Strategic Bombing

Strategic Bombing (Battleplan Series) US aircrew bomb the Nazi heartland as World War Two approaches its climax. American Super Fortresses devastate Japan in early 1945. The ultimate aim of strategic bombing is to win wars without fighting on the ground. lt takes war to the heartland of the enemy. lt strikes not simply at military targets, but at industry and infrastructure - even civilians. lt seeks to destroy not just the enemy's ability to wage war, but also his will to fight on at all. As World War Two began, the potential of strategic bombing aloneto win a war was still just a theory. This conflict would be its first great test. The battleplan is strategic bombing. Western Europe, early 1942. After more than a year fighting alone against Hitler, Britain now has allies. But how can she and the United States strike directly at the heart of the Nazi Empire? The Pacific, 1942. Three months after Pearl Harbor. Japan occupies much of the Pacific and Far East. Now the United States plans to push Japan back across the ocean. But how can it take the war to the Japanese home islands? ln both cases, the answer is strategic bombing. A still untried battleplan which its most extreme enthusiasts claim can win wars without the need for any ground fighting. They believe that precision bombing of the enemy's military infrastructure will shatter its ability to wage war, while sustained attacks on civilian targets will destroy the will to go on fighting. The two great battlefronts of World War Two, Europe and the Pacific, will be the proving ground for this audacious theory. On St Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1942, the British RAF Bomber Command receives a new boss - Air Marshal Arthur Harris. The public nickname him Bomber, but his men call him Butch, short for butcher. He is determined to prove that an unrelenting strategic bombing campaign can win the war. For Harris and the RAF, the idea that one could destroy German morale by bombing cities was a matter of faith. lt was not something that could be proven or disproven empirically. lt was the Holy Grail - it was the idea around which the whole organization had been built. Soon after Harris takes command, the heavy bombers of the US 8th Air Force begin arriving in Britain. Like Harris, their commander, General lra Eaker, is convinced that his aircraft hold the key to victory. And so do his subordinates, like Colonel Curtis Le May. Just two years later, he will play a key role in using this new battleplan in the Pacific. To prove they are right, these men must satisfy the fundamentals of the strategic bombing battleplan. Objective; Commanders must be realistic about what they hope to achieve with devastating attacks on industrial and civilian targets. Tactics; They must select methods that make the best use of available weaponry, because more than almost any other battleplan, strategic bombing tactics are dependent on the next requirement. Technology; Tactics are critically shaped by the weapons used both for attack and defence. New technological developments can have a fundamental effect on this battleplan. When compared to other battleplans, strategic bombing is one where tactics and technology are tightly interwoven. This means that commanders must show Flexibility. lf one tactic fails or technology changes, they must be able to adapt. But while doing so, they must never lose sight of their final objective. They must also show Ruthlessness. They must be prepared to press on despite horrendous loss of life, both to enemy civilians and their own air crews. Strategic bombing was born during World War One. By its end, the first British and German long-range bombers were striking deep behind the lines to attack enemy infrastructure and cities. During the 1920s and '30s, enthusiasts dreamed that air bombardment would become decisive. Heavy bombers would be the only weapons needed to win a war. People hoped that strategic bombing would be a way out of the attrition of the trenches. They really believed it would give them a short decisive war. But the early years of World War Two did not live up to this expectation. When the German Luftwaffe attempted to bomb Britain into defeat during the Blitz, it failed. Cities were severely damaged, but civilian morale showed no sign of crumbling. Nevertheless, as they take command of their nation's bomber forces in the European theatre, neither Air Marshal Harris nor General Eaker have any doubts. This time it will be different. They must now consider the first requirement in the battleplan for strategic bombing. Objective. The need to set an achievable goal for their still-unproven battleplan. ln Europe, in 1942, the bomber has not yet delivered a stunning victory. But Harris and Eaker are confident their air forces can mount a round-the-clock bombing campaign that will bring the German war machine to its knees and force a surrender. Harris is chillingly direct. There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet and we shall see. Germany will make a most interesting initial experiment. Harris had neither doubts nor qualms about the methods he would use. For him, the Germans had sown the wind with their bombing of British cities, and now they would reap the whirlwind. The same determination will spur on the commanders in the Pacific during 1944. But to achieve this very ambitious aim of outright victory through strategic bombing alone, the US and British commanders adopt very different approaches to the next requirement. Tactics. What methods will they use to achieve their bold objective? For Harris, it is the utter devastation of German cities and the crushing of civilian morale that will lead to surrender. He is aware that in July 1940, the RAF began a strategic bombing campaign that proved ineffective, with appalling casualties for its air crews. When the war began, RAF Bomber Command was convinced that its aircraft would be able to fight their way in daylight to any target. Before the Blitz, it limited attacks to military targets, not wanting to give the Germans any reason to start bombing cities and civilians. Early raids against German naval bases proved disastrous, with the aircraft being slaughtered by the fast, modern Messerschmitt BF-109. Daylight raids were abandoned, and Bomber Command switched to dropping propaganda leaflets by night over German cities. When France was defeated in June, 1940, Britain stood alone against the Nazis. RAF Bomber Command was the only way she could strike back quickly against her enemy. lts commander, Air Marshal Charles Portal, was instructed to develop a strategic night bombing campaign. He identified the German synthetic oil plants as a vital target, and developed a plan to attack them. A campaign began in July, 1940, but the results proved disappointing. Navigation was difficult, and the existing bombers, mainly Wellingtons, too light to do much damage. Casualties also continued to be high as German defences improved. ln mid-1941, RAF Bomber Command receives a body blow, a top-secret government report reveals how ineffective its tactics are. Only about 25% of the bombs are being dropped even within five miles of the target. Against the vital and heavily-defended Ruhr industrial belt, this figure plummets to just 10%. And to achieve even this miserable result, the crew losses are appalling. ln one 4-month period, Bomber Command loses the equivalent of its entire front-line strength. British tactics were definitely failing. lt's an extraordinary fact that more air crew were being killed on these raids than Germans were being killed by the bombs that were being dropped. lt was a disaster. Despite all the evidence, Bomber Harris is certain that he has the key to success. ln language made famous in a different war, he would bomb the enemy 'back to the Stone Age'. Now he gets the freedom and firepower to show how this will work. The European theatre, February, 1942. RAF Air Marshal Arthur Harris is instructed to abandon attempts to strike specific targets, and to use night bombing to devastate industrial cities. ln the spectrum of conflict, area bombing is a significant upward gear change. lt's a statement of intent, a violent statement of intent. Senior US commanders have a very different approach - surgically-precise daylight bombing will bring Germany's war machine to a grinding halt. The Pacific theatre, June, 1944. For more than two-and-a-half years, the problem for the US has been distance. lts nearest island bases in the Pacific are more than 3,000 miles from Japan - well out of bomber range. Even the nearest friendly territory, south-west China, is more than 1,200 miles away and vulnerable to Japanese ground attack. But now, the US air commanders are also certain that precisely-targeted daylight strategic bombing can knock Japan out of the war. Their confidence in this tactic is based on a dramatic upgrade in the third factor in planning an effective strategic bombing battleplan. Technology. All are convinced they now have the weaponry to overcome any previous difficulties. The European theatre, February, 1942. Just as Harris takes over, the new four-engine heavy bombers, which Britain has been developing since the mid-1930s start arriving. First, the Short Stirling with a range of 590 miles with a 14,000lb bomb load, compared to the 4,000lbs carried by previous aircraft. Then, the Handley Page Halifax – same bomb load but range almost 1,000 miles. And finally, the superb Avro Lancaster, which could carry 14,000lbs of bombs over 1,600 miles. Harris reaped the benefit of his predecessors' foresight, which provided him with the tools he needed to execute his concept. At the end of May, 1942, Harris stages a PR coup - a 1,000-bomber raid against Cologne. He uses the first few Stirlings and every other aircraft available. ln just 90 minutes 2,500 fires are started, 3,300 buildings destroyed and 469 people killed. lt is a portent of things to come. But for the rest of 1942 Harris builds up RAF Bomber Command's strength and prepares Thunderclap - his scheme to destroy German civilian morale by a series of cataclysmic raids on her cities. To succeed, he must improve the accuracy of his new bombers. And he must find ways of getting them through Germany's increasingly deadly air defences. Here again, technology comes to his aid. British scientists develop radio-direction systems - First Oboe, which guides the bombers to their target, and then Gee, which tells a new Pathfinder force precisely when to mark the target with coloured flares. Technology also helps Harris tackle the German radar screen - the key to their air defences. British scientists come up with Window, later known as Chaff - clouds of metal foil strips, which are dropped to jam the German signals. By the beginning of 1943, Bomber Harris seems to have the tools necessary to carry out his battleplan. The Americans in Europe also have a new generation of heavy bombers for their daylight, high-level tactics. The four-engined B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator are designed to be real flying fortresses, carrying 10 or 12 machine guns to defend themselves. Flying in massive formations, which give mutually supporting arcs of fire, they will fight their way through to their targets. Existing fighters lack the range to accompany these flying fortresses into Germany. But the US commanders have bought totally into the pre-war belief that heavily-armed bombers will always get through, despite some pretty strong evidence to the contrary. The stated concept was the bomber would always get through, and yet we knew before the war that this wasn't true. Pre-war American exercises actually showed this in red-on-blue exercises. When the fighters or pursuit planes would come up, they very frequently intercepted the bombers. This was all ignored, because the bomber guys thought they really had to prove their case - the bomber would always get through. The US commanders also believe that technology has given them the means to bomb with extraordinary accuracy - the Norden bombsight. The claim was that it allowed you to hit a pickle barrel from 10,000 feet. The Pacific theatre, June, 1944. Technology at last gives US commanders the heavy bomber they need. Specially designed for the strategic bombing of Japan, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress represents cutting-edge technology. Ten machine guns and a 20mm cannon give it massive firepower. lt can reach a height of 30,000 feet with its crew in a pressurised cabin. The B-29 can carry 20,000lbs of bombs and has a new radar-controlled bombsight. This mighty machine can carry this massive bomb load over 1,900 miles. Now at last, Japan is within reach of bases in China. The European theatre, August 21st, 1942. General Eaker personally leads the first US bombing raid - a dozen B-17 s against the marshaling yards at Rouen in northern France. This first attack is highly successful - no aircraft are lost, and the marshalling yard appears to have been hit. More raids on French targets follow. Casualties are low and the tactics seem to be working. But US commanders are very aware their bombers haven't yet ventured alone, beyond the range of their fighters and into the full fury of the enemy's defences. lt was only when the American Air Force went from flying over France to flying over Germany that the American commanders would really know whether their tactics worked. January 27th, 1943. 91B-17 s and B-24s attack the German naval base at Wilhelmshafen. Remarkably, only three bombers fail to return. lt's the first mission for the US 8th Air Force over the Nazi Homeland and the omens look good. They keep this up, and strategic bombing could live up to its hype, and win the war all by itself. The European theatre, March 5th, 1943. A few weeks after the first successful US raid on Germany, RAF Bomber Command puts its new tactics and technology to their full test. Air Marshal Harris sends 442 heavy bombers against the key German industrial city of Essen. 35 Pathfinder Mosquitoes mark the approach with yellow flares, then pinpoint the target, the Krupp industrial complex, with glowing red indicators. A wave of Pathfinder heavy bombers follows, with even more accurate targeting markers. The stage is set for the main bomber force. ln just 38 minutes it drops 1,070 tonnes of high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Krupps is badly damaged. 160 acres of the city of Essen are totally destroyed. 30,000 people are made homeless. Just 14 aircraft have been lost - 3% of the force. Very roughly, commanders of the period believed that anything below 5% meant that crews had a good chance of surviving their tour of duty. For the British also, the omens look good. The Pacific theatre, June, 1944. 50 B-29s flying from a base at Chendu in south-east China bomb a steel works at Yawata on the southern island of Japan. Losses are light. As had been the case in Europe the previous year, the US air commanders in the Pacific are full of confidence at the start of their bombing campaign. August, 1944, US troops take the Marianas lslands. Now bombers can be based only 1,600 miles from Japan, allowing US commanders to continue with high-level daylight tactics. The European theatre, spring, 1943. The first raid on Germany by the US 8th Air Force has been a success. But the Luftwaffe is learning. On April 17th, 1943, 115 US bombers assault Bremen. 14% are lost, and another 38% seriously damaged. June 13th, 1943. 60 B-17 s mount a high-altitude precision raid on Kiel. 22 planes, 35% of the force, are shot down. The men who flew those missions into Germany faced a harsh reality. The Germans had built the world's first integrated air defence system - this is radar, searchlights, anti-aircraft guns and fighters, lots of fighters, all capable of blowing a bomber out of the sky. US commanders revise the bombers' defensive patterns, but the losses continue. On August 17th, the 8th undertakes its most ambitious mission yet. The targets are an Me109 factory at Regensburg and ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt. Both are in southern Germany, and considerably deeper into the country than any previous target. Fighters can escort them only to the Belgian border. From there, the bombers will be harried by German fighters for literally hundreds of miles. 147 bombers take part in the Regensburg mission - 24 are lost. 36 out of 231are shot down during the Schweinfurt raid. The same loss rate of 16% for both missions raises serious questions about the ability of the B-17 to defend itself, even en masse. The figures get worse during September and October. The average loss rate rises to around 20%. For American crewmen, the chance of completing a 25-mission tour is virtually zero. These people knew they were flying to their death. During the summer of 1943, 8th Air Force bomber groups had 100% casualties every three months. The reason we have 25-year-old colonels in the air force is that everybody over 25 is dead. The problem is obvious - the technology of their defensive armament is not sufficient. The bombers must have escorts. But they are flying beyond the range of any existing fighters. Once their escorts have to leave them, they're sitting ducks. For a brief period in early October, 1943, things suddenly look better. Extra fuel tanks, called drop tanks, increase the range of P-47 Thunderbolt fighters so that they can cover western Germany, including the Ruhr area. The tanks are jettisoned just before the pilots go into action. But the Germans learn to hit the P-47 s as they cross the coast, forcing them to drop their tanks. This reduces their range to little more than it had been before. ln despair, the US 8th Air Force gives up its long-distance daylight raids on Germany. This is the moment of truth. US tactics won't work until a technological solution can be found. RAF Bomber Command had also been optimistic after the success of its assault on Essen in March, 1943. Massive attacks continue in what Harris calls the Battle of the Ruhr, but gradually the Luftwaffe adapts to the British tactics, and loss rates begin to increase, soon exceeding the crucial 5% rate at which crews had a significant chance of surviving. ln July, 1943, Harris reacts by switching his assault away from the Ruhr and onto Hamburg. On the night of July 24th, 1943, Window is used for the first time. lt's an enormous success. Out of 791aircraft used, only 3% are lost, and the city centre is wiped out. One million citizens flee. lt looks as if technology has given Harris the upper hand again. Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments would later write that a few more raids like the one on Hamburg would bring Germany to its knees. But the Luftwaffe soon develops new tactics to counter the RAF advantage, and British losses begin to mount again. Worse, as winter, 1943, draws in, the Germans are showing no sign of buckling under the Allied onslaught. Pacific theatre, winter, 1944. Things are also going disastrously wrong for the US strategic bombing campaign, despite its encouraging start. As in Europe two years earlier, only a tiny percentage of its bombs are getting anywhere near the target. The problem is that the B-29s are now flying so high, they are being buffeted by the jet stream. Against the winds, they are blown backwards. But with them, they are racing in at more than 500mph. And the Japanese fighter defences are unexpectedly effective. Without escorts, the Superfortress's armament proves inadequate. US losses reach crisis point. Crews cannot expect to survive more than 16 missions. Like the British and US strategic bombing campaigns in Europe, US tactics and technology in the Pacific aren't working. The vaunted strategic bombing campaigns, hyped as the battleplan to end all battleplans, have reached a crisis, with losses of catastrophic proportions. Winter, 1943, Europe, and winter, 1944, the Pacific. For the strategic bombing commanders in both the theatres, their plans are falling apart. The time has come to show the fourth requirement in this battleplan. Flexibility. Commanders must be prepared to shift gear and adapt their battleplans in the face of failed tactics or new technologies. The European theatre, winter, 1943. For the US commanders the problem is simple, but deadly - without an effective long-range fighter escort, their bombers are doomed. The solution comes in the sleek shape of the P-51B Mustang, the outstanding fighter of World War Two. lts operational range, with drop tanks, is 1,300 miles, allowing it to escort the bombers to Berlin and beyond. lts performance means it can out-fly almost all German aircraft sent against it, including on occasions even the jet-powered Me-262. The US commanders recognize the enormous potential of the P-51B, and order it in bulk. By the beginning of 1944, the P-51B is coming into squadron service. Armed with this new weapon, the US commanders now begin Operation Argument, a systematic attempt to destroy the Luftwaffe. Beginning February 20th, in what becomes known as Big Week, bombers destroy or damage 68% of the factories making German fighters, while the Mustangs go after those in the air. lt is difficult to understate the amazing effect that the Mustang had on the course of the air campaign. The effect is immediate and US bomber losses drop to less than 3.5%. European theatre, spring, 1944. While the 8th Air Force is starting to reap the benefit of its new fighter, the situation for RAF Bomber Commandis going from bad to worse. ln November, 1943, Harris beginswhat he calls the Battle of Berlin. Through to March, 1944, RAF Bomber Command mounts 16 major attacks on the German capital, and 19 against other cities. An average of more than 500 bombers goes on each raid. lncendiaries are combined with high explosive to produce firestorms that devastate large areas of the cities, and kill tens of thousands of civilians. lt is Harris's great attempt to prove that his strategic bombing battleplan will work. But as the bombing continues, it is at a dreadful cost to the RAF. The Luftwaffe recovers from the devastating shock of Window. lts new tactics send British losses soaring again. Bomber Command losses average 10%. The life expectancy of an RAF bomber crew in 1943 was less than that of a junior officer on the Somme in the trenches in the First World War. By March, 1944, the 8th Air Force's new commander, Carl Spaatz, privately writes that Harris is all washed up. RAF crews get a three month break from the slaughter, when the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe, US General Dwight D Eisenhower, insists on diverting the heavy bombers to prepare for the D-Day landings. Pacific theatre, winter, 1944. For the US commanders, their losses are so great that strategic bombing cannot go on unless changes are made. lt has always been a mystery why men who had seen the failure of unescorted, daylight raids over Germany during 1943 should have insisted on trying exactly the same tactics over Japan in 1944. The simple answer is the B-29 itself. From the moment it rolled off a line in Wichita, it obsoleted every other bomber in the world by every other nation. And it was such an improvement in so many ways, that they really believed that they finally had the tool that could go ahead and break a nation just through bombing. Then, in late January, 1945, the main bomber unit conducting the campaign, 21Bomber Command in the Marianas, receives a new commander, General Curtis LeMay. An experienced leader who had flown many combat missions over Germany. He sees immediately the tactical change which needs to be made. LeMay orders his men to switch to low level night attacks, so that the jet stream can't blow them off course. He also orders his bombers to carry incendiaries as well as explosives. Japanese cities are made largely of wood, and fire will be devastating. February 4th, 1945, 69 B-29s drop over 150 tonnes of incendiaries on the Japanese port of Kobe. lt is devastated. On February 25th and March 4th, the new tactic is tested against the big one, Tokyo. ln the first raid, 30,000 buildings are gutted. LeMay's new plan is working. ln both the European and Pacific theatres, the US commanders have shown flexibility. The course of each campaign has been transformed. But Bomber Harris will not be deterred from his obsession with area bombing. With the US bombers back over Germany, he is convinced that despite the grievous losses his young men are suffering, a combined day and night assault will finally show that strategic bombing can win the war. More than any other Allied commander in World War Two, Harris is showing the last essential requirement in the battleplan for strategic bombing. Ruthlessness. The men in charge must be prepared to press on, despite massive killing of the enemy's civilians and their own air crews. General LeMay admitted quite candidly that if the United States had lost the Second World War, he reckoned he would have been arraigned as a war criminal. European theatre, July, 1944. Eisenhower's use of heavy bombers to cut transportation and communication links to the Normandy area is extremely successful. lt suggests that had the bomber barons been prepared to use their forces single-mindedly to weaken the enemy's ability to continue fighting, rather than pursuing the dream of single-handedly ending the war, their battleplan would've had a much more achievable objective. Once the Normandy beachhead is secure, Harris and Spaatz again adopt differing tactics. Spaatz targets Germany's oil production - the lifeblood of her war machine. His Oil Plan puts German fuel supplies into free fall. Not only are German ground forces unable to move with any freedom, but the Luftwaffe runs out of fuel to fly the aircraft which the ingenuity of Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments, has kept supplying. The effectiveness of the plan is shown by the story of just one plant - Leuna in Eastern Germany. May 28th, 1944, a US raid puts it out of production. Early July, it's back to 75% capacity. July 7th, bombers close it down again. July 19th, Leuna is back to 35% capacity. July, August, September, October, early November, bomber attacks keep it closed down. November 20th, Leuna is running again, at 28% capacity. The campaign against Leuna lasts one year. The 8th Air Force and the RAF fly 6,552 bomber sorties against the plant, and drop 18,328 tons of bombs. From the first attack to the last, production at Leuna averages 9% of capacity. Despite evidence of the success of Spaatz's tactics, Bomber Harris obsessively refuses to join in until instructed to do so on pain of dismissal. RAF Bomber Command continues to attack German cities, even though there is little left of most of them to destroy, and there is no sign of civilian morale collapsing. One reason that the Allies overestimated the effect of strategic bombardment was that they failed to realize the Germans were much more afraid of their own government than of British and American bombs. Then, on February 13th, 1945, comes the single raid which today symbolises the horror of Air Marshal Harris's concept of strategic bombing. ln one night, and against no opposition, the RAF drops 2,690 tonnes of bombs on the virtually untouched city of Dresden. The city becomes an inferno - visible to aircrews over 200 miles away. Next day, American bombers wreak further fire and destruction. About 25,000 deaths are estimated to have been caused. Even Winston Churchill is appalled by the destruction. But Harris is unrepentant, claiming that Dresden was an important transportation centre. The bombing of Dresden ignites an argument about the morality of strategic bombing of civilians, which continues to this day. But on the other side of the world, an even more devastating campaign is also reaching its climax in a firestorm of destruction and controversy. The Pacific theatre, March, 1945. The success of his first low-level night raids against major Japanese cities inspires Curtis LeMay to greater ruthlessness. On the 9th, he orders a fire raid on Tokyo. Pathfinders put down napalm markers for the main bomber force. They drop canisters, which explode 100 feet from the ground, throwing out dozens of napalm cylinders, and starting scores of small fires to mark the target. Then, waves totalling 325 Superfortresses come in at low-level. 2,000 tonnes of incendiaries are dropped on a 12-mile-square area. The glow can be seen 150 miles away. Only 14 of the B-29s are lost. Just 4%. Between 80,000 and 200,000 people die. lt's the most destructive raid in the history of strategic bombing, even including the atomic bomb attacks five months later. More low-level fire raids follow during March on key cities like Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe. During April, May and June, LeMay launches strikes of up to 500 bombers every other day. During July, the raids become even more frequent. Sometimes five cities are attacked in one day. Half a million Japanese die, and 13 million are made homeless. Yet the Japanese show no sign of being ready to stop fighting. Once again, the capacity of civilians to stand up to strategic bombardment had been grossly underestimated. Only the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, lead to surrender. lronically, it is only now, with the atomic bomb, that strategic bombing fulfills its great promise to win wars on its own. During World War Two, strategic bombing consumed huge amounts of resources and lives. More than 300,000 German and 700,000 Japanese civilians were killed. ln Europe, 45,000 men of the US 8th Air Force perish, and 56,000 of RAF Bomber Command. ln the Pacific, the figure is 10,000 US dead. Was this terrible cost worthwhile? And how well did the commanders who devised the strategic bombing battleplans in Europe and the Pacific fulfil the essential requirements? Objective. ln the European theatre, no matter how much Arthur Harris's bombers depleted German industry, the Germans never showed any sign of surrendering through strategic bombing alone. ln contrast, Carl Spaatz's assault on German oil production did play a major part in reducing resistance and helping the Allied armies. ln the Pacific, the US campaign, had pounded the Japanese mercilessly, but there was no sign of surrender. Tactics, technology and flexibility. Both in Europe and the Pacific the commanders based their tactics on the best available technology, and the US commanders at least showed themselves flexible enough to change when their losses showed that the tactics were not working. Ruthlessness. ln both Europe and the Pacific, commanders were ready to be as ruthless as needed for as long as necessary. But the awful truth is that it was never enough. Civilian casualties from strategic bombing never brought Britain or Germany to their knees. And it was only the atomic bomb which forced Japan to surrender. Undoubtedly, strategic bombing in both theatres did seriously damage the German and Japanese ability to resist. Massive resources had to be diverted for air defence. For example, by 1944, 70% of the Luftwaffe's fighter squadrons are involved in air-defence operations in the Western theatre. More than 500,000 men are involved in air defence. Germany has to divert key resources away from the front, in order to protect its cities. But ironically, it was only when they got a weapon which was too terrible ever to use again, that air forces could finally claim that strategic bombing had won a war. Lower level wars continued unabated throughout the Cold War. ln Vietnam, a massive campaign using strategic bombers did get the North Vietnamese to the peace table, and the US was able to extricate itself from that quagmire. But the North Vietnamese were not intimidated by further threats of bombing once the US troops had been withdrawn. Within a few years, they had taken over the South, and effectively won the war. Recently, the arrival of stealth, laser and then GPS-guided missiles and bombs, have given strategic bombers unheard of accuracy, and the virtual ability to strike without risking either their crews, or collateral civilian damage. Some air force theorists reacted just as they did after both world wars, claiming that new technology has finally given strategic bombing the ability to win wars on its own. But the old difficulty remains. The truth of the matter is, bombing does not break the will of a civilian population. ln fact, historically, all it's done is fortify it. l had the opportunity to talk to an lraqi once who had gone through both the 1991campaign, and the 2003 Shock and Awe campaign. He described it as, after a while, being like the weather. lt's something you had to go and put up with, but it really never affected the civilian population's will to fight and fight on.So what of the future of the strategic bombing battleplan? The debate as to whetherstrategic bombing can win wars will continue into the 21st Century. But one can't get away from the fact that ground needs to be consolidated, and as a result of that, the army must move in on the ground. But surely this should be enough for even strategic bombings most ardent advocates. ln the future, as in the past, strategic bombing will be vital for achieving victory. But it will not win that victory on its own unless atomic weapons are introduced. Today, that is the ultimate reality of this battleplan.

References

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