The Three Star Blitz

Ref: 3753

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{detailed description}Tragically, we have become so used to the fact that all wars are now total wars — wars in which the civilian population are as much involved as the armed forces — that we tend to forget that, until quite recently, wars were fought by the armies and navies of the belligerent countries and the killing of non-combatants was generally regarded as "not on".
Unrestricted bombing of civilian targets came into its own during the Second World War and, with it, the disastrous change in the moral attitude to this type of warfare which has been with us ever since.
The German attempt to break the morale of the British by bombing London in 1940 did not succeed, so, two years later, they switched their targets to the undefended cathedral cities of Exeter, Bath, York, Canterbury and Norwich, cities marked in Karl Baedeker's famous guidebook with three stars. Hence the name by which they came to be known. This time the British were not slow to retaliate and the punishment rained down upon the unfortunate people of Hamburg and Cologne surpassed in ferocity anything that had gone before. From now on the morale of the civil population came to be regarded as a legitimate target in the battle to break the enemy's will.
Charles Whiting describes in detail the Baedeker raids on the cathedral cities of England and the retaliatory raids on Germany, illustrating his story with the recollections of many of those who survived the raids. He analyses the personalities of the Top Brass on both sides who authorized the bombings and shows how the change of attitude to indiscriminate bombing gradually came about. It is a gruesome yet fascinating story, told with all the vividness which readers of Charles Whiting's books will have come to expect.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Charles Whiting
Published by Leo Cooper 1987 1st edition. 184pp illustrated, index, bibliography. 16x24
{condition}fine, d/j very good.
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