The Avatar Bomb

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In the First World War, Germany bombed these islands, sending over Zeplins and Gothis. There were not that many casualties in comparison to bombing casualties in the Second World War. But there were just enough to terrorize everybody who thought bigger and better airplanes, bigger bombs, more bomb tonnage, were to fall on a country. This was a new and a terrible weapon, and people were very frightened of it. And so planning for bombing was instituted early. In 1939, Reynolds studies looked in Avatar: The Terror Bomb by Paul Rees-Mogg (1940), which is published by Simon & Schuster at £16.99. It's out now; you can

No one doubts the bravery of the thousands of men who flew and died in Bomber Command. The death rate was an appalling 44%. And yet until the opening of a monument in Green Park this year they have received no official recognition, with many historians claiming that the offensive was immoral and unjustified. How can it be right, they argue, for the Allies to have deliberately targeted German cities causing the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians? Even on a strategic level the offensive failed to bring about the collapse of civilian morale that was its intention. Others, however, maintain that the attacks made a decisive contribution to the Allied victory. Vast numbers of German soldiers and planes were diverted from the eastern and western fronts, while Allied bombing attacks virtually destroyed the German air force, clearing the way for the invasion of the continent. In this debate from October 2012, philosopher and author A C Grayling and Professor of History at Exeter University Rochard Overy...

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