Three quarter-bound in blocked cloth with a printed front board featuring a detail from a Lancaster bomber

Frontispiece and 32 pages of black & white plates

17 mono integrated maps and drawings

Printed map endpapers

Blocked slipcase

10 inches x 6¾ inches

496 pages

Max Hastings’ history of Bomber Command, now in a new Folio edition, illuminates this controversial aspect of the Second World War through contemporary photographs and first-hand interviews.

Max Hastings’ Bomber Command won immense critical acclaim when first published in 1979. Featuring over 100 first-hand interviews with aircrew veterans and a brand-new introduction by the author, this classic work of military history draws upon specially researched photographs and illustrations to illuminate one of The Second World War’s most controversial aspects.

From the very first airborne offensives in 1939, Britain’s bombing campaign represented a central element of the conflict with Germany. It began with the efforts of a few basic planes and climaxed six years later with a mighty fleet of 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitos, whose potent firepower could raze a whole city in one terrible night.

In this masterly and highly accessible account, Hastings elucidates every part of the Bomber Command story. He examines the strategy, decision making and incessant interdepartmental feuding; the complicated and often fraught relationship between Sir Arthur Harris, Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill; and the key role of radar and other associated technologies in the bombing campaign.