What retrospectively looks like a foregone conclusion, or at least a smooth narrative, rarely feels like that to the people living it.  This is especially true of war.  The best history brings out this quality of surprise and confusion, and of fate seeming to turn on sometimes trivial decisions, so that the reader lives it along with the protagonists, and understands it all the better. Donald L Miller’s book Masters of the Air does this, in spades.  It raises fascinating ‘what ifs’ in the mind of the reader at every turn.

What, for example, would have been the outcome of World War II if a few influential Americans, notably the dashing Billy Mitchell and the occasionally terrifying ‘Hap’ Arnold, had not incessantly pushed for the creation of a U.S. Air Force in the years after the First World War?  And what would have happened if Arnold’s team of hand-picked officers, led by Ira Eaker, had been shot down off Portugal in 1942, as nearly happened, when they were on their way to take up their duties in Britain?

Miller’s other qualities on display here will be well-known to those who have seen him in action: his narrative enthusiasm, and his treasure trove of sheer information.  Combined, they make it a fascinating read, both for academics and enthusiasts.

Miller’s deep compassion for the young American airmen makes their experience vivid, through detailed interviews with those who were there.  (Miller’s own father was a WW2 fighter pilot, and you have the sense that the historian is paying his dues to that generation.)

The human element is never that far away.  Miller does not forget the victims and survivors of such raids as Dresden (there are interviews with those too), nor the other American military who were taken prisoner, such as Kurt Vonnegut.  He links these vivid accounts with the intense debate which raged among the Allies over precision bombing versus blind bombing, and the agonising decision (which went right back to Mitchell) over whether civilians should ever be targeted.

My own favourite factoid (out of many in the book) is the notion of Billy Mitchell that fighter pilots would be the modern equivalent of ‘the armoured knights of the Middle Ages’, the Few representing the many, and putting their lives on the line on their behalf, to save widespread slaughter.

It’s an interesting connection, and like much in this book, not something I had heard before.   I wonder if Churchill ever heard it?