Foucrier, Jean-Charles La Strategie de la Destruction. Bombardements alliés en France, 1944

France, spring 1944: just a few months before the Allied landings, over 70 major French cities were hit by bombing raids of unimaginable proportions, killing tens of thousands of civilians in just a few weeks and claiming countless other victims, injured and homeless people. Since 1940, the British scientist Solly Zuckerman had drawn up a comprehensive plan for air raids in which the French railway system was the preferred target: marshalling yards, maintenance centres, storage centres for rolling stock, etc. The aim was to paralyse the enemy's movements in preparation for the Allied landings. However, the bomber commanders around Winston Churchill, especially the members of the famous British Bomber Command, who were professional soldiers, refused to let a civilian dictate orders to them. They managed to push through other targets: Industrial complexes, refineries, bridges and, above all, road links. This militarily ineffective strategy was to have dramatic human consequences. It led to the almost complete destruction of around 30 towns and villages in Normandy, including Caen, Saint-Lô, Lisieux and Rouen, to name just the most notorious. The previously unpublished story of these internal battles within the Allied High Command that changed the lives of thousands of French people and devastated an entire region.