The Leadership, Direction and Legitimacy of the RAF Bomber Offensive from Inception to 1945

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This book offers a fresh approach to the debate on the RAF's bomber offensive by using modern strategic leadership theory as an analytical tool to examine the campaign. In particular, it looks at the legality and legitimacy of the offensive and explores the key interfaces between the military leaders, the politicians and allies. It also looks at the major controversies in the aims and objectives of the campaign and the personalities involved. Modern literature from the leadership field is used to consider the challenges facing those charged with the formulation and execution of the offensive. Aspects of the senior leadership disputes are also dealt with in the context of the leadership literature and in the wider context of the strategic challenges then facing Churchill, Sinclair and Portal. A multi-disciplinary bent to the book enables the reader to move beyond the narrow confines of military considerations to the thorough investigation of the legality, legitimacy and morality of the offensive.

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[An] important work ... This excellent book adds a fresh perspective onto what is a well-trodden path in the historiography of the Second World War. * The Second World War Military Operations Research Group *

Author Bio

Peter Gray is RAeS Senior Research Fellow in Air Power Studies, University of Birmingham, UK.