Great free resource for US Airforce in WWII

[sevenless]

Get them free here: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/

 

Including one gem I never heard of before:

 

OVERLORD: The Unnecessary Invasion

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/NoOverlord/index.html

 

Air War College
Air University

OVERLORD: The Unnecessary Invasion

By

 

William F. Moore
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

A research report submitted to the faculty
in
fulfillment of the research
requirement

Research Advisor: Dr. Joseph L. Strange

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
March 1986

 

[This document] Assesses whether the OVERLORD Invasion of Normandy was necessary for military victory in Europe during World War II. [It is concluded] that it was not necessary, based on Russian success against the German Army on the Eastern Front, the ability of the strategic bombing campaign to destroy German war support industries, and the extended political uncertainty concerning the requirement for OVERLORD which preceded the final decision. [The report] Concludes with a discussion of possible allied motives for assuming the risk associated with OVERLORD when it was not necessary for victory.

Edited August 5, 2020 by sevenless

[ZachariasX]

I‘m sure the French would have been overjoyed being liberated by Josef after being bombed by the Americans.

[unreasonable]

The whole point of the war from the Western Allies point of view was to prevent one power having hegemony over all of Eurasia.  Any outcome that allowed that would not have been a victory for anyone but the hegemon.

 

Thanks for link, though.

 

 

[RedKestrel]

3 minutes ago, unreasonable said:

The whole point of the war from the Western Allies point of view was to prevent one power having hegemony over all of Eurasia.  Any outcome that allowed that would not have been a victory for anyone but the hegemon.

 

Thanks for link, though.

 

 

There is a tendency when dealing with military history to attempt to divorce military victory (i.e. the military defeat of the enemy) from the achievement of political aims. To, in essence, treat war like a sporting event, where the one who gets the highest score is considered the winner. It's essentially useless as far as historical analysis goes, since the entire point of a war is not to defeat your enemies in the field BUT to achieve one's political aims. 

 

 

[ZachariasX]

5 minutes ago, RedKestrel said:

There is a tendency when dealing with military history to attempt to divorce military victory (i.e. the military defeat of the enemy) from the achievement of political aims.

There is a tendency when dealing with military history to believe that the Allies won „because of strategic bombing“, when it was just one mean of many.

 

Also the one who was best at „strategic bombing“ was Hitler. He used it as it works best, as a bluff. It got him an entire country, Czechoslovakia, just like that. The best strategic bombing is the one that doesn‘t require one single sortie. If you take that investment vs. revenue, then all later efforts were abysmal failures to varying degrees.