Bombers American

Maybe we ask post-9/11 -related questions because of who we are, what we are, and what we are not. That is, because we are Americans we are free, uninhibited thinkers who think what we say and say what we think—isn t America great Most Americans are soft-hearted and sympathetic to those in need—compassion is the very nature and soul of being American. Americans are not born terrorists they are not born into a terrorist regime they are not raised with fear in their hearts—they are not afraid every time they leave their homes and go about their daily business. Suicide bombers and other like terrorists are those that occupy some other faraway place, definitely not America, and they are definitely not American. Right ... 

For a comparison of the development of doctrine on bombing in Britain and the United States, see Tami Davis Biddle, British and American approaches to strategic bombing their origins and implementation in the World War II combined bomber offensive , Journal of Strategie Studies, 18 (1995), no. 1, 91-144. 

Barnett, Audit of War, p. 147. For the problems with the British aircraft mentioned, see Postan, Hay and Scott, Design and Development pp. 126-32, who point out that the Welkin was not a complete failure (it did not go into service because the threat it was intended to meet, sub-stratosphere bomber attacks, did not materialise), and the Buckingham was similar in performance to its American contemporary, the Douglas Invader, and suffered in comparison with its British contemporary, the Mosquito. Green, Warplanes of the Third Reich, pp. 241—5. 

The commitment of a large part of the British army to the Mediterranean and elsewhere meant that of the thirty-five divisions required for the cross-Channel invasion of France, only sixteen would be British, and that subsequent reinforcements would have to come from the United States. The overriding importance of the cross-Channel operation was such that from April to September 1944 the direction of Bomber Command was transferred to the American Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in North-West Europe, General Dwight Eisenhower. The appointment of Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder as deputy supreme commander, with his experience of air co-operation in North Africa, ensured that optimal use was made of Allied air power. 

The British aircraft industry appeared to be backward compared with its American and Soviet counterparts, but this was mainly because the expectation that the maximum danger of war lay in the future, about 1957, led to a gap in British development and production of a number of important weapons systems. The timing of up-to-date strategic bombers was linked to the development of the British atomic bomb, which, although first tested in October 1952, would not be ready for operational use until about 1956. Meanwhile Britain was wholly dependent on the United States for nuclear deterrence. 

The main thrust of the Swinton Committee s report in November 1954 was its support for the RAF s case for a nuclear deterrent of 240 V-bombers. It was argued that the very survival of Britain in war would depend upon the prompt elimination of Soviet air bases, and that that task could not be left to the US Strategic Air Command as there could be no assurance about American priorities as regards targets. This argument was publicly stated by Churchill on 1 March 1955 in the debate on the 1955 Defence White Paper, which announced the decision to develop the hydrogen bomb. ° Yet the priority for the nuclear deterrent was not absolute the White Paper also stated that Britain must play its part in defending the interests of the free world as a whole, and particularly the Commonwealth and Empire , in the Cold War, for which role the army and navy were required. ... 

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