WEBVTT - Presenting: An Excerpt from The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell 0:00:15.076 --> 0:00:22.236 Pushkin. Hello, there are Pushkin listeners. This is Malcolm Gladwell. 0:00:22.596 --> 0:00:26.716 I'm the president of Pushkin Industries and host of Revisionist History. 0:00:27.236 --> 0:00:30.076 But I'm here today as an author. I've written half 0:00:30.076 --> 0:00:33.476 a dozen books, such as Outliers and Blink, but my 0:00:33.636 --> 0:00:37.956 new book, The Bomber Mafia is something different. First, it's 0:00:37.996 --> 0:00:40.476 a work of history, telling the story of how a 0:00:40.516 --> 0:00:45.276 new technology, air power upended the nature of modern warfare 0:00:45.596 --> 0:00:49.316 during the Second World War. It's also the first book 0:00:49.356 --> 0:00:52.636 I wrote to be heard rather than read. You can 0:00:52.676 --> 0:00:55.076 get the print version of The Bomber Mafia wherever you 0:00:55.236 --> 0:00:58.316 usually get your books. And I love my readers, but 0:00:58.436 --> 0:01:02.756 I urge you to listen. The Bomber Mafia is not 0:01:02.916 --> 0:01:06.596 your typical audio book. I didn't record it in a booth, 0:01:06.916 --> 0:01:10.596 solitary and bedantic. I worked with a whole team of 0:01:10.636 --> 0:01:16.756 sound engineers, researchers, editors, musicians, wizards of every kind. They 0:01:16.796 --> 0:01:22.116 were building the mightiest aircraft in history. I mean, would 0:01:22.156 --> 0:01:25.316 you rather I just read some torpid, ruddily nonsense like 0:01:25.796 --> 0:01:28.636 the B twenty nine bomber droned on through the night sky, 0:01:29.556 --> 0:01:33.276 or would you rather hear it for yourself? And the 0:01:33.316 --> 0:01:36.236 assembled airmen will listen to words that a few years 0:01:36.236 --> 0:01:40.916 ago would have been fantastic, but today rolle casually off 0:01:40.956 --> 0:01:48.676 a briefing officer's lips. The Taga gentleman is Japan. When 0:01:48.716 --> 0:01:51.116 I was researching, I went to Maxwell Air Force Base 0:01:51.196 --> 0:01:53.716 to dig through a mountain of tapes interviews with some 0:01:53.756 --> 0:01:56.756 of the most important military figures of the Second World War. 0:01:57.436 --> 0:02:00.196 These were the voices of people I'd only ever read 0:02:00.236 --> 0:02:04.236 about in history books. Suddenly they all came alive inside 0:02:04.236 --> 0:02:07.876 my head. It was magical, and it reminded me why 0:02:07.916 --> 0:02:12.076 I do what I do. We've devised an easy way 0:02:12.116 --> 0:02:14.276 for you to listen to the Bomber Mafia in the 0:02:14.356 --> 0:02:18.516 same player you're using to hear this podcast. Go to 0:02:18.796 --> 0:02:22.996 Bomber Mafia dot com and enter your email and payment method. 0:02:23.516 --> 0:02:26.636 You'll receive an email shortly after payment. Open it and 0:02:26.796 --> 0:02:30.516 follow the easy instructions to add the Bomber Mafia to 0:02:30.636 --> 0:02:34.156 your podcast app. I'm about to play you a piece 0:02:34.196 --> 0:02:37.676 of the Bomber Mafia audiobo Queer. I think it'll explain 0:02:37.716 --> 0:02:41.716 why I wrote it, and I hope you'll hear the magic. 0:02:47.356 --> 0:02:50.436 As a little boy lying in his bed, my father 0:02:50.476 --> 0:02:53.996 would hear the plains overhead on their way in then 0:02:54.476 --> 0:02:57.556 in the small hours of the morning, heading back to Germany. 0:03:00.196 --> 0:03:03.196 This was in England, in Kent, a few miles south 0:03:03.236 --> 0:03:06.156 and east of London. My father was born in nineteen 0:03:06.196 --> 0:03:08.516 thirty four, which meant he was five when the Second 0:03:08.516 --> 0:03:12.596 World War broke out. Kent was called bomb Alley by 0:03:12.596 --> 0:03:15.796 the British because it was the English county that German 0:03:15.836 --> 0:03:20.476 warplanes would fly over on their way to London. It 0:03:20.556 --> 0:03:23.596 was not uncommon in those years that if a bomber 0:03:23.676 --> 0:03:26.676 missed its target or had bombs left over, it would 0:03:26.716 --> 0:03:38.316 simply drop them anywhere on the return trip. One day, 0:03:38.716 --> 0:03:42.956 a stray bomb landed in my grandparents back garden. It 0:03:43.036 --> 0:03:47.036 didn't explode, It just sat there, half buried in the ground. 0:03:47.236 --> 0:03:49.156 And I think it's fair to say that if you 0:03:49.196 --> 0:03:51.396 were a five year old boy with an interest in 0:03:51.476 --> 0:03:56.316 things mechanical, a German bomb sitting unexploded in your backyard 0:03:56.516 --> 0:04:01.476 would have been just about the most extraordinary experience imaginable, 0:04:05.796 --> 0:04:08.756 Not that my father described it that way. My dad 0:04:08.796 --> 0:04:11.876 was a mathematician and an Englishman, which is to say 0:04:11.916 --> 0:04:16.196 that the language of emotion was not his first language. Rather, 0:04:16.396 --> 0:04:19.436 it was like Latin or French, something which one could 0:04:19.476 --> 0:04:25.756 study and understand but never fully master. Now that an 0:04:25.836 --> 0:04:29.636 unexploded German bomb in your backyard would be the most 0:04:29.756 --> 0:04:33.996 extraordinary experience imaginable for a five year old was my 0:04:34.196 --> 0:04:37.116 interpretation when my father told me that story of the 0:04:37.156 --> 0:04:40.676 bomb when I was five years old. That was in 0:04:40.716 --> 0:04:43.596 the late nineteen sixties. We were living in England then 0:04:43.916 --> 0:04:47.556 in Southampton. Reminders of what the country had gone through 0:04:47.756 --> 0:04:51.116 were still everywhere. If you went to London you could 0:04:51.116 --> 0:04:54.516 still tell where the bombs had landed, wherever a hideous 0:04:54.556 --> 0:04:58.316 brutalius building had sprouted up on some sentries old block. 0:04:59.756 --> 0:05:01.676 Here they come, they come an absolute steep dive and 0:05:01.716 --> 0:05:03.836 you can see that bombs actually leave the machine and 0:05:04.116 --> 0:05:06.356 coming to Walter. You can hear our own guns going 0:05:06.396 --> 0:05:10.476 like anything now. BBC Radio was always on in our house, 0:05:10.756 --> 0:05:13.956 and in those days it seemed like every second interview 0:05:14.276 --> 0:05:17.476 was with an old general or power trooper, a prisoner 0:05:17.476 --> 0:05:22.436 of war. We shall prove out he once like any 0:05:24.076 --> 0:05:31.076 and our island home ride out on the war. The 0:05:31.116 --> 0:05:33.796 first short story I wrote as a kid was about 0:05:33.836 --> 0:05:37.356 how Hitler was actually still alive and coming for England again. 0:05:37.916 --> 0:05:40.316 I sent it to my grandmother, the one in Kent 0:05:40.636 --> 0:05:44.036 who'd had the unexploded bomb in the back garden. When 0:05:44.036 --> 0:05:48.156 my mother heard about my story, she admonished me someone 0:05:48.196 --> 0:05:50.916 who lived through the war might not enjoy a plot 0:05:50.916 --> 0:06:07.276 line about Hitler's return. She reminded me. My father once 0:06:07.316 --> 0:06:09.716 took me and my brothers to a beach overlooking the 0:06:09.756 --> 0:06:13.156 English Channel. We crawled together through the remnants of an 0:06:13.196 --> 0:06:16.916 old world word too fortification. I still remember the thrill 0:06:16.956 --> 0:06:20.036 of wondering if we would come across some old bullets, 0:06:20.156 --> 0:06:23.076 or a shell casing, or even the skeleton of some 0:06:23.196 --> 0:06:28.876 long lost German spy who'd washed up on shore. I 0:06:28.916 --> 0:06:32.196 don't think we lose our childhood fascinations. I know I didn't. 0:06:32.676 --> 0:06:35.156 One day a few years back, I was looking at 0:06:35.196 --> 0:06:38.676 my book shelves and realized, to my surprise, just how 0:06:38.676 --> 0:06:42.116 many non fiction books about war I had accumulated. The 0:06:42.196 --> 0:06:47.676 big history bestsellers, but also the specialty histories, out of print, memoirs, 0:06:47.796 --> 0:06:51.316 academic texts, and what part of the war were most 0:06:51.356 --> 0:06:56.396 of these books about bombing air Power by Stephen Boudiansky, 0:06:56.796 --> 0:07:00.796 Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare by Tammy Biddell, Decision 0:07:00.916 --> 0:07:05.636 over Schweinfurt by Thomas Coffee whole shelves of these histories. 0:07:06.516 --> 0:07:09.836 Usually when I start accumulating books like that, it's because 0:07:09.876 --> 0:07:12.516 I want to write something about the subject. I have 0:07:12.636 --> 0:07:15.756 shelves of books on social psychology because I've made my 0:07:15.836 --> 0:07:19.556 living writing about social psychology. But I never really wrote 0:07:19.636 --> 0:07:23.676 much about war, especially not the Second Wold War, or 0:07:23.796 --> 0:07:29.276 more specifically air power. Just bits and pieces here and there. Why. 0:07:29.996 --> 0:07:32.716 I don't know. I imagine that a Freudian would have 0:07:32.756 --> 0:07:36.036 fun with that question. But maybe the simpler answer is 0:07:36.036 --> 0:07:38.916 that the more a subject matters to you, the harder 0:07:38.956 --> 0:07:40.836 it is to find a story you want to tell 0:07:40.876 --> 0:07:45.196 about it. The bar is higher, which brings us to 0:07:45.236 --> 0:07:48.996 The Bomber Mafia, the audio book you are listening to now. 0:07:49.836 --> 0:07:52.876 I'm happy to say that with The Bomber Mafia, I've 0:07:52.956 --> 0:07:58.556 found a story worthy of my obsession. One last thing 0:07:58.876 --> 0:08:02.876 about the use of that last word, obsession. This book 0:08:03.156 --> 0:08:05.796 is a service to my obsessions, but it's also a 0:08:05.836 --> 0:08:09.876 story about other people's obsessions, about one of the grandest 0:08:09.916 --> 0:08:13.756 obsessions of the twentieth century. I realize when I look 0:08:13.756 --> 0:08:15.956 at the things I've written about or explored over the 0:08:16.036 --> 0:08:19.596 years that I'm drawn again and again to obsessives. I 0:08:19.716 --> 0:08:22.636 like them. I liked the idea that someone could push 0:08:22.676 --> 0:08:26.276 away all the concerns and details that make up everyday 0:08:26.316 --> 0:08:29.956 life and just zero in on one thing, the thing 0:08:30.036 --> 0:08:34.516 that fits the contours of their imagination. Obsessives lead us astray, 0:08:34.636 --> 0:08:38.636 sometimes lack the bigger picture, serve not just the worlds 0:08:38.796 --> 0:08:42.516 but their own narrow interests. But I also don't think 0:08:42.516 --> 0:08:48.276 we get progress, or innovation, or joy or beauty without obsessives. 0:08:56.156 --> 0:08:58.516 When I was reporting this book, I had dinner with 0:08:58.556 --> 0:09:00.796 the then Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, 0:09:01.156 --> 0:09:04.076 David Goldfein. It was at the air House on the 0:09:04.076 --> 0:09:07.156 grounds of Fort Myer in northern Virginia, just across the 0:09:07.196 --> 0:09:11.276 Potomac River from Washington, d C. A Grand Victorian on 0:09:11.316 --> 0:09:14.356 a street of Grand Victorians where many of the country's 0:09:14.396 --> 0:09:19.276 top military brass all live. After dinner, General Golfing invited 0:09:19.276 --> 0:09:22.236 over a group of his friends and colleagues, other senior 0:09:22.276 --> 0:09:25.556 Air Force officials. We sat in the general's back yard, 0:09:26.116 --> 0:09:28.996 five of us in total. They were almost all former 0:09:29.076 --> 0:09:32.876 military pilots. Many of their fathers had been military pilots. 0:09:33.596 --> 0:09:36.116 They were the modern day equivalents of the people you're 0:09:36.116 --> 0:09:39.356 going to hear about in this book. And as the 0:09:39.436 --> 0:09:43.716 evening wore on, I began to notice something. Air House 0:09:43.876 --> 0:09:46.636 is just down the road from Reagan National Airport, and 0:09:46.716 --> 0:09:49.356 every ten minutes or so, a plane would take off 0:09:49.396 --> 0:09:54.036 just over our heads. Nothing fancy, just standard commercial passenger 0:09:54.076 --> 0:09:58.556 planes flying to Chicago or Tampa or Charlotte. And every 0:09:58.596 --> 0:10:01.716 time one of those planes flew overhead, the General and 0:10:01.876 --> 0:10:05.716 his comrades would all glance upwards just to take a look. 0:10:06.836 --> 0:10:26.356 They couldn't help themselves. Obsessives, my kind of people. Thanks 0:10:26.676 --> 0:10:29.956 for listening to that. Excerpt from my new book, Discover 0:10:30.036 --> 0:10:32.876 the Rest of the Story of the Bomber Mafia, available 0:10:33.156 --> 0:10:37.396 at Bomber Mafia dot com.