Air Power:The Role of Bombing in World War II

More than other nations, the United States and Great Britain built their pre-war air power strategy around strategic bombing theory. They devoted huge financial, material, and personnel resources to the development of bomber aircraft. Beginning in 1936, Britain’s Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command received more money annually than any other area of the British military budget. Officers were indoctrinated in bomber theory, often to the detriment of pursuit or tactical training. The militaries believed that with airplanes, they could win a war with a single massive bombing mission, saving the lives of their soldiers. But as World War II began, ethical issues arose, making political leaders hesitate to approve decisive actions that might result in the deaths of civilians.

Germany, unlike the Allies, had rebuilt the Luftwaffe predominantly around tactical rather than strategic bombing. Because the Versailles Treaty had prohibited a German aviation industry for more than a decade, German engineers had not had the opportunity to design an engine powerful enough for long distance flight, which meant that the Luftwaffe lacked a decent long-range heavy bomber. Furthermore, their experience in the Spanish Civil War had shown that strategic bombing was largely ineffectual, inflicting little moral or material damage on the enemy. Much of Germany’s focus was on the development of tactical bombers, such as the Stuka dive bomber.

World War II began on September 1, 1939, in Poland when the German Luftwaffe began to bomb military targets. When Warsaw continued to fight, German leader Adolf Hitler approved the dropping of five tons of bombs on the city, hastening Poland’s surrender. As German tanks rolled through the rest of continental Europe, Hitler used the example of the bombing of Warsaw to encourage submission. But with minor exceptions, there were no more bombings of civilian targets on either side. Hitler even released War Directive #2 that forbade bombing attacks on France or England except as reprisals.

These rules were maintained during the Battle of Britain until August 25, 1940, when a lost German pilot accidentally bombed central London. The British sent a retaliatory bombing strike to Berlin the next night. Hitler was incensed and issued orders to launch a merciless bombing campaign against London. On September 7, the London Blitz began. The fragile diplomatic tent protecting citizens collapsed, and both the Allies and Axis began to attack and terrorize each other’s citizens.

Londoners were treated to almost nightly bombing raids by Luftwaffe Heinkel aircraft. The Germans were aided in their targeting with early radar guidance systems, named X-Gerate and Knickebein. But compared to the Allied bombings of Germany later in the war, these were small excursions because of the limited carrying capacities of the airplanes. On an average night, 200 German bombers would attack, dropping about 300 tons of bombs. Forty thousand British were killed and many historic buildings and cathedrals destroyed. A bomb even fell on Buckingham Palace. In November 1940, the focus shifted to other English cities and industry, although bombers did return to London sporadically. Among the cities heavily hit were Liverpool and Coventry, which was decimated on the night of November 14, when 469 bombers destroyed most of the city center. Faulty intelligence told Luftwaffe planners that the citizens of Britain were feeling the pressure of the attacks and repeated German bombing would soon lead to victory.

But the intelligence was faulty, and the British did not panic, riot, or depose their government as theorists had predicted. They did not swarm out of London in terror, blocking roads and impeding the movements of troops, as the Germans had hoped. In fact, soon after the Blitz began, Prime Minister Winston Churchill went on the radio, praising the "composure and fortitude with which the citizens of London are facing and surmounting the great ordeal to which they are subjected." The Blitz continued until Hitler shifted his attention to the Soviet Union in May 1941. The frequency of bombings greatly decreased, and even the V-1 raids in the summer of 1944 and the V-2 raids in the last six months of the war did not faze Londoners.

Despite the response of its own population to German bombing, the British Bomber Command still believed that strategic bombing was the way to defeat a nation’s capability and will to fight. In 1942, British Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris was named commander of Bomber Command and he immediately began rallying for a larger bombing force and for a more intense, aggressive campaign against Germany’s industrial capacity. He targeted industrial cities with their factories, worker housing, and anything else that might contribute to German production. Prime industries were power plants, aircraft factories, oil refineries, rubber factories, and transportation hubs. During the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) arrived to assist in the effort.

The United States and Great Britain joined forces to create the Combined Bomber Offensive. The two nations had different bombing approaches. The British preferred to fly under the protection of night. Darkness made exact targeting impossible, so "area bombing"--dropping a large number of bombs within a designated area around a target--was used. The Americans, however, were extremely hesitant to participate in an action that might result in civilian casualties. Also, they possessed the Norden bombsight, which was quicker and more accurate than its predecessors, increasing safety for the bomber crew and improving the effectiveness of the bombs. With the heavy armament of the B-17 Flying Fortresses, the USAAF chose to fly during the day for "precision bombing," hitting specific targets, such as factories or transportation hubs, precisely and with minimal damage to the surrounding area.

On August 17, 1942, the Eighth Air Force undertook its first mission against the marshaling yards at Rouen-Sotteville in occupied France. A relatively easy first mission, the only casualties were two airmen who were injured when a pigeon flew into their plane. But for the first several months of the campaign, losses were heavy. Until the debut of the North American P-51 Mustang with its auxiliary gas tanks in March 1944, there were no Allied fighter planes with the range to escort bombers all the way to Germany. Meanwhile, to compensate for the lack of fighter escorts, American bomber forces under the leadership of Curtis E. LeMay implemented tight-formation combat flying. By early 1944, American industry was finally operating at peak capacity, producing enough bombers to replace lost ones, and add more for massive formations. The results were seen in the decrease in German aircraft and fuel production. After the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944, the ground troops advanced quickly toward Germany, providing bases for escorts and destroying the German early air warning system in France. For much of the final year of the war, Allied bombers held air superiority over Germany, leaving bombed-out cities for the ground troops to occupy.

The strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific Theater was different in nature. At the beginning of the war, the United States lacked a bomber with the range to reach Japan. With the exception of a high-profile raid on Tokyo in April 1942, led by Jimmy Doolittle, there were no bombings on Japanese cities until the capture of the Marianas Islands near Japan in late 1944. From the Marianas, the new B-29 Superfortress could reach Japan. But precision bombing failed in Japan, which had erratic weather patterns and poor visibility. During the winter, bombs were so poorly aimed that the Japanese joked that the Americans were going to starve them into surrendering by killing all the fish in Tokyo Bay.

In January the command of the American XX Bomber Command in the Pacific passed to Major General LeMay. He recognized the problems, and in February began to introduce incendiary bombs, which could be dropped in any weather and which produced an intensely hot fire. The crowded Japanese cities became firestorms, aided by heavy winds and wooden buildings. The heat could get so great that glass would melt. In the midst of the fires, there was a good chance that the target would burn as well. The first incendiary raid occurred on February 3, 1945, in Kobe, where 159 tons of incendiaries burned more than a thousand buildings. The raids became so frequent that by early summer LeMay began to run out of supplies, and soon, of targets as well. LeMay also continued conventional precision bombing during that period when weather permitted.

By the summer of 1945, a group of U.S. scientists had developed a nuclear bomb, which would provide the single knockout blow the theorists had foreseen. At the same time, the Japanese government was organizing the People Volunteer Corps, preparing every man and woman over the age of 13 to fight an American invasion. On August 6, hoping to prevent the casualties of such an invasion, a B-29, the Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, killing 75,000 people instantly and destroying the city. A second nuclear bomb was dropped three days later on Nagasaki, and the Japanese government finally surrendered.

World War II had ended, but the debate over the effectiveness of strategic bombing continued. Official histories claimed that bombing was a "decisive" factor in victory but was not solely responsible. Armored divisions, amphibious vehicles, and ships were just as crucial, and the war might have been different if the enormous concentrations of men, materiel, and industry that built the bomber fleets had been used to produce them instead. The success of strategic bombing as an attack on the enemy’s means and will to continue to fight was mixed. Civilians proved extremely resilient under assault, helped by the slow build-up of attacks and their predictability. Cities, neighborhoods, and important buildings were lost, but the emotional cores of communities survived. In the final year of the war, however, Germany did feel the effect as troops ran out of ammunition and lacked enough airplanes to defend its airspace. In the years following the war, there were many interpretations of strategic bombing’s success in support of various viewpoints. And with the demonstrations of the nuclear bomb, these became moot.

--Pamela Feltus

References:

Gentile, Gian P. How Effective is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World War II to Kosovo. N.Y.: New York University Press, 2001.

Kennett, Lee. A History of Strategic Bombing. New York: Charles Scribner‘s Sons, 1982.

McFarland, Stephen L. America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910-1945. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.

Murray, Williamson. War in the Air: 1914-1945. London: Cassell, 1999.

Sherry, Michael S. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987.

Werrell, Kenneth P. Blankets of Fire: U.S Bombers over Japan during World War II. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.

Additional reading:

Childers, Thomas. Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II. Reading. Mass.: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1995.

Coffey, Thomas M. Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay. New York: Crown Publishers, 1986.

Crosby, Harry H. A Wing and a Prayer. Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse.com, 1993.

Ethell, Jeffrey L. Bomber Command. Osceola, Wis.: Motorbooks International, 1994.

Halpert, Sam. A Real Good War. New York: Random House, 1999.

O’Neill, Brian D. Half a Wing, Three Engines and a Prayer. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

American Air Museum: www.iwm.org.uk/duxford/aam.htm

"Fire Bombing." U.S. Air Force Museum. www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/cp24.htm

"Remember the Blitz." Museum of London. www.museum-london.org.uk/MOLsite/exhibits/blitz/intro.html

The Memphis Belle: www.memphisbelle.org.

Mighty Eighth Air Force Heritage Museum: www.mighty8thmuseum.com.

Educational Organization	Standard Designation (where applicable)	Content of Standard
National Council for Geographic Education	Standard 1	How to use maps and other geographic representations to acquire and process information.
National Center for History in the Schools	US History Era 8 Standard 3	The causes & course of World War II
International Technology Education Association	Standard 7	Students will develop an understanding of the influence of technology on history.