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.

The Strategic bombing during World War II pertains to any strategic bombing which took place between 1939 and 1945 involving any of the belligerent nations in the conflict. The subject includes the bombing of cities, towns, civilians, industry and military forces. Initially all combatants renounced unrestricted air warfare, and the indiscriminate bombing of civillians. However, as the war continued and expanded, so did the importance of strategic bombing. Manufacture and industry became particularly important targets for both sides; bombing was also used as a psychological weapon to try and break the enemy's will to fight. This characterized Germany's Blitz campaign against the United Kingdom. As the war continued, the Allies intensively bombed German industry and the civilian population. The technology and scale of aerial attacks increased significantly, 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.

Legal considerations

Main article: Aerial bombardment and international law

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.

Europe

Policy at the start of the war

As World War II began in 1939, the president of the United States, then a neutral power, Franklin D. Roosevelt, issued an appeal to the major belligerents to confine their air raids to military targets. The French, the British and the Germans agreed to abide by the request which included the provision "that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents". The United Kingdom policy was to restrict its bombing to military targets and infrastructure such as ports and railways which were of military importance. While it was acknowledged that bombing of Germany would cause civilian casualties, the British government renounced the deliberate bombing of civilian property, outside combat zones, as a military tactic. The British abandoned this policy at the end of the Phony War on 15 May 1940, one day after the Rotterdam Blitz.

German legal scholars of the 1930s carefully worked out guidelines for what type of bombing was permissible under international law. While direct attacks against civilians were ruled out as impermissible under international law, the concept of the attacking the vital war industries - and probable heavy civilian casualties and breakdown of civilian morale - was ruled as acceptable.

The Germany did not have a policy of targeting enemy civilians to undermine their enemy's morale as part of their doctrine prior to World War II and the Luftwaffe leadership specifically rejected the concept in the inter war period. Standing instructions for the Luftwaffe at the start of the war forbade any entrance into Western airspace for combat aircraft, with the exception of reconnaissance missions. Terror attacks, and the initiation of an unrestricted air warfare were forbidden. Following the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declaration of war by the Western Allies, in Hitler's OKW Direktive Nr 2 and Luftwaffe Direktive Nr 2 made no mention of strategic bomber raids, while attacks upon enemy naval forces were permitted only if the enemy bombed Germany, with the exception in the German Bight, noting that "The guiding principle must be not to provoke the initiation of aerial warfare on the part of Germany"; by contrast, Göring's directive permitted restricted attacks upon warships anywhere, as well as upon troop transports at sea.

First bombings

Main articles: Invasion of Poland and Bombing of Warsaw

A German Heinkel He 111 bombing Warsaw in 1939

File:Warsaw siege3.jpg

Survivor of bombing of Warsaw in the ruins of his home.

As the invasion of Poland began, the German Luftwaffe bombed cities like Warsaw, Wieluń and Frampol. The latter town, of little strategic value, was destroyed as a test case to determine the effects and accuracy of bombardment. Targets in most Polish cities were subjected to massive air attacks , with bombs hitting civilian infrastructures, hospitals causing casulties amongst the civilian population and refugees.

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. Berlin was also bombed on first day of the war by the Polish Air Force. 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.

Polish Air Force bases across Poland, including Warsaw's PZL aircraft factory, were the subject of Luftwaffe bombing from September 1, 1939. Subsequent attacks on Warsaw targeted bridges on the Vistula, communications around the city, and precision night bombing missions were flown against munitions dumps using X-Gerät guidance. On the 13 of September, following orders of the ObdL to launch a retaliatory attack on the Warsaw Ghetto for unspecified crimes committed against German soldiers: 183 bomber sorties were flown with 50:50 load of high explosives and incendiaries, setting the Ghetto ablaze. On 22 September Wolfram von Richthofen requested: "Urgently request exploitation of last opportunity for large-scale experiment as devastation terror raid ... Every effort will be made to eradicate Warsaw completely", but his request was rejected. However, Hitler issued an order to prevent civilians from leaving the city and to continue with the bombing, which he thought would make the Poles surrender faster.

Frampol before (left) and after (right) the Luftwaffe bomb attack

On 14 September the French Air attaché in Warsaw reported to Paris that "... the German Air Force acted in accordance to the international laws of war [...] and bombed only targets of military nature. Therefore, there is no reason for French retorsions." Three days later Warsaw was surrounded by the Wehrmacht, and hundreds of thousands of leaflets were dropped on the city, instructing the citizens to evacuate the city pending a possible bomber attack. By then, Warsaw itself was a fortress garrisoned by some 150,000 men and therefore no longer an 'open city', so under the international rules of warfare it could be subjected to wholesale bombardment, . On 25 September the Luftwaffe flew 1,150 sorties and dropped 560 tonnes of high explosive and 72 tonnes of incendiaries. To conserve the strength of the bomber units for the upcoming western campaign, the modern He 111 bombers were replaced by Ju 52 transports using "worse than primitive methods" for the bombing. Due to prevailing strong winds they achieved poor accuracy, even causing some casualties to besieging German troops. As result of the aerial and artilerry bombardment, intense street fighting between German infantry and armor units and Polish infantry and artillery 10 percent of the buildings in the city were destroyed, and 40,000 civilian casualties were inflicted.

On the Western Front, the early months of the conflict were characterised by propaganda warfare: bomber forces of both sides carried out a series of leaflet raids during the winter months of 1939/40. The British and French declared war on Germany on 3 September. The British Royal Air Force bombed warships and port installations in Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Heligoland in Germany. Britain struck first against Germany, 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, and the UK proceeded to bomb the German industrial Ruhr Valley, including Cologne.

Rotterdam Blitz

Main article: Rotterdam Blitz

The Germans wanted to invade France through Holland and strike a quick blow that would end the war. However, the Germans met heavy resistance along the way. Frustrated, the Germans used the threat of bombing 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 that their effort had failed. As legend has it, a Dutch plenipotentiary and other negotiators, delayed, were on their way over to German lines when, on 14 May 1940, the carpet bombing of the city centre began. Eight- to nine-hundred civilians 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. Nearly twenty-five thousand homes, 24 churches, 2,320 stores, 775 warehouses and 62 schools were destroyed. The Dutch surrendered.

The British policy of only targeting enemy civilian property inside combat zones, was abandoned on 15 May 1940, one day after the Rotterdam Blitz, when the RAF was given permission to attack targets in the Ruhr, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets which aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces that at night were self-illuminating. The first RAF raid on the interior of Germany took place on the night of 15/16 May.

May 1940 to 1942

As Battle of France commneced on 10 May 1940, three German bombers from KG 51 mistakenly bombing the German city of Freiburg instead of the French airfield of Dole-Taveux, having lost their way over the Black Forest. German propaganda was quick to announce it as an Allied 'terror attack', and it was not until 1956 when the mistake was brought to light by researchers. As the Germans advanced into France, the first British bombs fell on a German city, Mönchengladbach, on the night of 11/12 May 1940, while Bomber Command was attempting to hit roads and railroads near the Dutch-German border; four people were killed. Targets in Gelsenkirchen were attacked first on the 14/15, followed by Cologne on May 15, 1940.

On 14 May 1940, Luftwaffe bombers were ordered to bomb Rotterdam in an effort to force the capitulation of the besieged city. The controversial bombing targeted the center of the besieged city, instead of providing direct tactical support for the hard-pressed German 22nd infantry division (under Lt. Gen. Sponeck, which had airlanded on May 10) in combat with Dutch forces northwest of the city, and in the eastern part of the city at the Meuse river bridge.> As negotiations for the surrender were in progress, an unsuccessful attempt was made to call off the assault. Nevertheless, 57 He-111's (out of 100) did drop 97 tons of bombs, and in the resulting fire 1.1 square miles (2.8 km²) of the city center was devastated, including 21 churches and 4 hospitals, and killing between 800-1000 civilians, wounding over 1,000, and making 78,000 homeless. International news agencies vastly exaggerated the events, portraying Rotterdam as a city mercilessly destroyed by terror bombing without regard to civilian life, with 30,000 dead lying under the ruins. Neither claim was true: the bombing was against well-defined targets, in direct support of advancing German Army's operations. The Germans had threatened to bomb Utrecht in the same fashion, the threat of a second such bombing was sufficient to force the surrender of the Netherlands to Nazi Germany.

Following the attack on Rotterdam, Bomber Command was authorized to attack German targets east of the Rhine on May 15, 1940; the Air ministry authorized Air Marshal Charles Portal to conduct attacks on rail and communications targets only; to attack targets in the Ruhr, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets which aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces (which at night were self-illuminating). Bomber Command's strategic bombing campaign on Germany has thus begun. On the night of May 17/18, Bomber Command bombed oil installations in Hamburg and Bremen: the H.E. and 400 incendiaries dropped caused six large, one moderately large and 29 small fires, 47 people were killed and 127 were wounded; . Railway yards at Cologne were attacked on the same night. During May, Essen, Duisburg, Dusseldorf and Hanover were similiarly attacked for the first time by Bomber Command, while in June attacks were made on Dortmund, Mannheim, Frankfurt and Bochum. As at the time Bomber Command lacked the necessary navigational and bombing technical background, the accuracy of the bombings during the night attacks was abysmal, and the bombs usually being scattered over a large area, causing an uproar in Germany. Days after Germany bombed Paris, the French bombed Berlin, between the 7th and 8th of June 1940.

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz

Main articles: Battle of Britain and The Blitz

On 22 June France signed an armistice with Germany. However, Britain was determined to keep fighting. On 1/2 July, the British attacked German warships Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen in port of Kiel and the next day, 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.

Hitler's No. 17 Directive, issued 1 August 1940 on the conduct of war against England specifically forbade Luftwaffe to conduct terror raids on its own initiative, and reserved the right of ordering terror attacks as means of reprisal for the Führer himself, despite the raids conducted by RAF Bomber Command against industries located in German cities since May 1940. This was echoed in Göring's general order issued on 30 June, 1940 on the the air war against the island fortress:

The war against England is to be restricted to destructive attacks against industry and air force targets which have weak defensive forces. ... The most thorough study of the target concerned, that is vital points of the target, is a pre-requisite for success. It is also stressed that every effort should be made to avoid unnecessary loss of life amongst the civilian population.

On August 8 1940, the Germans switched to raids on RAF fighter bases. To reduce losses, the Luftwaffe also began to use increasing numbers of bombers at night. By the last week of August, over half the missions were flown under the cover of dark. Despite Hitler's orders not to attack London, the city had already been bombed on 15 August, resulting in 60 deaths. There were further minor attacks on London at night in August, on the 18/19, 22/23, 24/25, 25/26 and 28/29. The raid of 22/23 August, the first Luftwaffe raid on central London, was described as 'extensive' by British observers. On August 24, fate took a turn, and several off-course German bombers accidentally bombed residential areas of London. The next day, the RAF bombed Berlin for the first time, targeting Tempelhof airfield and the Siemens factories in Siemenstadt, but were seen as indiscriminate bombings by the Germans due to their inaccuracy, and infuriated Hitler; he ordered that the 'night piracy of the British' be countered by a concentrated night offensive against the island, and especially London. In a public speech in Berlin on 4 September 1940, Hitler announced that:

"The other night the English had bombed Berlin. So be it. But this is a game at which two can play. When the British Air Force drops 2000 or 3000 or 4000 kg of bombs, then we will drop 150 000, 180 000, 230 000, 300 000, 400 000 kg on a single night. When they declare they will attack our cities in great measure, we will eradicate their cities. The hour will come when one of us will break - and it will not be National Socialist Germany!"

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

The Luftwaffe, which Hitler had prohibited from bombing civilian areas in the UK, was now ordered to bomb British cities. The Blitz was underway. Göring - at Kesselring's urging and with Hitler's support- turned to a massive assault on the British capital. On 7 September, 318 bombers from the whole KG 53 supported by eight other Kampfgruppen, flew almost continuous sorties against London, the dock area which was already in flames from earlier daylight attacks. The attack of 7 September 1940 did not entirely step over the line into a clear terror bombing effort since its primary target was the London docks, but there was clearly an assumed hope of terrorizing the London population. Another 250 bomber sorties were flown 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. Sir Basil Collier, author of 'The Defence of the United Kingdom', the HMSO's official history, wrote:

Although the plan adopted by the Luftwaffe early September had mentioned attacks on the population of large cities, detailed records of the raids made during the autumn and the winter of 1940-41 does not suggest that indiscriminate bombing of the civilians was intended. The points of aim selected were largely factories and docks. Other objectives specifically allotted to bomber-crews included the City of London and the governmental quarter rounds Whitehall.

— Sir Basil Collier

Over the year, an escalating war of electronic technology developed: before the war, German scientists developed 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 disrupting the daily lives of the civilian population, the bombing of Britain failed to have an impact. British air defenses became more formidable, and attacks tapered off as Germany concentrated its attacks on the Soviet Union.

Germany later in war

Main articles: Operation Steinbock and Vergeltungswaffen

The period of uneasy calm came to an end in April 1942 when, following a destructive RAF attack on the Hanseatic medieval city of Lübeck, Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to retaliate, leading to the so-called Baedeker Blitz:

The Führer has ordered that the air war against England be given a more aggressive stamp. Accordingly, when targets are being selected, preference is to be given to those where attacks are likely to have the greatest possible effect on civillian life. Besides raids on ports and industry, terror attacks or retaliatory nature are to be carried out against towns other than London. Minelaying is to be scaled down in favour of these attacks.

— Signal from the Führer's headquarters to the Luftwaffe High Command, 14 April 1942.

In January 1944, renewed attempt to strike a blow on British morale took the form of the unsuccessful 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.

British historian, Frederick Taylor asserts that "All sides bombed each other's cities during the war. Half a million Soviet citizens, for example, died from German bombing during the invasion and occupation of Russia. That's roughly equivalent to the number of German citizens who died from Allied raids."

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.

An elderly lady in front of the bodies of school children in Braunschweig, Germany, after a bombing raid

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 across the English Channel against Germany. 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. Chief of the British Air Staff MRAF Sir Charles Portal was put in charge of 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

Within Asia the majority of strategic bombing was carried out by the Japanese and the US. the British commonwealth planned that once the war in Europe was complete, a strategic bombing force of up to 1,000 heavy bombers ("Tiger force") would be sent to the Far East. This was never realised before the end of the Pacific War.

Japanese bombing

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	90%
Nagasaki	45%

After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities the United States under President Harry Truman conducted nuclear attacks on the Empire of Japan.

On 6 August, 1945, the "Little Boy" enriched uranium nuclear 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 of the residential populations on the days of the bombings. 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

Notes

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
• Collier, Basil. The Defence of the United Kingdom. HMSO, 1957. OCLC 59930716
• Corum, James. (2007). The Luftwaffe: The Operational Air War, 1918-1940. University of Kansas Press. ISBN 0-7006-0836-2
• Davis, Richard G. (2006) Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945. Alabama: Air University Press
• Deist, Wilhelm. Boog, Horst, Maier, Klaus Autbert. Rahn, Werner. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. (2001). Germany and the Second World War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198228882
• 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.
• Hastings, Max (1979). RAF Bomber Command. Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-39204-2
• Hinchcliffe, Peter (1996) The other battle : Luftwaffe night aces versus Bomber Command. Airlife Publishing, ISBN 9781853105470
• Hooton, E.R (1994). Phoenix Triumphant; The Rise and Rise of the Luftwaffe. London: Arms & Armour Press. ISBN 1 86019 964 X
• Hooton, E.R (1997). Eagle in Flames; The Fall of the Luftwaffe. London: Arms & Armour Press. ISBN 1 86019 995 X
• Hooton, E.R (2007). Luftwaffe at War; Gathering Storm 1933-39: Volume 1. London: Chervron/Ian Allen. ISBN 978-1-903223-71-7.
• Hooton, E.R (2007). Luftwaffe at War; Blitzkrieg in the West: Volume 2. London: Chervron/Ian Allen. ISBN 978-1-85780-272-6.
• Jane`s (1989). All the World's Aircraft 1940/41/42/43/44/45. London, Random House, ISBN 1 85170 199 0
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• Murray, Willamson. (1983). Strategy for defeat. The Luftwaffe 1935-1945. Air Power Research Institute. ISBN 9780160021602
• 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
• Poeppel, Hans and Prinz von Preußen, Wilhelm-Karl and von Hase, Karl-Günther. (2000) Die Soldaten der Wehrmacht. Herbig Verlag. ISBN 978-3776620573
• Price, Alfred. Kampfflieger -Bombers of the Luftwaffe January 1942-Summer 1943, Volume 3. 2005, Classic Publications. ISBN 978-1903223499
• Ray, John. The Night Blitz. Booksales. ISBN 978-0-7858-1601-0
• Smith, J. Richard and Creek, Eddie J. (2004). Kampflieger. Vol. 2.: Bombers of the Luftwaffe July 1940 - December 1941. Classic Publications. ISBN 978-1903223420
• Smith, J. Richard and Creek, Eddie J. (2004). Kampflieger. Vol. 2.: Bombers of the Luftwaffe July 1940 - December 1941. Classic Publications. ISBN 978-1903223437
• Spector, Ronald (1985). Eagle Against the Sun. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-394-74101-7
• Taylor, Frederick. (2005) 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.
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• Wood & Dempster (1990) The Narrow Margin Chapter "Second Phase" ISBN 978-0-87474-929-8
• Wood, Derek and Dempster, Derek. (1990). The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power, London: Tri-Service Press, third revised edition. ISBN 1-854-88027-6.

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