombing everything within reach. But I guess you can read the book and decide for yourself.
Bomb Sights and Napalm
So how could you achieve high altitude, daylight, precision bombing?
Gladwell says it’s like driving 70 miles down the highway and trying to throw something out your window and land it in a cup. Probably not going to hit your mark much, although my trick-shot-making-husband could probably test this one out.
You would need a way to aim a bomb calculating for wind speed, altitude, temperature, etc.
Enter Carl Norden.
His story is pretty cool. Gladwell does an entire TED talk on him HERE. He’s a Swiss engineer, classmate to the infamous Lenin. He creates the first bomb sight. I won’t attempt to explain it to you, but it’s engineering genius and changed the way war was done for ages to come.
These bomb sights allowed for precision bombing. It was tech never before seen or imagined and they were one of the most important tools of the military— those who used them were instructed to destroy them if their planes were going down, lest the enemy should recover one.
I’ve heard the ‘napalm’ references before but honestly didn’t really know anything about them.
Gladwell explains how a paint company accidentally came across a paint that kept bursting into flames. Chemists studied this substance and experimented with it in pretty crazy ways.
Eventually we get Napalm— Gasoline mixed with aluminum NAphthenate plus aluminum PALMitate. Napalm.
I won’t tell you all the details of the longest night in WWII because then why would you read the book. But because of the newly discovered global jet stream, these bomb sights and napalm were used by LeMay to attack Tokyo.
The full attack lasted 3 hours and they dropped 1665 tons of napalm.
“After the war, the United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded the following: ‘Probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a six-hour period than at any time in the history of man.’”
Technology and Morality
Having recently read Tony Reinke’s book God, Technology, and the Christian Life, what I found most interesting was the discussion on technological advancements.
Gladwell states, “How is it that, sometimes, for any number of unexpected and random reasons, technology slips away from its intended path?”
Once something is invented, it can’t be uninvented. That is some of the fear of technological advancements. There is usually a negative side to every technological ‘gift.’ Cars have car accidents. Electricity leads to electrocutions.
The questions around technology and morality are not easy ones.
Gladwell challenges readers to wonder- “Would you have done the same thing as LeMay given the circumstances?” It’s the age old question of “is it worth it?” Are all the dangers/harms worth the benefits?
I don’t have any answers, but they’re questions we need to think about as technology continues to advance.
Conclusion
I thought this book was really interesting! I learned a lot.
Of course, some of it was a bit technical and boring in spots, but if you like history, Gladwell does an excellent job of bringing it to life and helping understand the moral dilemmas of what transpired. History is never black and white (well technically it was until 1954) but most history lessons seem to make their own moral judgments and it’s not always that simple.
I enjoyed this book and feel it earned its spot as a nominee for best history/biography last year.
Would recommend.
Sidenote A: I read this in one day of air travel on our vacation. And I’m not sure I would recommend this for airport reading if you plan to discuss planes and bombs with whoever you’re traveling with!
Sidenote B: Weather balloons are still used, which seems crazy to me. Twice a day, everyday, weather balloons are released simultaneously in 900 locations all over the world to collect weather data. That’s so many balloons. Apparently they have ‘please return to:’ labels but still… we’re talking 657,000 balloons!
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