From the point of view of those interested in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the events surrounding the world wars, this book, which focuses mainly on the second one, is very interesting. Indeed, the notion that many of the victims, especially of aerial bombardments, were due to what is now called friendly fire tends to elude most. Yet, when you think about it, it is normal, since it happens even today, with much more sophisticated anti-aircraft instruments, and if it did not, the term probably would not even have been created.
Two things, however, are a bit annoying. The first is the long-windedness, the repeating of the same concept over and over again.
The second is a kind of criminalisation of what happened. Notwithstanding the right and proper considerations, I find it difficult, today, to blame the politicians of the time for their choices, which were widely shared by the population, who also paid the price.

I enjoyed this book and it was a very different way of taking stock and reviewing what was going on during the period of the Second World War.

As you can imagine when you read a lot of the history books the focus is on the Nazi blitzes and the air strikes and less so of the focus on the civilians that were killed in what we term now to be almost “friendly fire” incidents.

The facts and figures are actually quite harrowing and with hindsight now it does make we wonder if it was all worth it yet at the time it would have been seen that we were out defending our country. I thought that it was well written and I liked the way the book was split in to the different sections too to make it easier to follow.

It is 4 stars from me for this one, a different way of looking at the casualties of war and one that gives food for thought.

I really didn’t enjoy this. Made a fascinating topic really quite dull a real shame because I was looking forward to it

Princess Fuzzypants here: This book is filled with fact and scientific calculations to convince a sceptic that civilians deaths in WWII were as likely to come from shrapnel and friendly fire as they were from bombs. Anyone who is a serious student of WWII, and the Blitz in particular is not surprised by the information. In fact, newspapers of the time and general observations were that being out when guns were firing and bombs were falling was a dangerous thing. No one can dispute either that the blackout probably caused more damage to humans than if the lights had remained on. Again no serious student would question that conclusion.
However, I think the author may have underestimated the desire of the general populace for the government to do “something”, even things that in the end turned out to be highly dangerous, to keep up public morale. Yet, nowhere were the facts hidden at the time. That large swathes of the population decided to carry on their lives as normal as possible was a double edged sword. It allowed the British to hold on against overwhelming odds and it made people feel empowered in the years that all they could do was wait.
The author did acknowledge to some degree that there was a very human element in the decisions to use the anti-aircraft ordinance but until he told the story of Pearl Harbour and the subsequent damage to Honolulu that day did he completely convince me of his argument. Here there is no doubt no damage came from the enemy but from the response by the defenders. I do not know how you can separate the actions from the emotion and human reaction that come in those trying times. I hope neither I nor the author ever has to face the reality.
Four purrs and two paws up.

A pretty decent look at how civilians were affected by the war and how they got hurt as well. Good for those who want to look at that aspect of the war

World War I, anti-aircraft shells killed as many Londoners as enemy bombs. Maybe more. They fired up far more ordnance than the Germans dropped. Deaths and damage caused by anti-aircraft fire were reported in the press. The truth was never hidden.
Twenty-some years later, it began all over again. When the Germans bombed England during World War II, British civilians wanted to know their government was fighting back in their defense. They wanted the military to shoot down those enemy planes. So the government, headed by Winston Churchill, brought in naval guns which offered little success in hitting the planes. Instead, their shells fell back to earth and exploded, killing more civilians than the Germans.
Despite the danger, sixty percent of Londoners failed to take shelter during air raids. Life went on as usual. They’d go outside to watch the fireworks show.
The author’s contention is that the government is guilty of war crimes, massacring thousands of its civilians by its armed forces. The people wanted to hear and feel the roar of their own guns, even knowing the danger. The government, fearing poor morale and revolt, gave them what they wanted, knowing it kill more of them than Germans. Fearing that the city-dwellers intended to flee to the safety of the countryside, the army shelled them to keep them in the city, thus avoiding crippling industrial output and the ability to wage war.
The author suggests that if there had been no anti-aircraft fire, the German bombers would have flown lower and been more accurate in bombing military targets. Never mind that allowing the Germans a free hand would have been a good way to lose the war.
The results of the AA were horrific, yes. The alternative? Appeasement and surrender. The author failed to gain my sympathy for his cause with his irritating, high-horse writing style and constant repetition of “we seldom hear of this aspect” and history focuses “on harm done by the enemy.”
He insists Britain bombed German cities before the Battle of Britain to provoke Germany into bombing British cities because that’s the kind of war they were preparing for. They’d rather kill their civilians than wreck their military structure. So were the Germans blameless in the war? Not a word is said about the bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam.

Book Review: “Secret Casualties of World War Two: Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire”

(See all of my Book Reviews) - "Secret Casualties of World War Two: Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire" was published in 2020 (May) and was written by Simon Webb. He is the author of many books on social history.

I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The book covers the years of WWII.

In this book the author tries to document some of the civilian deaths caused by Allied ‘collateral damage’ and ‘friendly fire’. He contends that more casualties were caused in the German air raids by faulty anti aircraft shells and the shrapnel from working shells exploding over the cities than from the German bombing itself. He even suggests that there was a plot by the British government to keep people in the cities to work in the war factories.

I thought that the 5 hours I spent reading this 168-page historical analysis of WWII was interesting. As much as the author contends that the anti aircraft fire was near to useless, I wonder how he explains the many Allied aircraft shot down over occupied Europe? Certainly there were many deaths accidentally caused by the Allies during the war, but I still find it difficult to believe that there was a conspiracy. Personally I do not feel that sufficient evidence was provided to justify all of his claims. I do like the selected cover art. I give this novel a 3.8 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

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Secret Casualties of World War Two by Simon Webb is a real eye-opener. Like most others I suspect I'd always taken the commonly understood story of the Blitz as gospel. As Simon Webb shows us an incredible number of people were killed not by German bombs but by our own air defences with unsuitable anti-aircraft guns raining death from the skies on a regular basis . Just as incredible is Webb's suggestion that those in power were quite happy with the situation for quite cynical and shocking reasons. While this mind sound like some kind of wacky conspiracy theory the author backs up his assertions with contemporary eye-witness and newspaper reports on the shocking casualty rates inflicted by those supposedly protecting the populace from enemy bombers.
Just as the reader has got their head around that he then tells us of the mind-blowing attack on Honolulu by Americans thinking they were defending Pearl Harbour on the day of the infamous attack.
An excellent book and an important one as it shows the difference between myth and reality on various occasions when the victors certainly got to write the history..

Big thanks to Simon Webb, Pen and Sword History and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.