World War II--"the good war"--is here viewed from a new angle of vision, one that sheds fresh light on how major decisions were reached.More than just a book on the strategy and outcome of American bombing in World War II, Wings of Judgment tells about choices in war, decisions that determined whether hundreds of thousands of people lived or died and whether famous cities and great monuments of civilization survived or were destroyed. It is about the bombing of Dresden and Berlin and of dozens of cities and towns all over Germany and about the preservation of Rome and Florence. It is about the incineration of Tokyo, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the sparing of one of Japan's most beautiful and holy places, the city of Kyoto. Describing U.S. air raids that terrified inhabitants of enemy nations and citizens of enemy-occupied countries, it raises serious questions about the military and moral effects of American bombing. It also tells of American efforts to avoid killing civilians needlessly.Taking us behind the scenes at military headquarters, Schaffer shows that even the toughest warriors occasionally found themselves offering moral arguments for their actions, arguing that they were made right by enemy atrocities, by the justness of the Allied cause, and by the numbers of lives of American servicemen that Allied bombing might save.

Schaffer describes the powerful interplay of morality and technology on the evolution of American strategic bombing during WW II. The book is solidly based on detailed, careful research. It avoids polemics and seeks instead to present a balanced account of the events and decisions that constituted US air strategy in both Europe and the Far East, so that readers may". . . form their own evaluations of what American leaders did in the air war." Schaffer points out the relevance of those earlier decisions to contemporary defense issues. As a complement to Schaffer's excellent comprehensive analysis, consult Thomas M. Coffey's Decision Over Schweinfurt for a gripping personal account of the decisive consequences of one day in the air war. Schaffer's book is sure to become essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the morality of strategic bombing in warfare.

A comprehensive study of what the US bombed, and why they bombed it, in World War II. Disturbingly, the answer to the latter question was frequently "because they could" or "because it fitted preconceived doctrine" rather than anything arising out of strategic or tactical necessity. Schaffer is particularly adept at showing how, over the course of the war, precision bombing of military and industrial targets gave way to area bombing of cities. ( )