Movies - Victory Through Air Power

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Victory Through Air Power

	Movies - Victory Through Air Power

Victory Through Air Power is a 1942 book by Alexander P. de Seversky, and a 1943 Walt Disney animated feature film movie based on the book.

The book

Appearing less than six months after Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into World War II, the book was extremely popular, influential, and controversial. Seversky advocated the formation of an independent air force, the development of long-range bombers (meaning an intercontinental range of 3,000 miles or more) and a commitment to strategic use of air power (as opposed to its then-traditional use as cover or support for ground-based operations). His plans implicitly involved diversion of resources away from current war operations.

Seversky argued that: #"The rapid expansion of the range and striking power of military aviation makes it certain that the United States will be as exposed to destruction from the air, within a predictable period, as are the British Isles today;" #those who deny this possibility are exhibiting something like a "Maginot line mentality;" #The U. S. must begin preparing immediately for "an interhemispheric war direct across oceans;" #The U. S. must become the dominant air-power nation, "even as England in its prime was the dominant sea-power nation of the world."

On May 3, 1942, Fletcher Pratt reviewed the book, saying: :"No one has produced a more intelligent and comprehensive analysis of any feature of the world struggle. Probably nobody has written anything more truly prophetic; and no one is more wrongheaded."

On May 4, 1942 it appeared on the New York Times best seller list, reaching No. 1 on the list in mid-August and staying there for four weeks. In the May 10 "Speaking of Books" column, J. D. A. bracketed it with Mein Kampf and Lieut. Col. Kernan's Defense Will Not Win the War to illustrate his point that :"In no other war have books played such an important part... Books are not only supplying information. They are furnishing weapons for the successful prosecution of the war."

The film

The popular film maker Walt Disney read the book and felt that its message was so important that he decided to finance the production of a film version. Movie critic Richard Schickel says that Disney "pushed the film out in a hurry, even setting aside his distrust of limited animation under the impulses of urgency." (The only obvious use of limited animation, however, is in diagrammatic illustrations of Seversky's talking points. These illustrations often feature continuous flowing streams of iconic aircraft, forming bridges or shields, or war materiel moving continuously along assembly lines.)

On July 11, 1943 the New York Times devoted a half page, "Victory from the Air," to a feature consisting of pictures of scenes from the film with short captions. This was possibly the first time that such skilled use of visual description had been placed at the service of an abstract political argument.

It is one thing to hear someone say that against modern bombers, "bristling with armament...small single-seater fighters will find themselves helpless, for their guns are not maneuverable—they are fixed and can only fire forward." It is quite another to have this accompanied by vivid animations of swastika-tailed fighters jockeying for position and being shot down by beam-like animated blasts of fire from a bomber whose guns are "always in firing position."

One of the counter-arguments to air-power advocacy was the vastly inferior firepower of aircraft compared with, say, battleships. Seversky implicitly counters this by predicting the appearance of, or advocating the development of a number of advanced weapons that would make air-based weaponry as effective as land- or sea-based weaponry. His depiction how bombs could be used to destroy dams was either prophetic or well-informed. In general, Seversky asserts that bombs carried by aircraft will increase rapidly in size and destructive power. One diagram shows a man standing next to a 2000-pound bomb; they are about equally tall. As the narrator talks, the field of view widens to show 4000, 6000, 8000, and 10000-pound bombs, each taller than the last, ultimately dwarfing the human. (If Seversky had any inkling of the possibility of nuclear weapons, he did not reveal it).

Schickel quotes film critic James Agee as hoping that :"Major de Seversky and Walt Disney know that they are talking about, for I suspect that an awful lot of people who see Victory Through Air Power are going to think they do... I had the feeling I was sold something under pretty high pressure, which I don't enjoy, and I am staggered at the ease with which such self-confidence, on matters of such importance, can be blared all over the nation, without cross-questioning."

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Victory Through Air Power ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Victory Through Air Power; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay