Sir: In his review of Max Hastings's Bomber Command last
week Geoffrey Wheatcroft Says so many things which are incorrect in substance or by implication that I am at a. loss to know which one to shoot at, rather like Battle of Britain pilots confronted bya i surfeit of targets. Although not an expert n these matters, I believe Bomber Command at the outbreak of war consisted largely of obsolescent Fairey Battle aircraft, with a few Whitleys and Wellingtons just appearing certainly not much of a strategic air force. This was built up later when the Lancasters, Halifaxes and Sterlings were evolved. The United States Air Force with its Flying Fortresses had far more of a strategic strike force in Seversky's meaning. As to the RAF displaying a 'pathological resistance' to cooperating with the Royal Navy, what can I and many colleagues have been doing for most of the war?
As far as I know from personal experience and from the experience of many others with whom I have been associated, the war was an all-out effort to defeat a society gone made the Germans and their allies, led by Hitler. The actions of our enemies may now be categorised into war and other 'crimes', but at the time they were all part of the same assault on civilisation. It was not for us to reflect on the morality of the different weapons which came to hand; we grabbed them and used them, and if the vanquished, now restored to health and an important position in our society, still show the scars in Dresden and many other places, then we too have our scars, especially our war dead, of whom we are proud. They died that Max Hastings and Geoffrey Wheatcroft should be free to write such stupid things.
John DeverN 52 King's Road, Alton, Hampshire
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