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To Withstand the Firestorm
In May 1942, the Cologne cathedral stood almost undamaged amid 600 acres of rubble, its spires suggestive of the maison tours—the fireproof skyscrapers of the 1920s—which Frenchman Paul Vauthier proposed to build hi Paris as bomb shelters against even the most horrendous of firestorms.
term “Air Arm” in favor of the milder “Air Sig- Corps.” One suspects that his retraction was alfhearted at most. Douhet commanded Italy’s s'ngle air battalion between 1912 and 1914 and, a ()rig with Giovanni Caproni, was primarily response for the development of Italy’s first multiengined bomber.
'When World War I broke out, Douhet called for taly s intervention on the Allied side in a series of art>cles in Gazzetta del Popolo. a Rome newspaper. He predicted ultimate victory for the Triple Entente, ken Italy finally did join the Allied cause in May ^'5, Douhet was the chief of staff of the Milan di- lsi°n. He served on the northern front against the ^L|strians, and what he saw' appalled him. He amned his countrymen’s lack of professionalism, neir lack of mechanization and transport, and their
^ Nearly 60 years ago, Giulio Douhet’s prophetic ^°°k Command of the Air was published in Italy.1 It tUsed on the fundamental shift in the nature of ^tfare from the land and sea to the air in the 20th ^ntury. The work was an instant success because of ouhet’s articulate writing and because there were 0thers across the world who shared his thesis that air Power, especially bombing, would be decisive in any Uture war. Hugh Trenchard in England favored Cfeating an independent Bomber Command. There %Vas Ernst Udet in Germany, but Weimar Germany ^°uld be a disarmed nation until 1933. In Russia odrei Tupolev pioneered in big plane and bomber evelopment, originally supported by Lenin himself, kgadier General William Mitchell, of course, be- carne strategic aviation’s “prophet in the wilderness” 'n the United States. But none of these men wrote lrE the historical sweep or boldness of vision of G'u]io Douhet.
Erom his earliest years in the service, Douhet was constant critic of Italy’s stumbling and incompe- ttr|t military machine. In 1910, he wrote a pamphlet atguing that future wars would be decided in the air, at aviation would be the critical element in any Uture conflict. This “wild fantasy” brought an offi- Clal rebuke, and he was forced to retract the use of
°r footnotes, please turn to page 46.
utter incompetence in military matters. Should the Germans (as opposed to the lighthearted and pleasantly incompetent Austrians) ever mount a serious and determined attack, he believed that Italy’s armies would collapse utterly. He sent a copy of his findings and conclusion to the Ministry of War and later to the Commander in Chief of the Army. War Ministry officials were outraged. Colonel Douhet was tried by a council of war and condemned to a year in prison. He was released unrepentant in October 1917, on the very day that German shock troops devastated the Italian lines at Caporetto. As Douhet had predicted, the Italian Army disintegrated.
The Caporetto disaster brought instant recognition and respect for Douhet and for his ideas. In 1918, he was named to the Directorate of Aviation. In 1920, the judgment of 1916 was officially reversed. The military tribunal established that “Douhet had acted in the greater interest of Italy” and that he had “sacrificed his personal interest to that of his country.” He left the military in 1920 and in the following year published The Command of the Air w'ith official military blessings. He died in 1930.
Douhet dedicated his post-retirement years to his writings and to his growing conviction that future w'ars would be decided in the air. The key w'ould be in overwhelming bomber offensives against enemy centers of industry, communications, and air power. Fully aware of his country’s relative poverty, Douhet insisted that Italy would get the best returns by investing its limited wealth and technology in air power. Only a very rich nation like the United States could afford to be overwhelmingly strong on land, sea, and in the air—or so it seemed to Douhet in the 1920s.
Like many of his time, Douhet w'as convinced that the only effective defense against bombers would be in building and developing one’s own offensive bomber forces. There would be no way of spotting enemy forces in time to concentrate effective interception forces. Offensive power would alw'ays be concentrated; defensive pow'er would always have to be dispersed. Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of Britain, had often stated the bomber would always get through, and this theme was part of the military and technological liturgy for years, proclaimed by nearly all authorities. Wars, in Douhet’s eyes, would be short, extremely violent bombing contests with one
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Protection of rail and transportation centers
side succumbing when its civilians simply could no longer withstand “one more raid.” Resources spent on “defensive aviation” or “auxiliary aviation” would be just so many wasted resources. The key was in the use of formations of large, heavily armed and armored “battle planes” that would protect each other and simply “blast their way through” enemy defenses to drop their bombs. The resources spent on these "flying fortresses” were the best possible investment any nation could make, for he considered them the absolute determinants of victory.
Not everyone shared Douhet’s analysis. Radar, though still in its infancy in the early 1930s, began to show promise in locating both ships and planes. Radio communications began to allow for centralized control and direction of fighters, at least potentially. Claire Chennault and Billy Mitchell were convinced that defensive action could be effective against bombers. So was Hugh Dowding who organized the Fighter Command in Great Britain in 1936. In Germany Ernst Udet and Willy Messerschmitt argued with the same logic, though they were not always given a hearing.
Paul Vauthier had been a French artillery officer at the outset of World War I and, during the course of the conflict, had concentrated increasingly on antiaircraft artillery. Although he had not been an active combat pilot himself, he knew firsthand the problems of antiaircraft defense, and throughout the 1920s he was convinced, like Douhet and others, that the future of war would be decided in the air. He too believed that the bomber would generally get through to its target.
Vauthier wrote a series of articles and books which concentrated on the problems of antiaircraft defense. In 1930, he published his most famous and comprehensive work, Le danger aerien et L'avenir du Pays.2 His comprehensive analysis, La Doctrine de Guerre du General Douhet. was published in 1935.3 Vauthier admitted that the most effective defense against air attack was the use of other aircraft. There were ptob lems of initial sighting, poor visibility or no visib1 ity at all at night or in bad weather, the need r0 coordinate and control interceptor aircraft, antiaif craft artillery, and so forth. None of these methot could guarantee adequate antiaircraft defense. WN1 happened if, despite all efforts and precautions, f e bombers did get through? According to Douhet, Ul1 less one’s own bombers could swiftly and massive y retaliate, all hope was lost; there could be no passivC defense of simply “bearing through it all" and wa'c ing for a second chance.
What Vauthier proposed, therefore, was a radu rebuilding of French cities and society (and logical of all cities and societies across Europe) to make then1 virtually “bombproof.” The three primary dangers c() protect against were fire, conventional explosive5' and poison gas. To deal with all three effectively* Vauthier proposed the systematic razing and rebu» ing of Paris’s structural ghettos that were often bo* wall to wall and seemed to invite air attack and ho rendous conflagration. The “firestorm” experience still lay in the future, but Vauthier and other ‘l,r power advocates and critics were far more realistlL about its possible occurrence than many statesmen and generals later proved to be.
In Vauthier’s grand design, the relatively shod' crowded, superannuated apartments and lodgement of Georges Eugene Haussman and the Third Repuj\ lie would be replaced by tall, elegant, grace' “maison tours.” These were to be giant skyscrapers 0 fireproof, reinforced concrete and steel, sufficient y separated from each other to ensure that it would be all but impossible for flames to spread from one tl the other, no matter how intense the heat or f'rL’5' They would tower several hundred feet above street level, tall enough to avoid ground-shrouding pois°n ous gases.4
In developing these themes, Vauthier was tremely’impressed by the new ideas and drawings 0 the new young men of 20th century architecture Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier (Charles Edouaf
Jeanneret) Auguste Perret, and Walter Gropius the German Bauhaus school. He accepted their P*1' losophy of the “new urbanism” and their total eon1 mitment to urban planning rather than accidenta ’ random building, their belief in the need to rota J redefine and restructure space and urban life. And 1 used their illustrations and sketches extensively in h,s own articles and books. ’ another key issue, and to guard these vital targc’tS against air attack he turned to another leading thinker and inventor of the period, Andre Michel'11
'''ho, with his brother Edouard, had invented the first Countable pneumatic tire and proved its qualities in ^rly automobile races. It was Michelin’s hope, and ^authier’s dream, that the major highways of roPe> still following largely Roman routes and ten inferior to them, could be rebuilt after the fash- of those that were beginning to appear in Italy, eirnar Germany, and the United States. The new r°ads were designed and built for high-speed travel and were both safer and much less vulnerable to air attaclc. The ancient bottleneck of the “intersection” 1 °uld now give way to the non-interrupted “clover- Laf design, which was much faster and safer. was absolutely essential to get heavy industry a°4 preferably all industry out of the centers of the C'ties- Factories should be systematically moved into e suburbs or, even better, to the countryside. Deduction of the cities would thus not interfere with n4ustry, and removal of industry would make urban artas much less attractive as potential bombing ab^etS some Vauthier was being naive ^ °ut bombing planners who might simply want to °rnb cities as a way of “cracking” enemy morale, trs argue that indeed he anticipated such attacks ."d sought to make such attacks less effective. Even j the countryside, Vauthier insisted, industrial nts should be reinforced and heavily camouflaged, j luthier joined Le Corbusier and others in con- trr>ning the contemporary urban planners and de- '8ners who relied so heavily on the use of the “in- tial courtyard” in their architecture and planning, .die it certainly marked a major improvement over . e airless, lightless, suffocating structures of earlier lrr>es, it had become obsolescent in the 20th centUry. Worse, such structures were also supreme invi- tat‘°ns to gas attacks and spreading fires; they added a city’s vulnerability rather than reducing it. For of^er V'ta^ targets, Vauthier proposed a combination ° bomb shelters, dual- and even triple-purpose rein- (|rced buildings, and in the case of special defense ,ants, physical dispersion. He was especially wor- r'e^ about the vulnerability of electrical supply net- ^0fks and recommended the use of auxiliary ^etlerators for major centers and consumers as well as nationally integrated system that today we would Cab a “grid.” Rail centers and major stations would always be specially tempting to air attackers, and again Vau- 'cr recommended reinforcement, dispersion, and in <>rrie cases, building systems and stations underfund. He was especially impressed by the recently Grand Central Station in New York but appar- dUtly did not realize that while the trains arrived and eParted underground, the station itself was very | much out in the open and vulnerable. Passive air defenses would never in themselves be enough. Vauthier had hoped, however, that, taken along with other defensive measures available, they could give a nation enough additional time and resources to react and reorganize against the quick and overwhelming onslaughts envisioned by Douhet and that they could shift enough critical power from reserve centers to the front where it was needed most critically. Passive air defenses were clearly then the great weapon of the democracies. Contrary to Douhet’s belief, Vauthier felt that the nation which lost the first round of the air war was not necessarily doomed. Command of the air did not necessarily mean that the war was automatically over. When it came to the practical application of his theories, most of Vauthier’s ideas were largely unheeded in France and across Europe before and during the next war. The United States consciously dispersed most of its key defense industries during the war. This was particularly true of the aircraft industry with plants in the Midwest and on the West Coast. Sweden began a comprehensive underground construction program that accelerated in the atomic era. Soviet Russia began to disperse its heavy industries even before the German invasion of 1941. Ironically, one of its newest and most consciously defense-designed cities found little protection from Vauthier’s recommendations. That city was Stalingrad and when disaster overtook it, it was not to come from the skies. France itself suffered only slightly from bombing during the war. The Battle of France in 1940 was decided not in the air but rather by fast-moving Panzer units in the north, supported by superlative tactical aviation and a French high command that was hopelessly defeatist in outlook. In 1944, Allied aviation again concentrated mainly on transportation and communication centers in northern France. Most French cities came out of the war in relatively good condition, except for coastal ports where U-boat pens and yards were located and brought thousands of tons of high explosives and almost total devastation to their unwilling host cities. Douhet’s visions did become grim realities in Poland, Germany, and to a lesser extent in England and the Far East. Material and human casualties in these areas were horrendous. Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, and Yokohama were swept by firestorms, largely because of the ancient and overcrowded nature of the targets and the ever-present supply of fuel. The targets literally fed on themselves. Dresden and Tokyo were special tragedies: the former because it was so unnecessary as a target, the latter because it |
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should have been radically rebuilt after the 1923 earthquake and was not.[1][2]’
If the lessons and warnings of Vauthier were largely ignored, those of Douhet became asbolute gospel in the years during and after World War II. Air power was seen by many, especially in the United States, to be absolutely decisive in the total war context, although many might argue that the Red Army in Europe and American submariners in the Pacific were even more decisive. The Korean War, however, showed that air power, no matter how determined and competent, was not omnipotent. Where the sources of supply lay beyond the Yalu River and effective bombing, air power on its own was simply not able to interdict the overland supply routes. Against an enemy as determined and tenacious as the Chinese, willing to absorb heavy losses, tactical air power could not prevail.
Even more in the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese showed that a determined air attack could be resisted not by redesigning or rebuilding one’s cities but by following Vauthier’s other proposal to move key factories and industries out of the cities and to rebuild the essential transportation networks around the cities. Paul Vauthier never envisioned the kind of war that was fought in Vietnam, but he did believe, as did the Vietnamese, that passive air defense could be of enormous benefit to those who had lost command of the air. Between 1965 and 1973, hell came to earth in Southeast Asia. Despite the dropping of 6.7 million tons of napalm and high explosive, alf power still did not prevail.[3]
Whether air power—and the ideas of Douhet —will prevail in the next war remains to be seen-
Professor Supina was graduated from the UniVLr sity of Arizona in 1964, majoring in political sc> ence and history. He has his M.A. from J°^n. . Hopkins School of Advanced Internation[4][5] [6] [7]
Studies and his Ph.D. from Boston Universe) iBl (1971) in European history and political theory I JHH He has a law degree from Gonzaga University Spokane, Washington. He has practiced law in Alaska ar> Arizona and is now teaching history and law at Ferrum ColkU' Virginia.
_______________________________________ Familiarity Breeds Confusion_______________________________
While I was serving as a member of Naval Reserve Surface Division 9-109L in 1958 at Green Bay, Wisconsin, the following incident occurred during an inspection. The division commanding officer required that all hands be familiar with the names of the Commander in Chief, Chief of Naval Operations, the commanding officer of the Green Bay Naval Reserve Center, and also the name of our division CO. During the inspection, our skipper paused before a recruit that had recently joined our unit. The CO inquired, "What is my name?” The recruit, standing at rigid attention, pondering the’question, suddenly assumed a very relaxed position which included shifting his feet, placing his hands on his hips and shoving his white hat back on his head. Then he answered loud and clear, "1 don’t know your name, sir, but you look awful familiar!”
Order was restored a short time later.
Captain Francis H. Bellew, USNR (Ret.)
(The Naval Institute will pay $15.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)
'// dominio deli aria (Rome: Italian Ministry of War, 192 1). Translate by Dino Ferrari (New York, Coward McCann, Inc., 1942).
’ihe Atrial ‘ihrtat and ibt Future of the Country (Paris: Berger-Levra
1930).
[3]Source: Senator Stuart Symington, Congressional Record. 18 July 1973* 13848—SI 3861.
[4]Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1935.
[5]The maison tours envisioned by Vauthier's favorite architect, Le busier, would have been 60 stories high and 220 meters in height-
low architect Auguste Perret would have raised the height to 250 nic and envisioned the buildings in the shape of a cross.
’Vauthier was especially impressed by an article by Jean Labadie in ^ 12 August 1922 edition of L'Illustration which cited the skyscraper ready being built in the United States as "Cathedrals of the m<4er city."
'’See David Irving, Tht Destruction of Dresden. It may be somewhat c,rl tional but it remains rhe best thing written on the subject. (I*°ni William Kimber, 1963).