Strategic bombing during World War II

For a list of notable strategic bombings in the European Theatre of World War II, see List of air operations during the Battle of Europe.

Strategic bombing during World War II
Part of World War II
"One of the most famous images of World War II shows The Sandman…as it emerges from a pall of smoke [at the Ploesti Astra Romana refinery] during the TIDALWAVE mission." (author Jay Stout)
Location European Theatre of World War II Pacific Theatre of World War II Result European Theatre: "the most important of the combined factors which brought about the collapse of Germany."(Adolf Galland) "the largest factor of all in reducing Germany's war potential."(Albrecht von Massow) "'It meant the end of German armaments production." (Albert Speer) Pacific Theatre:
Belligerents
United States United Kingdom	Nazi Germany Empire of Japan
Commanders and leaders
Carl Spaatz (1942 - ) Richard Peirse (-1941) Arthur Harris (1941-)	Naruhiko Higashikuni Hermann Göring Albert Kesselring Hugo Sperrle
Casualties and losses
60,595 British civilians 160,000 airmen (Europe)	305,000-600,000 German civilians 330,000-500,000 Japanese civilians.

During World War II Strategic bombing operations and campaigns took place between 1939 and 1945; the targets being cities and towns, industry and military forces.

Shortly after Germany invaded Poland and the German Luftwaffe bombed the town of Wieluń, the British Royal Air Force bombed warships and port installations in Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Heligoland in Germany. Apart from the bombings made since september 1937 by the Imperial Japanese Air Force, which are considered part of the Second Sino-Japanese War, these were the first aerial bombings of the war which took place outside of Poland.

As the war continued and expanded worldwide, so did the importance of strategic bombing. Manufacture and industry became particularly important targets for both sides. Additionally, bombing was used as a psychological weapon to try and break the enemy's will to fight. By the end of the war, the technology and scale of aerial attacks had significantly increased, culminating in the controversial firebombings of Chongqing in China, Hamburg (1943), Dresden (1945) and other German cities in Europe, the bombing of Tokyo and the controversial atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the latter causing the Japanese to surrender within 6 days.

Legal considerations

The Hague Conventions, addressing the codes of wartime conduct on land and at sea, were adopted before the rise of air power. Despite repeated diplomatic attempts to update international humanitarian law to include aerial warfare, it was not updated before the outbreak of World War II. The absence of positive international humanitarian law does not mean that the laws of war did not cover aerial warfare, but there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws. For details on the obligations of the belligerents of World War II engaged in aerial bombardment see aerial area bombardment and international law in 1945.

Europe

The September Campaign

Main article: Invasion of Poland

At the beginning of the war the Luftwaffe bombed cities like Warsaw and towns like Wieluń and Frampol. In the case of Frampol, the town was destroyed as a test case to determine the effects and accuracy of bombardment.

The first bombs dropped on Germany during World War II were dropped by a single Polish PZL.23 Karaś of the 21st squadron on a factory in the Silesian town of Ohlau, today Olawa. Shortly after, in a period of a few days, Luftwaffe numerical and technological superiority took its toll on the Polish Air Force and such operations were impossible.

Rotterdam Blitz

Main article: Rotterdam Blitz

The Germans used the threat of a bombing of Rotterdam to try and get the Dutch to come to terms and surrender. After a second ultimatum had been issued by the Germans, it appeared this effort had failed. As legend has it, a Dutch plenipotentiary and other negotiators, delayed, were on their way over to German lines when the attack began. 800 to 900 people were killed and 80,000 were made homeless in the attack. Around 2.6 square kilometres (1 square mile) of the city was almost levelled. 24,978 homes, 24 churches, 2,320 stores, 775 warehouses and 62 schools were destroyed. The Dutch surrendered.

1939 to 1942: United Kingdom, France and Germany

A German Heinkel 111 bomber over the Surrey Docks, London.

Main articles: Battle of Britain and The Blitz

The British were familiar with the threat of aerial bombardment, as they had used the strategy in Sudan in 1916 and later, in Afghanistan, in 1919. Attacks from the air were also used by the British against the Arab resistance in the former Ottoman Empire cities of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul in 1920. However, the British had been on the receiving end of aerial bombardment, too; at the start of World War I in 1914, after the French targeted a German train station in Trier and the British attacked military and transportation facilities in Germany, after single German plane bombed Paris on August 30, 1914, dropping 5 bombs and killing one woman and wounding several others and Germany sent Zeppelins to bombard Britain. For the British population, this had a deep psychological affect. Many Britons came to realize that there was no defense against aerial bombardment (hence the famous statement by Sir Stanley Baldwin that "the bomber will always get through.") This and the fact British bombers lacked the range and numbers to inflict a telling blow on Germany had been important factors in the British adoption of appeasement of Adolf Hitler during the 1930s.

In 1939, as Germany invaded Poland, the British and French declared war on Germany and World War II began. Britain struck first, bombing warships and installations in several German ports, but Germany soon retaliated against the UK with a strike against the British naval yard at Scapa Flow. This prompted another British attack, on Sylt. The bombing of the German industrial Ruhr Valley followed, and after the German invasion of France, the British bombed the German cities of Mönchengladbach and Bremen, too.. Days after Germany bombed Paris, the French bombed Berlin, between 7th and 8th of June 1940. On the 18th of June, Britain attacked the German city of Hamburg, firebombing it.On the night of July 3, 16 RAF bombers attacked German train facilities in Hamm.Finally, on July 10, the Luftwaffe launched a strategic bombing campaign against the United Kingdom. Thus began the first phase of what came to be known as the Battle of Britain. The battle began with probing attacks on British coastal shipping, during which Hitler called for the British to accept peace, but the British refused to negotiate.Then, on August 8 1940, the Germans switched to raids on RAF fighter bases. On August 24, fate took a turn, and several off-course German bombers accidentally bombed residential London.The next day, the RAF bombed Berlin for the first time, sending Hitler into a rage.A swift change in policy followed.The Luftwaffe, which Hitler had prohibited from bombing civilian areas in the UK, was now ordered to bomb British cities. The Blitz was underway.

St Paul's Cathedral surrounded by fire on the night of December 29 1940

Due to mounting losses sustained, the Luftwaffe began to use increasing numbers of bombers at night. In the week beginning 12 August 1940 the Luftwaffe flew less than a quarter of their bomber sorties at night, but by the last week of August, over half the missions were flown under the cover of dark. On 19 August Hermann Göring ordered a large night attack on Liverpool, and told his commanders they were free to decide on any targets apart from London and Liverpool. Despite this, London had already been bombed, over 60 civilians being killed in Croydon on 15 August. There were further minor attacks on London at night in August, on the 18/19, 22/23, 24/25, 25/26 and 28/29. It was in light of these attacks, and the heavier German bombing of other British cities that killed over 1,000 civilians in August, that RAF Bomber Command mounted a new raid on Berlin on the 25/26 August, with targets including Tempelhof airfield and the Siemens factories in Siemenstadt. This was politically embarrassing for Göring, as he had boasted of the Luftwaffe ability to protect major German cities. Under pressure from his senior commanders, notably Kesselring, and believing the RAF to be much weaker than it was, Goering ordered the focus of the Luftwaffe campaign to switch to London, in the hope that the "last remaining" RAF fighters would be drawn in to a larger battle which the Luftwaffe could win with superior numbers. The heavy attacks on London began on 7 September, with more than 300 bombers in the afternoon, and another 250 in the night. By the morning of the 8 September, 430 Londoners had been killed. The Luftwaffe issued a press notice announcing they had dropped more than 1,000,000 kilograms of bombs on London in 24 hours. Many other British cities were hit in the nine month Blitz, including Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Belfast, Cardiff, Clydebank, Kingston upon Hull and Coventry. The given aim was strategic—to destroy ports and industrial installations—but there is no room to doubt destroying the will of ordinary people to fight was a major factor, perhaps the major factor.

Gradually, in the face of heavy losses to fighters, the Luftwaffe resorted to night bombing. Targeting had been a problem in daylight; by night, it was basically impossible, with accuracy being approximately "one city". British civilian casualties were heavy. The expected collapse in civilian morale, however, did not eventuate; indeed, it is widely believed the bombings had the opposite effect. A photograph showing St Paul's Cathedral shrouded in smoke become a famous image of the times.

Over the next year, an escalating war of electronic technology developed. German scientists improvised a series of radio navigation aids to help their navigators find targets in the dark and through overcast, while the British raced to develop countermeasures (most notably airborne radar, as well as highly effective deceptive beacons and jammers).

Despite causing a great deal of damage and sorely trying the civilian population, the defenses gradually became more formidable, and the need to divert as many squadrons as possible to the Eastern Front saw the Blitz gradually fade away into low intensity bombing, rarely increasing intensity of terror bombing raids, according to OKW directive from April 14 1942.

Germany later in war

Main articles: Operation Steinbock and Vergeltungswaffen

After the failed attempt to subdue the British by relatively large scale strategic bombing, the Luftwaffe mainly resorted during the period of 1942 to 1944 to low intensity nighttime terror bombing. However, in January 1944, renewed attempt to strike a blow on British morale took the form of the unsuccesfull operation Steinbock, called 'the Baby blitz' by the British, due to small scale of the attack. Due to the numerical and qualitative inferiority of German conventional bombing forces at time, and inability of fighter forces to escort bombers safely through enemy dominated airspace, the most effective means of strategic attack by Germany became area terror bombing by means of vengeance weapons - V-1 flying bomb and V-2 ballistic missile. From June 13 and September 8 1944 respectively, these were used to conducted campaigns of area terror bombing chiefly against London and cities of southern England, although their targets included also Paris, Liege, Lille and Antwerp.

The British and US directed part of the strategic bombing to the eradication of these threats in what was later known as "operation Crossbow" The development of the V2 was hit pre-emptively in the British Peenemunde Raid (Operation Hydra) of August 1943.

The British later in the war

An Avro Lancaster over Hamburg.

On 14 February, 1942, Directive No. 22 was issued to Bomber Command. Bombing was to be "focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular of the industrial workers." Factories were no longer targets.

The effects of strategic bombing were very poorly understood at the time and grossly overrated. Particularly in the first two years of the campaign, few understood just how little damage was caused and how rapidly the Germans were able to replace lost production—despite the obvious lessons to be learned from the United Kingdom's own survival of the blitz.

Mid-way through the air war, it slowly began to be realized the campaign was having very little effect. Despite an ever-increasing tonnage of bombs dispatched, the inaccuracy of delivery was such any bomb falling within five miles of the target was deemed a "hit" for statistical purposes, and even by this standard, as the Butt Report made clear many bombs missed. Indeed sometimes in post raid assessment the Germans could not decide which town (not the installation in the town) had been the intended target because the scattering of bomb craters was so wide.

These problems were dealt with in two ways: first the precision targeting of vital facilities (ball-bearing production in particular) was abandoned in favour of "area bombing" – This change of policy was agreed by the Cabinet in 1941 and in early 1942 a new directive was issued and Air Marshal Arthur Harris (commonly known as "Bomber" Harris) was appointed to carry out the task – second as the campaign developed, improvements in the accuracy of the RAF raids were joined by better crew training, electronic aids, and new tactics such as the creation of a "pathfinder" force to mark targets for the main force.

Burnt-out blocks of flats in Hamburg sometime in 1944-45.

"Bomber" Harris, who ran the bombing campaign, said "for want of a rapier, a bludgeon was used". He felt that as much as it would be far more desirable to deliver effective pin-point attacks, as the capacity to do so simply did not exist, and since it was war, it was necessary to attack with whatever was at hand. He accepted area bombing knowing it would kill civilians.

During the first few months of the area bombing campaign, an internal debate within the British government about the most effective use of the nation's limited resources in waging war on Germany continued. Should the Royal Air Force (RAF) be scaled back to allow more resources to go to the British Army and Royal Navy or should the strategic bombing option be followed and expanded? An influential paper was presented to support the bombing campaign by Professor F.W. Lindemann, the British government's leading scientific adviser, justifying the use of area bombing to "dehouse" the German workforce as the most effective way of reducing their morale and affecting enemy war production.

Mr. Justice Singleton, a High Court Judge, was asked by the Cabinet to look into the competing points of view. In his report, that was delivered on 20 May 1942, he concluded that "If Russia can hold Germany on land I doubt whether Germany will stand 12 or 18 months’ continuous, intensified and increased bombing, affecting, as it must, her war production, her power of resistance, her industries and her will to resist (by which I mean morale)". In the end, thanks in part to the dehousing paper, it was this view which prevailed and Bomber Command would remain an important component of the British war effort up to the end of World War II. A very large proportion of the industrial production of the United Kingdom was harnessed to the task of creating a vast fleet of heavy bombers—so much so other vital areas of war production were under-resourced. Until 1944, the effect on German production was remarkably small and raised doubts whether it was wise to divert so much effort – the response being there was no where else the effort could have been applied to greater effect.

The disruption of the German transportation system was extensive. Despite German efforts to minimize loss of industrial productivity through dispersal of production facilities, as well as the extensive use of slave labour, the Nazi regime experienced a decline in the ability to supply materiel. Furthermore, the Luftwaffe had been significantly weakened in the course of their defensive efforts so that by mid 1944, the Allies experienced day-time air dominance for the balance of the war, which would be critical to the Allied success in the Normandy Campaign and subsequent operations to the end of the war.

US bombing in Europe

Summary of AAF and RAF bombing .

In mid 1942, the United States Army Air Forces arrived in the UK and carried out a few raids. In January 1943, at the Casablanca Conference, it was agreed that RAF Bomber Command operations against Germany would be reinforced by the USAAF in a Combined Operations Offensive plan called Operation Pointblank. MRAF Sir C Portal was charged with the "strategic direction" of both British and American bomber operations. The text of the Casablanca directive read: "Your primary object will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.", At the beginning of the combined strategic bombing offensive on 4 March, 1943 669 RAF and 303 USAAF heavy bombers were available.

In Europe, the American Eighth Air Force conducted its raids in daylight and their heavy bombers carried smaller payloads than British aircraft in part because of their heavier (as needed) defensive armament. USAAF leaders firmly held to the claim of "precision" bombing of military targets for much of the war, and energetically refuted claims that they were simply bombing cities. In reality, the day bombing was "precision bombing" only in the sense that most bombs fell somewhere near a specific designated target such as a railway yard. Conventionally, the air forces designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area. .In the fall of 1944, only seven per cent of all bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet of their aim point.

Nevertheless, the sheer tonnage of explosive delivered by day and by night was eventually sufficient to cause widespread damage, and, more importantly from a military point of view, forced Germany to divert resources to counter it. This was to be the real significance of the Allied strategic bombing campaign—resource allocation.

U.S. operations began with 'Pointblank' attacks, designed to eliminate key features of the German economy. These attacks manifested themselves in the infamous Schweinfurt raids. Formations of unescorted bombers were no match for German fighters, which inflicted a deadly toll. In despair, the Eighth halted air operations over Germany until a long-range fighter could be found; it proved to be the P-51 Mustang, which had the range to fly to Berlin and back.

A raid by the 8th Air Force on the Focke Wulf factory at Marienburg, Germany (1943).

With the arrival of the brand-new Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, command of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe was consolidated into the United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF). With the addition of the Mustang to its strength, the Combined Bomber Offensive was resumed. Planners targeted the Luftwaffe in an operation known as 'Big Week' (20 February - 25 February 1944) and succeeded brilliantly - losses were so heavy German planners were forced into a hasty dispersal of industry and the day fighter arm never fully recovered.

On 27 March, 1944, the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued orders granting control of all the Allied air forces in Europe, including strategic bombers, to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, who delegated command to his deputy in SHAEF Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder. There was resistance to this order from some senior figures, including Winston Churchill, Harris, and Carl Spaatz, but after some debate, control passed to SHAEF on 1 April 1944. When the Combined Bomber Offensive officially ended on 1 April, Allied airmen were well on the way to achieving air superiority over all of Europe. While they continued some strategic bombing, the USAAF along with the RAF turned their attention to the tactical air battle in support of the Normandy Invasion. It was not until the middle of September that the strategic bombing campaign of Germany again became the priority for the USSTAF.

The twin campaigns—the USAAF by day, the RAF by night—built up into massive bombing of German industrial areas, notably the Ruhr, followed by attacks directly on cities such as Hamburg, Kassel, Pforzheim, Mainz and the often-criticized bombing of Dresden.

Effectiveness

Strategic bombing has been criticized on practical grounds because it does not always work predictably. The radical changes it forces on a targeted population can backfire, including the counterproductive result of freeing inessential labourers to fill worker shortages in war industries.

German soldier plots coordinates on a map in the Duisburg-Wolfsburg anti-aircraft division

Much of the doubt about the effectiveness of the bomber war comes from the oft-stated fact that German industrial production increased throughout the war. While this is true, it fails to note production also increased in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Canada and Australia. And, in all of those countries, the rate of production increased much more rapidly than in Germany. Until late in the war, industry had not been geared for war and German factory workers only worked a single shift. Simply by going to three shifts, production could have been tripled with no change to the infrastructure. However, attacks on the infrastructure were taking place. The attacks on Germany's canals and railroads made transportation of materiel difficult.

The attack on oil production, oil refineries and tank farms was, however, extremely successful and made a very large contribution to the general collapse of Germany in 1945. In the event, the bombing of oil facilities became Albert Speer's main concern; however, this occurred sufficiently late in the war that Germany would soon be defeated in any case. Nevertheless, it is fair to say the oil bombing campaign materially shortened the war, thereby saving many lives.

German insiders credit the Allied bombing offensive with severely handicapping them. Speer repeatedly said (both during and after the war) it caused crucial production problems. Admiral Karl Dönitz, head of the U-Boat arm, noted in his memoirs that failure to get the revolutionary Type XXI U-boats (which could have completely altered the balance of power in the Battle of the Atlantic) into service was entirely the result of the bombing. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, however, concluded the delays in deploying the new submarines cannot be attributed to air attack.

Effect on morale

Propaganda leaflet dropped by the RAF after a bombing raid on Essen.

Although designed to "break the enemy's will", the opposite often happened. The British did not crumble under the German Blitz and other air raids early in the war. British workers continued to work throughout the war and food and other basic supplies were available throughout.

In Germany, morale did not effectively break down in the face of the bombing campaign, which was far more extensive and comprehensive in effect, scope and duration than that endured by Great Britain. Additionally, the Germans clearly differentiated between behavior and morale: behavior was more or less unchanged; as with Japan, there were no riots in Germany demanding national capitulation and German workers, with stoicism, maintained industrial production as high as they could; German civilian morale, too, was strained by the bombing but remained intact right to the end of the war. Many German civilians, mostly women and children, had evacuated the cities by the latter stages of the war. Those who were workers were replaced in some, but not all, factories by prisoners or forced laborers with low morale, who were severely punished by their SS guards if their work performance faltered; most surviving German industrial workers, however, continued to work at their factories and remained at their posts (while most forced laborers were confined to factories within the precincts or within the vicinity of the concentration camps that housed them).

Allied bombing statistics 1939–45

RAF Bombing Sorties & Losses 1939–45 Sorties Losses Night 297,663 7,449 Day   66,851    876

RAF & USAAF Bomb Tonnages on Germany 1939–45 Year RAF Bomber Command (tons) US 8th Air Force (tons) 1939          31 — 1940   13,033 — 1941   31,504 — 1942   45,561     1,561 1943 157,457   44,165 1944 525,518 389,119 1945 191,540 188,573 Total 964,644 623,418

Bombing Effort, entire European Theatre Tons Percent 8th Air Force (including fighters) 692,918 9th Air Force 225,799 12th Air Force 207,367 15th Air Force (including fighters) 312,173 1st Tactical Air Force 25,166 Total USAAF 1,463,423 52.8 Bomber Command 1,066,141 Fighter Command 3,910 2nd Tactical Air Force 69,138 Mediterranean Command 167,928 Total RAF 1,307,117 47.2 Grand Total 2,770,540 100.0

Asia

Japanese bombing

File:Chungking bomb.jpg

Chongqing bombed by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in 1939

Japanese strategic bombing was independently conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service. Bombing efforts mostly targeted large Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan and Chonging, with around 5,000 raids from February 1938 to August 1943 in the later case.

The bombing of Nanjing and Canton, which began on 22 and 23 September 1937, called forth widespread protests culminating in a resolution by the Far Eastern Advisory Committee of the League of Nations. Lord Cranborne, the British Under-Secretary of State For Foreign Affairs, expressed his indignation in his own declaration. «Words cannot express the feelings of profound horror with which the news of these raids had been received by the whole civilized world. They are often directed against places far from the actual area of hostilities. The military objective, where it exists, seems to take a completely second place. The main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians...»

There were also air raids on Philippines and northern Australia (Bombing of Darwin, 19 February, 1942). The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service used tactical bombing against enemy airfields and military positions, as at Pearl Harbor. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service also attacked enemy ships and military installations.

Conventional bombing damage to Japanese cities in WWII

Japanese city	% area destroyed
Yokohama	58%
Tokyo	51
Toyama	99
Nagoya	40
Osaka	35.1
Nishinomiya	11.9
Shimonoseki	37.6
Kure	41.9
Kobe	55.7
Omuta	35.8
Wakayama	50
Kawasaki	36.2
Okayama	68.9
Yawata	21.2
Kagoshima	63.4
Amagasaki	18.9
Sasebo	41.4
Moji	23.3
Miyakonojō	26.5
Nobeoka	25.2
Miyazaki	26.1
Ube	20.7
Saga	44.2
Imabari	63.9
Matsuyama	64
Fukui	86
Tokushima	85.2
Sakai	48.2
Hachioji	65
Kumamoto	31.2
Isesaki	56.7
Takamatsu	67.5
Akashi	50.2
Fukuyama	80.9
Aomori	30
Okazaki	32.2
Ōita	28.2
Hiratsuka	48.4
Tokuyama	48.3
Yokkaichi	33.6
Ujiyamada	41.3
Ōgaki	39.5
Gifu	63.6
Shizuoka	66.1
Himeji	49.4
Fukuoka	24.1
Kōchi	55.2
Shimizu	42
Omura	33.1
Chiba	41
Ichinomiya	56.3
Nara	69.3
Tsu	69.3
Kuwana	75
Toyohashi	61.9
Numazu	42.3
Choshi	44.2
Kofu	78.6
Utsunomiya	43.7
Mito	68.9
Sendai	21.9
Tsuruga	65.1
Nagaoka	64.9
Hitachi	72
Kumagaya	55.1
Hamamatsu	60.3
Maebashi	64.2

United States strategic bombing of Japan

The United States strategic bombing of Japan took place between 1942 and 1945. In the last seven months of the campaign, a change to firebombing tactics resulted in great destruction of 67 Japanese cities, as many as 500,000 Japanese deaths and some 5 million more made homeless. Emperor Hirohito's viewing of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945, is said to have been the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender five months later.

Conventional bombing

Tokyo burns during a firebomb attack 26 May 1945.

The first U.S. raid on the Japanese main island was the Doolittle Raid of 18 April, 1942 when sixteen B-25 Mitchells were launched from the USS Hornet (CV-8) to attack targets including Yokohama and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China. The raids were military pin-pricks, but a significant propaganda victory. Launched prematurely, none of the attacking aircraft reached the designated post mission airfields, either crashing or ditching (except for one aircraft, which landed in the Soviet Union, where the crew was interned). Two crews were captured by the Japanese.

The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 Superfortress, which had an operational range of 1,500 miles (2,400 km); almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber (147,000 tons). The first raid by B-29s on Japan from China was on 15 June, 1944. The planes took off from Chengdu, over 1,500 miles away. This first raid was also not particularly damaging to Japan. Only forty-seven of the sixty-eight B–29s that took off hit the target area; four aborted with mechanical problems, four crashed, six jettisoned their bombs because of mechanical difficulties, and others bombed secondary targets or targets of opportunity. Only one B–29 was lost to enemy aircraft. The first raid from the east was on 24 November, 1944 when 88 aircraft bombed Tokyo. The bombs were dropped from around 30,000 feet (10,000 m) and it is estimated that only around 10% of the bombs hit designated targets.

The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command. Initially the Twentieth Air Force was under the command of Hap Arnold, and later Curtis LeMay. This was never a satisfactory arrangement because not only were the Chinese airbases difficult to supply via - materiel being sent over "the Hump" from India, but the B-29s operating from them could only reach Japan if they traded some of their bomb load for extra fuel in tanks in the bomb-bays. When Admiral Chester Nimitz's island-hopping campaign captured islands close enough to Japan to be within the range of B-29s, the Twentieth Air Force was assigned to XXI Bomber Command which organized a much more effective bombing campaign of the Japanese home islands. Based in the Marianas (Guam and Tinian in particular) the B-29s were now able to carry their full bomb loads and were supplied by cargo ships and tankers.

Conventional bombs from B-29s destroyed over 40% of the urban area in Japan's six greatest industrial cities.

Unlike all other forces in theater, the Bomber Commands did not report to the commanders of the theaters but directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In March 1945, they were placed under the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific which was commanded by General Carl Spaatz.

As in Europe, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) tried daylight precision bombing. However, it proved to be impossible due to the weather around Japan, as bombs dropped from a great height were tossed about by high winds. General LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command, instead switched to mass firebombing night attacks from altitudes of around 7,000 feet (2,100 m) on the major conurbations of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Despite limited early success, particularly against Nagoya, LeMay was determined to use such bombing tactics against the vulnerable Japanese cities. Attacks on strategic targets also continued in lower-level daylight raids.

The first successful firebombing raid was on Kobe on 3 February 1945, and following its relative success the USAAF continued the tactic. Nearly half of the principal factories of the city were damaged, and production was reduced by more than half at one of the port's two shipyards.

Much of the armor and defensive weaponry of the bombers was removed to allow increased bomb loads; Japanese air defense in terms of night-fighters and anti-aircraft guns was so feeble it was hardly a risk. The first raid of this type on Tokyo was on the night of 23 February–24 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city. Following on that success 334 B-29s raided on the night of 9–10 March, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the fire storm. The destruction and damage was at its worst in the city sections east of the Imperial Palace. It was the most destructive conventional raid in all of history. The city was made primarily of wood and paper, and Japanese firefighting methods were not up to the challenge. The fires burned out of control, boiling canal water and causing entire blocks of buildings to spontaneously combust from the heat. The effects of the Tokyo firebombing proved the fears expressed by Admiral Yamamoto in 1939: "Japanese cities, being made of wood and paper, would burn very easily. The Army talks big, but if war came and there were large-scale air raids, there's no telling what would happen."

In the following two weeks, there were almost 1,600 further sorties against the four cities, destroying 31 square miles (80 km²) in total at a cost of 22 aircraft. By June, over forty percent of the urban area of Japan's largest six cities (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki) was devastated. LeMay's fleet of nearly 600 bombers destroyed tens of smaller cities and manufacturing centers in the following weeks and months.

Leaflets were dropped over cities before they were bombed, warning the people and urging them to escape the city. Though many, even within the Air Force, viewed this as a form of psychological warfare, a significant element in the decision to produce and drop them was the desire to assuage American anxieties about the extent of the destruction created by this new war tactic. Warning leaflets were also dropped on cities that were not to be bombed to create uncertainty and absenteeism.

A year after the war, the United States Army Air Forces's Strategic Bombing Survey (Pacific War) reported that they had underestimated the power of strategic bombing combined with naval blockade and previous military defeats to bring Japan to unconditional surrender without invasion. By July 1945, only a fraction of the planned strategic bombing force had been deployed yet there were few targets left worth the effort. In hindsight, it would have been more effective to use land-based and carrier-based air power to strike against merchant shipping and begin aerial mining at a much earlier date so as to link up with the effective Allied submarine anti-shipping campaign and completely isolate the island nation. This would have accelerated the strangulation of Japan and ended the war sooner. A postwar Naval Ordnance Laboratory survey agreed, finding that naval mines dropped by B-29s had accounted for 60% of all Japanese shipping losses in the last six months of the war. In October 1945, Prince Fumimaro Konoe said that the sinking of Japanese vessels by U.S. aircraft combined with the B-29 aerial mining campaign were just as effective as B-29 attacks on industry alone, though he admitted that "the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s." Prime Minister Baron Kantarō Suzuki reported to U.S. military authorities that it "seemed to me unavoidable that in the long run Japan would be almost destroyed by air attack so that merely on the basis of the B-29s alone I was convinced that Japan should sue for peace."

Nuclear bombing

Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter.

Nuclear bombing damage to Japanese cities in WWII

Japanese city	% area destroyed
Hiroshima	15.3%
Nagasaki	45%

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks during World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States under US President Harry S Truman. After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, on 6 August, 1945, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" enriched uranium bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, followed on 9 August by the detonation of the "Fat Man" plutonium core nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are the only uses of nuclear weapons in warfare.

As many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki may have died from the bombings by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Since then, thousands more have been subsequently killed from injuries or illness due to radiation. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.

On 15 August, 1945, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September which officially ended World War II. Furthermore, the experience of bombing led post-war Japan to adopt Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbade Japan from nuclear armament.

References

Bibliography

• Bradley, F. J. (1999) No Strategic Targets Left. "Contribution of Major Fire Raids Toward Ending WWII", Turner Publishing. ISBN 1-56311-483-6.
• Caidin, Martin. (1960) A Torch to the Enemy: The Fire Raid on Tokyo, Bantam War Books. ISBN 0-553-29926-3
• Copp, Terry. The Bomber Command Offensive, originally published in the Legion Magazine September/October 1996
• Davis, Richard G. (2006) Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945. Alabama: Air University Press
• Grafton, Brian. Bomber Command on the website Military History Online
• Grayling, A. C. (2006). Among the Dead Cities. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9780747576716.
• Hallion, Richard P. . Decisive Air Power Prior to 1950 USAF History and Museums Program.
• Longmate, Norman. (1983) The Bombers. Hutchins. ISBN 0-09-151508-7.
• Nelson, Hank. A different war: Australians in Bomber Command. paper presented at the 2003 History Conference - Air War Europe
• Overy, Richard J. (1980) The Air War Stein and Day. ISBN 978-1-57488-716-7
• Ray, John. The Night Blitz. Booksales. ISBN 978-0-7858-1601-0
• Spector, Ronald (1985). Eagle Against the Sun. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-394-74101-7
• Taylor, Frederick. (2006) Dresden: Tuesday, 13 February, 1945. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0-7475-7074-1
• Saward, Dudley. (1985) Bomber Harris. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-11258-1
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report(Pacific War) July 1, 1946.
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report(European War) September 30, 1945.
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Defeat of the German Air Force. 1947.
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Transportation. 1947.
• United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy. 1945.
• Wood & Dempster (1990) The Narrow Margin Chapter "Second Phase" ISBN 978-0-87474-929-8

Further reading

• Coffey, Thomas M. (1977). Decision over Schweinfurt. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 9780679507635.
• Coffey, Thomas M. (1982). HAP: The Story of the U.S. Air Force and the Man who Built It, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 9780670360697.
• Coffey, Thomas M. (1987). Iron Eagle : The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay. Random House Value publishing. ISBN 0-517-55188-8.
• Crane, Conrad C. (1994). The cigar that brought the fire wind: Curtis LeMay and the strategic bombing of Japan. JGSDF-U.S. Army Military History Exchange. ASIN B0006PGEIQ.
• Craven, Wesley F. (1948–1958). The Army Air Forces in World War II, volumes 1-8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780405121371. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
• Great Britain Air Ministry (1983). The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force. Arms and Armour Press. ISBN 9780853685609.
• Greer, Ron (2005). Fire from the Sky: A Diary Over Japan. Jacksonville, Arkansas, U.S.A.: Greer Publishing. ISBN 0-9768712-0-3.
• Guillian, Robert (1982). I Saw Tokyo Burning: An Eyewitness Narrative from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Jove Pubns. ISBN 0-86721-223-3.
• Harris, Arthur (1998). Bomber Offensive. Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal. ISBN 9781853673146.
• Hastings, Max (1979). Bomber Command. New York: Dial. ISBN 9780718116033.
• Kennet, Lee (1982). A History of Strategic Bombing. New York: Scribner. ISBN 9780684177816.
• Lemay, Curtis E. (1988). Superfortress: The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-037164-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Levine, Alan J. (1992). The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945. Greenwood. ISBN 9780275943196.
• McGowen, Tom (2001). Air Raid!:The Bombing Campaign. Brookfield, Connecticut, U.S.A.: Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 0-7613-1810-0.
• Middlebrook, Martin (1990). The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939-1945. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780140129366. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Mierzejewski, Alfred (1987). The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807863381.
• Milward, Alan S. (1965). The German Economy at War. London: Prometheus Books. ISBN 9780485110753.
• Ross, Stewart Halsey (2003). Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II. The Myths and the Facts. McFarland & Co. ISBN 9780786414123.
• Shannon, Donald H. (1976). United States air strategy and doctrine as employed in the strategic bombing of Japan. U.S. Air University, Air War College. ASIN B0006WCQ86.
• Verrier, Anthony (1974). The Bomber Offensive. New York: Pan. ISBN 9780330238649.
• Webster, Charles (1961). The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany, volumes 1-4. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. ISBN 9781845744373. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Weigley, Russell (1981). Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253133335.
• Harry Garretsen, Marc Schramm, Steven BrakmanThe Strategic Bombing of German Cities during World War II and its Impact for Germany (PDF) Discussion Paper Series nr: 03-09 Tjalling, C. Koopmans Research Institute, Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University
• Facilis descensus averni est: The Allied Bombing of Germany and the Issue of German Suffering—Detailed article about the bombing of Germany in WWII
• Spaight. James M. "Bombing Vindicated" G. Bles, 1944. ASIN: B0007IVW7K (Spaight was Principal Assistant Secretary of the Air Ministry (U.K)

External links

• European Air War Timeline
• The Blitz: Sorting the Myth from the Reality, BBC History
• Liverpool Blitz Experience 24 hours in a city under fire in the Blitz. Liverpol Museums
• Coventry Blitz