Book Review: The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell

How do you visualize something that has never been done before? How do you decide to take something that currently exists and find a way to optimize its use? And how do you separate out what something is currently capable of vs. what it could be capable of in the future?

These are the central questions at the heart of Malcolm Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia, which explores the beginnings of US air power up through WWII.

As Gladwell wrote, air power had started in WWI, but in that war planes were seen as an extension of what was happening on the ground (which is why the current Air Force had been originally placed within the Army). When the pilots got together between wars, though, they conceived of different uses for air power - not only could planes be used for bombing, but could be used to bomb strategic points, ending wars while minimizing civilian casualties.

These pilots, known as the Bomber Mafia, were in a remote location in Alabama and had few planes to practice with, but came up with this strategy through learning and debate. When WWII started, they were able to put their strategic bombing philosophy to work over Germany and Japan.

Where it failed. Miserably.

Despite having a sighting so complex it was basically a mechanical computer, the planes were not capable of hitting anything with any accuracy at 30,000 feet. They also lost a quarter of the planes with each mission - as Gladwell points out, since you needed 25 flights to complete a tour, the odds were not in your favor.

That's where Curtis LeMay comes in. LeMay had been at the air base between wars but had never been in the Bomber Mafia. He was gruff, tactical, and results-driven. Instead of finding strategic points to bomb, LeMay was a proponent of bombing whole cities, including the firebombings of Tokyo and other cities that ultimately led to the end of the war without an invasion of Japan. In a real way, LeMay's willingness to trash strategic bombing won us the war.

And yet...we now live in a world where bombers can not only pinpoint a specific house or a specific room, but a specific person in the room.

As Gladwell shows, the Bomber Mafia philosophy was not wrong, and was not necessarily even wrong to implement at the time - it's just that, unfortunately, failure resulted in a massive loss of life. But the philosophy behind it - hitting military targets only without unnecessary risk to civilians - was noble, and informed the growth of air power afterwards.

Gladwell paints a fascinating portrait of LeMay, a man who complained about running a mission without facing much opposition, and who justified keeping a steady course during the seven minutes leading to a bombing drop by counterbalancing the amount of direct hits needed to blow up a plane. But Gladwell makes sure to point out that LeMay always volunteered to take the lead plane on any of his bombing missions, and how LeMay's carpet bombing also came from philosophy - he was trying to end wars as soon as possible.

Gladwell has one heavy-handed moment - when he tries to compare the Bomber Mafia and LeMay through the Devil tempting Jesus in the desert - but overall writes a riveting story with valuable lessons. Great read - nine out of ten hot dogs!