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, 01:04, 14 September 2010Continuing efforts
The '''Reader's Digest''' next printed an article by Francis Vivian Drake titled "Why Don't We Really <u>Try</u> to Bomb Germany Out of the War?" This May 1943 article labeling Drake an "aviation expert for 30 years" takes a rather statistical look at how to bomb. Drake vouches that the air plan he presents is not the work of an "armchair strategist" but is in concordance with ranking air officers and military "professionals who... analyze photographs after every raid, study Intelligence reports, assess actual destruction".<ref>Francis Vivian Drake, "Why Don't We Really <u>Try</u> to Bomb Germany Out of the War?", '''Reader's Digest''', May 1943, p. 35.</ref> Note the businesslike attitude conveyed. Drake quotes Major General Ira C. Eaker, commander of the Eighth Air Force as saying, "There is nothing that can be destroyed by gunfire that cannot be destroyed by bombs."<ref>Drake, "Why Don't We...", p. 36.</ref> Assuming this would include innocent German civilians, it must be asked, "Does the ability to destroy someone justify that destruction?" On a more practical note, Drake comments, "With the tremendous armament carried by our Fortresses and Liberators, a force of several hundred could probably take care of itself."<ref>Drake, "Why Don't We...", p. 37.</ref> Later that year in August and October, American generals would make the same incorrect assumption in operations over Schweinfurt, thereby sending 122 Fortresses to the ground. Drake concludes that there is a sound alternative to the heartaches of great land offensives.<ref>Drake, "Why Don't We...", p. 39.</ref> Given the fallibility of his article up to that point, it is difficult to trust Drake. But the American public did not know about Schweinfurt in May.
The '''Reader's Digest''' next printed an article by Francis Vivian Drake titled "Why Don't We Really <u>Try</u> to Bomb Germany Out of the War?" This May 1943 article labeling Drake an "aviation expert for 30 years" takes a rather statistical look at how to bomb. Drake vouches that the air plan he presents is not the work of an "armchair strategist" but is in concordance with ranking air officers and military "professionals who... analyze photographs after every raid, study Intelligence reports, assess actual destruction".<ref>Francis Vivian Drake, "Why Don't We Really <u>Try</u> to Bomb Germany Out of the War?", '''Reader's Digest''', May 1943, p. 35.</ref> Note the businesslike attitude conveyed. Drake quotes Major General Ira C. Eaker, commander of the Eighth Air Force as saying, "There is nothing that can be destroyed by gunfire that cannot be destroyed by bombs."<ref>Drake, "Why Don't We...", p. 36.</ref> Assuming this would include innocent German civilians, it must be asked, "Does the ability to destroy someone justify that destruction?" On a more practical note, Drake comments, "With the tremendous armament carried by our Fortresses and Liberators, a force of several hundred could probably take care of itself."<ref>Drake, "Why Don't We...", p. 37.</ref> Later that year in August and October, American generals would make the same incorrect assumption in operations over Schweinfurt, thereby sending 122 Fortresses to the ground. Drake concludes that there is a sound alternative to the heartaches of great land offensives.<ref>Drake, "Why Don't We...", p. 39.</ref> Given the fallibility of his article up to that point, it is difficult to trust Drake. But the American public did not know about Schweinfurt in May.
The fourth article, "Bomb Germany--and Save a Million American Lives" was also penned by Drake. The '''Digest''' notes that his previous article "attracted nationwide attention," therefore presumably, it would be smart to examine carefully Drake's words. The horrors of World War One are reemphasized to bolster the position of air power as a clean, inexpensive (in terms of combat lives) way to wage war. Drake notifies the reader of the Cologne raid, "which exacted 25,000 enemy lives in exchange for 257 Allied airmen."<ref>Francis Vivian Drake, "Bomb Germany--and Save a Million American Lives," '''Reader's Digest''', July 1943, p. 89.</ref> The vast majority of those 25,000 human beings were civilians, and Drake now classifies them as "enemy." Also, the word "exchange" suggests some sort of transaction in which the better party is determined by a death toll. Was killing becoming "an end in itself, ...connected in American minds to victory," as Michael Sherry theorizes? Drake goes on to extol the Air Plan's "promise of quicker victory and its proved lower cost." This is pure speculation being passed off as fact. Drake continues:
<blockquote>''The tide of public opinion in America is turning strongly in favor of the Air Plan, just as it has turned in England--for it is the people's own lives that are at stake.
No one who takes the trouble to investigate the true facts about our existing air power can fail to be impressed by its enormous economy in life. If the Air Plan continues to be set aside, who will take the responsibility for the inevitable unnecessary slaughter blueprinted from the last war? Who can bring back a million lives--or one life?''<ref>Drake, "Bomb Germany...", p. 92.</ref></blockquote>
The writer comes back to his World War One prophecy of doom to frighten the reader into thinking there is no intelligent alternative to massive area bombings. His economy of life is really the economy of American life, not human life.
The fifth article, also by Drake, advises American air leaders to "Smash the Luftwaffe and End the War!"<ref>Francis Vivian Drake, "Smash the Luftwaffe and End the War!," '''Reader's Digest''', October 1943, p. 53.</ref> This brief bulletin highlights the "golden chance to knock [the Luftwaffe] out of the skies ...[i]f our hard-pressing airmen can be reinforced..."<ref>Drake, "Smash the Luftwaffe...", p. 54.</ref> The Schweinfurt raid, remember, was catastrophic for the Eighth Air Force bombers, and Drake should have recognized it as such. Many of these hard-pressing airmen were now lost behind enemy lines or gone forever. Yet the Air Plan was still pushed on the American middle class as the best solution for ending World War Two.
After the war in Europe was over, Allan Michie returned to the pages of Reader's Digest with his "Germany Was Bombed to Defeat."<ref>Allan A. Michie, "Germany Was Bombed to Defeat," '''Reader's Digest''', August 1945, p. 77.</ref> Michie compiles a vast array of statistics indicating the tremendous effect Allied bombs had on Germany. Within his analysis he describes how "Millions of Germans are living a troglodyte existence in cellars. Thousands of bodies still lie under piles of brick and stone." These shameful facts are melded with his other data as reasons to interpret the bombing as a success.
During the Korean war, Francis Drake contributed again to the '''Digest'''. After a short defense of the American bombing campaign,<ref>Note: Drake argues a familiar excuse, that the Air Plan didn't finish off the Reich in short order because "it was never tried until late in 1944." This inexplicably ignores the ball-bearing raids of late 1943 and the Big Week of February 1944 where German fighter production was targeted. The Air Plan, I would argue, was in effect at least one year before Drake would like to think.</ref> his "The Facts About Strategic Bombing"<ref>Francis Vivian Drake, "The Facts About Strategic Bombing," '''Reader's Digest''',
July 1951, p. 55.</ref> discusses the importance of World War Two's lessons on the nuclear age. Drake says,
<blockquote>''The atom bomb is so destructive that one bomb on an industrial target is enough. ...strategic bombers can overleap the Red Army and, if used under our own Air Plan, can destroy its sources of power. Though the Soviet leaders are careless of lives, they may not be eager to incur the annihilation of productive facilities it has taken 30 years to build.''</blockquote>
Suggesting that an atom bomb be used to destroy an "industrial target" (a ball-bearing plant? an aircraft factory?) shows a disturbing carelessness of lives. Does this mode of thinking reflect a similar careless association with conventional bombing in Europe six or seven years previous? Unfortunately, it probably does. If Drake is unburdened by the collateral civilian deaths a nuclear blast promises, then how could he possibly be troubled by the deaths caused by the high explosive and incendiary bombs dropped by B-17s and B-24s?
To summarize, the '''Reader's Digest''' presented to the American public the very straightforward opinions of Michie, Ziff, and Drake. By choosing these authors' works and not providing a disclaimer of any sort, the Digest itself was in effect promoting their views. The authors' words reflect not only the Digest's intent to inform average middle class America about American strategic bombing policy but also its intent to shape and direct that policy into a more indiscriminate method. This impression coupled with the fact that the '''Reader's Digest''' was the leading information journal--that it was read by perhaps fifty million Americans--sends a very discouraging ethical warning.
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