 |
| "The Bottisham Four," 26 July 1944. This iconic World War II photograph is one of a series depicting a flight of four North American P-51 Mustang fighters—three P-51Ds and one P-51B—of the 375th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force, based at Air Force Station F-374 (RAF Bottisham), Cambridgeshire, England, as they flew formation with a B-17 Flying Fortress camera ship from the 91st Bombardment Group (Heavy). None of these aircraft would survive the war. |
Air warfare was a major
component in all theaters of World War II, and, together with anti-aircraft
warfare, consumed a large fraction of the industrial output of the major
powers. Germany and Japan depended on air forces that were closely integrated
with land and naval forces; the Axis powers downplayed the advantage of fleets
of strategic bombers, and were late in appreciating the need to defend against
Allied strategic bombing. By contrast, Britain and the United States took an
approach that greatly emphasized strategic bombing, and (to a lesser degree)
tactical control of the battlefield by air, as well as adequate air defenses.
Both Britain and the U.S. built a substantially larger strategic forces of
large, long-range bombers. Simultaneously, they built tactical air forces that
could win air superiority over the battlefields, thereby giving vital
assistance to ground troops. The U.S. and Royal Navy also built a powerful
naval-air component based on aircraft carriers, as did the Japanese; these
played the central role in the war at sea.
Pre-war Planning
Before 1939, all sides
operated under largely theoretical models of air warfare. Italian theorist
Giulio Douhet in the 1920s summarized the faith that airmen during and after
World War I developed in the efficacy of strategic bombing. Many said it alone
could win wars, as "the bomber will always get through". The
Americans were confident that the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber could
reach targets, protected by its own weapons, and bomb, using the Norden
bombsight, with "pickle barrel" accuracy. Japanese aviation pioneers
felt that they had developed the finest naval aviators in the world.
Air Forces
Germany:
The Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe was the
aerial warfare branch of the Wehrmacht. Under the leadership of Hermann Göring,
it was able to learn and test new combat techniques in the Spanish Civil War.
The war also led to greater emphasis on anti-air weapons and fighter aircraft
due to their ability to defend against enemy bombers. Its advanced technology
and rapid growth led to exaggerated fears in the 1930s that helped to persuade
the British and French into appeasement. In the war the Luftwaffe performed
well in 1939–41, as its Stuka dive bombers terrified enemy infantry units. But
the Luftwaffe was poorly coordinated with overall German strategy, and never
ramped up to the size and scope needed in a total war, partly due to a lack of
military aircraft production infrastructure for both completed airframes and powerplants
when compared to either the Soviet Union or the United States. The Luftwaffe
was deficient in radar technology except for their usable UHF and later VHF
band airborne intercept radar designs such as the Lichtenstein and Neptun radar
systems for their night fighters. The Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter did not
enter service until July 1944, and the lightweight Heinkel He 162 appeared only
during the last months of the air war in Europe. The Luftwaffe could not deal
with Britain's increasingly lethal defensive fighter screen after the Battle of
Britain, or the faster P-51 Mustang escort fighters after 1943.
When
the Luftwaffe's fuel supply ran dry in 1944 due to the oil campaign of World
War II, it was reduced to anti-aircraft flak roles, and many of its men were
sent to infantry units. By 1944 it operated 39,000 flak batteries staffed with
a million people in uniform, both men and women.
The
Luftwaffe lacked the bomber forces for strategic bombing, because it did not
think such bombing was worthwhile, especially following the June 3, 1936, death
of General Walther Wever, the prime proponent of a strategic bomber force for
the Luftwaffe. They did attempt some strategic bombing in the east with the
problematic Heinkel He 177A. Their one success was destroying an airbase at
Poltava Air Base, Ukraine during the Allied Operation Frantic, which housed 43
new B-17 bombers and a million tons of aviation fuel.
Introduction
of turbojet-powered combat aircraft, mostly with the Messerschmitt Me 262
twin-jet fighter, the Heinkel He 162 light jet fighter and the Arado Ar 234
reconnaissance-bomber was pioneered by the Luftwaffe, but the delayed period
(1944–45) of their introduction – much of which was due to the lengthy
development time for both the BMW 003 and Junkers Jumo 004 jet engine
designs—as well as the failure to produce usable examples of their two
long-developed higher-power aviation engines, the Junkers Jumo 222 multibank
24-cylinder piston engine of some 2,500 hp, and the advanced Heinkel HeS 011
turbojet of nearly 2,800 lb. of thrust, each of which were meant to power many
advanced German airframe design proposals in the last years of the war—meant
that they were introduced "too little, too late", as so many other
advanced German aircraft designs (and indeed, many other German military weapon
systems) had been during the later war years.
Although
Germany's allies, especially Italy and Finland, had air forces of their own,
there was very little coordination with them. Not until very late in the war
did Germany share its aircraft and alternative fuel blueprints and technology
with its ally Japan, resulting in the Nakajima Kikka jet fighter and the
Mitsubishi Shusui rocket fighter, respectively based on the Me 262A and Me
163B—both of which, similarly, came far too late for Japan to improve its
defensive aircraft systems, or to make alternative fuels and lubricants.
Britain:
The Royal Air Force
The
British had their own very well-developed theory of strategic bombing, and
built the long-range bombers to implement it.
Once
it became clear that Germany was a threat, the RAF started on a large
expansion, with many airfields being set up and the number of squadrons
increased. From 42 squadrons with 800 aircraft in 1934, the RAF had reached 157
squadrons and 3,700 aircraft by 1939. They combined the newly developed radar
with communications centers to direct their fighter defenses. Their medium
bombers were capable of reaching the German industrial centre of the Ruhr, and
larger bombers were under development.
The
RAF underwent rapid expansion following the outbreak of war against Germany in
1939. This included the training in other Commonwealth nations (particularly
Canada) of half of British and Commonwealth aircrews, some 167,000 men in all.
It was the second largest in Europe. The RAF also integrated Polish and other
airmen who had escaped from Hitler's Europe. In Europe, the RAF was in
operational control of Commonwealth aircrews and Commonwealth squadrons
although these retained some degree of independence (such as the formation of
No. 6 Group RCAF to put Canadian squadrons together in a nationally identifiable
unit).
The
RAF had three major combat commands based in the United Kingdom: RAF Fighter
Command charged with defense of the UK, RAF Bomber Command (formed 1936) which
operated the bombers that would be offensive against the enemy, and RAF Coastal
Command which was to protect Allied shipping and attack enemy shipping. The
Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm operated land-based fighters in defense of naval
establishments and carrier-based aircraft. Later in the war the RAF's fighter
force was divided into two Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB) for protecting
the UK and the Second Tactical Air Force for ground offensive support in the
North West Europe campaign.
Bomber
Command participated in two areas of attack – the strategic bombing campaign
against German war production, and the less well known mining of coastal waters
off Germany (known as Gardening) to contain its naval operations and prevent
the U-boats from freely operating against Allied shipping. In order to attack
German industry by night the RAF developed navigational aids, tactics to
overwhelm the German defenses control system, tactics directly against German
night-fighter forces, target marking techniques, many electronic aids in
defense and attack, and supporting electronic warfare aircraft. The production
of heavy aircraft competed with resources for the Army and the Navy, and it was
a source of disagreement as to whether the effort could be more profitably expended
elsewhere.
Increasingly
heavy losses during the latter part of 1943 due to the reorganized Luftwaffe
night fighter system (Wilde Sau tactics), and Sir Arthur Harris' costly
attempts to destroy Berlin in the winter of 1943/44, led to serious doubts as
to whether Bomber Command was being used to its fullest potential. In early
1944 the UK air arm was put under Eisenhower's direct control where it played a
vital role in preparing the way for the Overlord Invasion.
Soviet
Union: Soviet Air Force
By
the end of the war, Soviet annual aircraft production had risen sharply with
annual Soviet production peaking at 40,000 aircraft in 1944. Some 157,000
aircraft were produced, of which 126,000 were combat types for the
Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily or VVS (as the Soviet Union named their air arm), while
the others were transports and trainers. The critical importance of the ground
attack role in defending the Soviet Union from the Axis' Operation Barbarossa
through to the final defeat of Nazi Germany with the Battle of Berlin resulted
in the Soviet military aviation industry creating more examples of the Ilyushin
Il-2 Shturmovik during the war than any other military aircraft design in
aviation history, with just over 36,000 examples produced.
During
the war the Soviets employed 7500 bombers to drop 30 million bombs on German
targets, with a density that sometimes reached 100–150 tons/ sq kilometer.
United
States: Army Air Forces
Before
the attack on Pearl Harbor and during the period within which the predecessor
U.S. Army Air Corps became the Army Air Forces in late June 1941, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt gave command of the Navy to an aviator, Admiral Ernest
King, with a mandate for an aviation-oriented war in the Pacific. FDR allowed
King to build up land-based naval and Marine aviation, and seize control of the
long-range bombers used in antisubmarine patrols in the Atlantic. Roosevelt
basically agreed with Robert A. Lovett, the civilian Assistant Secretary of War
for Air, who argued, "While I don't go so far as to claim that air power
alone will win the war, I do claim the war will not be won without it."
Army
Chief of Staff George C. Marshall rejected calls for complete independence for
the Air Corps, because the land forces generals and the Navy were vehemently opposed.
In the compromise that was reached it was understood that after the war, the
aviators would get their independence. Meanwhile, the Air Corps became the Army
Air Forces (AAF) in June, 1941, combining all their personnel and units under a
single commanding general, an airman. In 1942 the Army reorganized into three
equal components, one of which was the AAF, which then had almost complete
freedom in terms of internal administration. Thus the AAF set up its own
medical service independent of the Surgeon General, its own WAC units, and its
own logistics system. It had full control over the design and procurement of
airplanes and related electronic gear and ordnance. Its purchasing agents
controlled 15% of the nation's Gross National Product. Together with naval
aviation, it recruited the best young men in the nation. General Henry H.
Arnold headed the AAF. One of the first military men to fly, and the youngest
colonel in World War I, he selected for the most important combat commands men
who were ten years younger than their Army counterparts, including Ira Eaker
(b. 1896), Jimmy Doolittle (b. 1896), Hoyt Vandenberg (b. 1899), Elwood
"Pete" Queseda (b. 1904), and, youngest of them all, Curtis LeMay (b.
1906). Although a West Pointer himself, Arnold did not automatically turn to
Academy men for top positions. Since he operated independent of theatre
commanders, Arnold could and did move his generals around, and speedily removed
underachievers.
Aware
of the need for engineering expertise, Arnold went outside the military and
formed close liaisons with top engineers like rocket specialist Theodore von
Karmen at Caltech. Arnold was given seats on the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and
the US-British Combined Chiefs of Staff. Arnold, however, was officially Deputy
Chief of [Army] Staff, so on committees he deferred to his boss, General
Marshall. Thus Marshall made all the basic strategic decisions, which were
worked out by his "War Plans Division" (WPD, later renamed the
Operations Division). WPD's section leaders were infantrymen or engineers, with
a handful of aviators in token positions.
The
AAF had a newly created planning division, whose advice was largely ignored by
WPD. Airmen were also underrepresented in the planning divisions of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and of the Combined Chiefs. Aviators were largely shut out of
the decision-making and planning process because they lacked seniority in a
highly rank-conscious system. The freeze intensified demands for independence,
and fueled a spirit of "proving" the superiority of air power
doctrine. Because of the young, pragmatic leadership at the top, and the
universal glamour accorded aviators, morale in the AAF was strikingly higher
than anywhere else (except perhaps Navy aviation).
The
AAF provided extensive technical training, promoted officers and enlisted
faster, provided comfortable barracks and good food, and was safe, with an
American government-sponsored pilot training program in place as far back as
1938, that did work in concert when necessary with the British Commonwealth's
similar program within North America. The only dangerous jobs were voluntary
ones as crew of fighters and bombers—or involuntary ones at jungle bases in the
Southwest Pacific. Marshall, an infantryman uninterested in aviation before
1939, became a partial convert to air power and allowed the aviators more
autonomy. He authorized vast spending on planes, and insisted that American
forces had to have air supremacy before taking the offensive. However, he
repeatedly overruled Arnold by agreeing with Roosevelt's requests in 1941–42 to
send half of the new light bombers and fighters to the British and Soviets,
thereby delaying the buildup of American air power.
The
Army's major theatre commands were given to infantrymen Douglas MacArthur and
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Neither had paid much attention to aviation before the
war. However the air power advocate Jimmy Doolittle succeeded Eaker as 8th Air
Force commander at the start of 1944. Doolittle instituted a critical change in
strategic fighter tactics and the 8th Air Force bomber raids faced less and
less Luftwaffe defensive fighter opposition for the rest of the war.
Offensive
counter-air, to clear the way for strategic bombers and an eventually decisive
cross-channel invasion, was a strategic mission led by escort fighters
partnered with heavy bombers. The tactical mission, however, was the province
of fighter-bombers, assisted by light and medium bombers.
American
theatre commanders became air power enthusiasts, and built their strategies
around the need for tactical air supremacy. MacArthur had been badly defeated
in the Philippines in 1941–42 primarily because the Japanese controlled the
sky. His planes were outnumbered and outclassed, his airfields shot up, his
radar destroyed, his supply lines cut. His infantry never had a chance.
MacArthur vowed never again. His island hopping campaign was based on the
strategy of isolating Japanese strongholds while leaping past them. Each leap
was determined by the range of his 5th Air Force, and the first task on
securing an objective was to build an airfield to prepare for the next leap.
Eisenhower's deputy at SHAEF was Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder who had been
commander of the Allied Mediterranean Air Command when Eisenhower was in charge
of Allied operations in the Mediterranean.
Doctrine and Technology
The
Allies won battlefield air supremacy in the Pacific in 1943, and in Europe in
1944. That meant that Allied supplies and reinforcements would get through to
the battlefront, but not the enemy's. It meant the Allies could concentrate
their strike forces wherever they pleased, and overwhelm the enemy with a
preponderance of firepower. There was a specific campaign, within the overall
strategic offensive, for suppression of enemy air defenses, or, specifically,
Luftwaffe fighters.
Aircrew
Training
While
the Japanese began the war with a superb set of naval aviators, trained at the
Misty Lagoon experimental air station, their practice, perhaps from the warrior
tradition, was to keep the pilots in action until they died. The U.S. position,
at least for naval aviation, was a strict rotation between sea deployments and
shore duty, the latter including training replacements, personal training, and
participating in doctrinal development. The U.S. strategic bombing campaign
against Europe did this in principle, but relatively few crews survived the 25
missions of a rotation. On December 27, 1938, the United States had initiated
the Civilian Pilot Training Program to vastly increase the number of ostensibly
"civilian" American pilots, but this program also had the eventual
effect of providing a large flight-ready force of trained pilots for future
military action if the need arose.
Other
countries had other variants. In some countries, it seemed to be a matter of
personal choice if one stayed in combat or helped build the next generation.
Even where there was a policy of using skills outside combat, some individuals,
e.g. Guy Gibson VC insisted on returning to combat after a year. Both Gibson's
successors at 617 Squadron were ordered off "ops" permanently –
Leonard Cheshire VC after 102 operations, "Willie" Tait (DSO & 3
Bars) after 101 – reflecting the strain of prolonged operations.
The
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (and related schemes) as well as
training British crew in North America, away from the war, contributed large
numbers of aircrew from outside the UK to the forces under RAF operational
control. The resulting "Article XV squadrons" nominally part of
individual Commonwealth air forces were filled from a pool of mixed
nationalities. While RAF Bomber Command let individuals form teams naturally
and bomber aircrew were generally heterogeneous in origins, the Canadian
government pushed for its bomber aircrew to be organized in one Group for
greater recognition – No. 6 Group RCAF.
Logistics
Airfield
Construction
Arnold
correctly anticipated that the U.S. would have to build forward airfields in
inhospitable places. Working closely with the Army Corps of Engineers, he
created Aviation Engineer Battalions that by 1945 included 118,000 men.
Runways, hangars, radar stations, power generators, barracks, gasoline storage
tanks, and ordnance dumps had to be built hurriedly on tiny coral islands, mud
flats, featureless deserts, dense jungles, or exposed locations still under
enemy artillery fire. The heavy construction gear had to be imported, along
with the engineers, blueprints, steel-mesh landing mats, prefabricated hangars,
aviation fuel, bombs and ammunition, and all necessary supplies. As soon as one
project was finished the battalion would load up its gear and move forward to
the next challenge, while headquarters inked in a new airfield on the maps.
The
engineers opened an entirely new airfield in North Africa every other day for
seven straight months. Once when heavy rains along the coast reduced the
capacity of old airfields, two companies of Airborne Engineers loaded
miniaturized gear into 56 transports, flew a thousand miles to a dry Sahara
location, started blasting away, and were ready for the first B-17 24 hours
later. Often engineers had to repair and use a captured enemy airfield. The German
fields were well-built all-weather operations.
Some
of the Japanese island bases, built before the war, had excellent airfields.
Most new Japanese installations in the Pacific were ramshackle affairs with
poor siting, poor drainage, scant protection, and narrow, bumpy runways.
Engineering was a low priority for the offense-minded Japanese, who chronically
lacked adequate equipment and imagination. On a few islands, local commanders
did improve aircraft shelters and general survivability, as they correctly
perceived the danger of coming raids or invasions. In the same theatre the
United States Navy's own "construction battalions", collectively
named the "Seabees" from the CB acronym adopted on the date of their
formation in March 1942, would build over a hundred military airstrips and a
significant degree of the military support infrastructure supplying the Pacific
"island-hopping" campaign of the Allies during the Pacific war
through 1945, as well as elsewhere in the world during the war years.
Tactical
Tactical
air power involves gaining control of the airspace over the battlefield,
directly supporting ground units (as by attacks on enemy tanks and artillery),
and attacking enemy supply lines and airfields. Typically, fighter planes are
used to gain air supremacy, and light bombers are used for support missions.
Air
Supremacy
Tactical
air doctrine stated that the primary mission was to turn tactical superiority
into complete air supremacy—to totally defeat the enemy air force and obtain
control of its air space. This could be done directly through dogfights, and
raids on airfields and radar stations, or indirectly by destroying aircraft
factories and fuel supplies. Anti-aircraft artillery (called
"ack-ack" by the British, "flak" by the Germans, and
"Archie" by the World War I USAAS) could also play a role, but it was
downgraded by most airmen. The Allies won air supremacy in the Pacific in 1943,
and in Europe in 1944. That meant that Allied supplies and reinforcements would
get through to the battlefront, but not the enemy's. It meant the Allies could
concentrate their strike forces wherever they pleased, and overwhelm the enemy
with a preponderance of firepower. This was the basic Allied strategy, and it
worked.
One
of the most effective demonstrations of air supremacy by the Western Allies
over Europe occurred in early 1944, when Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle,
who took command of the US 8th Air Force in January 1944, would only a few
months later "release" the building force of P-51 Mustangs from their
intended mission to closely escort the 8th Air Force's heavy bombers, after
getting help from British aviators in selecting the best available aircraft
types for the task. The USAAF's Mustang squadrons were now tasked to fly well
ahead of the bombers' combat box defensive formations by some 75–100 miles
(120–160 km) to basically clear the skies, in the manner of a sizable
"fighter sweep" air supremacy mission, of any defensive presence over
the Third Reich of the Luftwaffe's Jagdgeschwader single-seat fighter wings.
This important change of strategy also coincidentally doomed both the
twin-engined Zerstörer heavy fighters and their replacement, heavily armed
Focke-Wulf Fw 190A Sturmbock forces used as bomber destroyers, each in their
turn. This change in American fighter tactics began to have its most immediate
effect with the loss of more and more of the Luftwaffe's Jagdflieger fighter
pilot personnel, and fewer bomber losses to the Luftwaffe as 1944 wore on.
Air
superiority depended on having the fastest, most maneuverable fighters, in
sufficient quantity, based on well-supplied airfields, within range. The RAF
demonstrated the importance of speed and maneuverability in the Battle of
Britain (1940), when its fast Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters easily
riddled the clumsy Stukas as they were pulling out of dives. The race to build
the fastest fighter became one of the central themes of World War II.
Once
total air supremacy in a theatre was gained the second mission was interdiction
of the flow of enemy supplies and reinforcements in a zone five to fifty miles
behind the front. Whatever moved had to be exposed to air strikes, or else
confined to moonless nights. (Radar was not good enough for nighttime tactical
operations against ground targets.) A large fraction of tactical air power
focused on this mission.
Close
Air Support
The
third and lowest priority (from the AAF viewpoint) mission was "close air
support" or direct assistance to ground units on the battlefront which
consisted of bombing targets identified by ground forces, and strafing exposed
infantry. Airmen disliked the mission because it subordinated the air war to
the ground war; furthermore, slit trenches, camouflage, and flak guns usually
reduced the effectiveness of close air support. "Operation Cobra" in
July, 1944, targeted a critical strip of 3,000 acres (1,214 ha) of German
strength that held up the US breakthrough out of Normandy. General Omar
Bradley, his ground forces stymied, placed his bets on air power. 1,500
heavies, 380 medium bombers and 550 fighter bombers dropped 4,000 tons of high
explosives. Bradley was horrified when 77 planes dropped their payloads short
of the intended target:
The ground belched, shook and
spewed dirt to the sky. Scores of our troops were hit, their bodies flung from
slit trenches. Doughboys were dazed and frightened ... A bomb landed squarely
on McNair in a slit trench and threw his body sixty feet and mangled it beyond
recognition except for the three stars on his collar.
The
Germans were stunned senseless, with tanks overturned, telephone wires severed,
commanders missing, and a third of their combat troops killed or wounded. The
defense line broke; J. Lawton Collins rushed his VII Corps forward; the Germans
retreated in a rout; the Battle of France was won; air power seemed invincible.
However, the sight of a senior colleague killed by error was unnerving, and
after the completion of operation Cobra, Army generals were so reluctant to
risk "friendly fire" casualties that they often passed over excellent
attack opportunities that would be possible only with air support. Infantrymen,
on the other hand, were ecstatic about the effectiveness of close air support:
Air strikes on the way; we
watch from a top window as P-47s dip in and out of clouds through suddenly
erupting strings of Christmas-tree lights [flak], before one speck turns over
and drops toward earth in the damnest sight of the Second World War, the
dive-bomber attack, the speck snarling, screaming, dropping faster than a stone
until it's clearly doomed to smash into the earth, then, past the limits of
belief, an impossible flattening beyond houses and trees, an upward arch that
makes the eyes hurt, and, as the speck hurtles away, WHOOM, the earth erupts
five hundred feet up in swirling black smoke. More specks snarl, dive, scream,
two squadrons, eight of them, leaving congealing, combining, whirling pillars
of black smoke, lifting trees, houses, vehicles, and, we devoutly hope, bits of
Germans. We yell and pound each other's backs. Gods from the clouds; this is
how you do it! You don't attack painfully across frozen plains, you simply drop
in on the enemy and blow them out of existence.
Some
forces, especially the United States Marine Corps, emphasized the air-ground
team. The airmen, in this approach, also are infantrymen who understand the
needs and perspective of the ground forces. There was much more joint
air-ground training, and a given air unit might have a long-term relationship
with a given ground unit, improving their mutual communications.
In
North-West Europe, the Allies used the "taxi-rank" (or
"Cab-rank") system for supporting the ground assault.
Fighter-bombers, such as the Hawker Typhoon or P-47 Thunderbolt, armed with
cannon, bombs and rockets would be in the air at 10,000 ft over the
battlefield. When support was required it could be quickly summoned by a ground
observer. While often too inaccurate against armored vehicles, rockets had a
psychological effect on troops and were effective against the supply-carrying
trucks used to support German tanks.
Pioneering
Use of Precision-guided Munitions
Both
the Luftwaffe and USAAF pioneered the use of what would come to be known as
precision-guided munitions during World War II. The Luftwaffe was the first to
use such weapons with the Fritz X armor-piercing anti-ship glide bomb on
September 9, 1943, against the Italian battleship Roma. III.Gruppe/KG 100's
Dornier Do 217 medium bombers achieved two hits, exploding her powder magazines
and sinking her. Both the Fritz X and the unarmored, rocket-boosted Henschel Hs
293 guided glide bomb were used successfully against Allied shipping during the
Allied invasion of Italy following Italy's capitulation to the Allies earlier
in September 1943. Both weapons used the Kehl-Strasbourg radio control link: a
joystick-equipped Funkgerät FuG 203 Kehl transmitter in a deploying aircraft,
with the corresponding FuG 230 Straßburg receiver in the ordnance for guidance.
The
United States Army Air Forces had come up with the Azon guided bomb, converted
from a regular 453 kg (1,000 lb.) high explosive bomb with a special set of
radio controlled vertical tailfins controlling the lateral path to the target.
Missions were flown in both Western Europe in the summer and autumn of 1944,
and in the China-Burma-India theatre in early 1945, with two separate B-24
Liberator squadrons, one in each theatre, having some limited success with the
device. The U.S. Navy's "Bat" unpowered anti-ship ordnance was based
around the same half-ton HE bomb as the Azon, but with the same bomb contained
within a much more aerodynamic airframe, and used a fully autonomous onboard
radar guidance system to control its flight path, rather than an external
source of control for the Azon.
German Bombers and Missiles
Britain
and the United States built large quantities of four-engined long-range heavy
bombers; Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union did not. The decision was made in
1933 by the German general staff, the technical staff, and the aviation
industry that there was a lack of sufficient labor, capital, and raw materials.
A top-level Luftwaffe general, Walther Wever, had tried to make some form of
strategic bombing capability a priority for the newly formed Luftwaffe through
1935 and into 1936, but his untimely death in June 1936 ended any hopes of
developing such a force of long-range "heavies" possible, as his Ural
bomber program for such four-engined aircraft, comparable to what the United
States was already pioneering, literally died with him. During the war Hitler
was insistent on bombers having tactical capability, which at the time meant
dive bombing, a maneuver then impossible for any heavy bomber. His aircraft had
limited effect on Britain for a variety of reasons, but low payload was among
them. Lacking a doctrine of strategic bombing, neither the RLM or the Luftwaffe
ever ordered any suitable quantities of an appropriate heavy bomber from the
German aviation industry, having only the Heinkel He 177A Greif available for
such duties, a design plagued with many technical problems, including an
unending series of engine fires, with just under 1,200 examples ever being
built. Early in the war, the Luftwaffe had excellent tactical aviation, but
when it faced Britain's integrated air defense system, the medium bombers
actually designed, produced, and deployed to combat – meant to include the
Schnellbomber high-speed mediums, and their intended heavier war load
successors, the Bomber B design competition competitors—did not have the
numbers or bomb load to do major damage of the sort the RAF and USAAF inflicted
on German cities.
Failure
of German Secret Weapons
Hitler
believed that new high-technology "secret weapons" would give Germany
a strategic bombing capability and turn the war around. The first of 9,300 V-1
flying bombs hit London in mid-June 1944, and together with 1,300 V-2 rockets,
caused 8,000 civilian deaths and 23,000 injuries. Although they did not
seriously undercut British morale or munitions production, they bothered the
British government a great deal—Germany now had its own unanswered weapons
system. Using proximity fuzes, British anti-aircraft artillery gunners learned
how to shoot down the 400 mph V-1s; nothing could stop the supersonic V-2s. The
British government, in near panic, demanded that upwards of 40% of bomber
sorties be targeted against the launch sites, and got its way in
"Operation CROSSBOW." The attacks were futile, and the diversion
represented a major success for Hitler.
Every
raid against a V-1 or V-2 launch site was one less raid against the Third
Reich. On the whole, however, the secret weapons were still another case of too
little too late. The Luftwaffe ran the V-1 program, which used a jet engine,
but it diverted scarce engineering talent and manufacturing capacity that were
urgently needed to improve German radar, air defense, and jet fighters. The
German Army ran the V-2 program. The rockets were a technological triumph, and
bothered the British leadership even more than the V-1s. But they were so inaccurate
they rarely could hit militarily significant targets.
Second Sino-Japanese War
China,
1937–1944
The
airwar over China were the largest air battles fought since the Great War,
involving the first prolonged and massed-deployments of aircraft carriers in
support of expeditionary forces, extensive close-air support and
air-interdiction strikes, significant use of airpower in the attacks against
naval assets, and much of the technological and operational transitioning from
the latest biplane fighter designs to the modern monoplane fighter designs.
Although largely a forgotten war by Western standards, the significance and
impact of the airwar between China and the Empire of Japan cannot be denied; it
was the best opportunity for the Western air powers to learn about the might of
Japanese aerial and naval military technological prowess, as the West were yet
in for a rude awakening by the end of 1941, when the Empire of Japan expanded
into the Pacific.
As
the War of Resistance-World War II broke out with the Battle of Shanghai in
1937, the centralized command of the Republic of China Air Force had integrated
various former-warlord air force men and machines, as well as overseas-Chinese
volunteer aviators into the nominally Nationalist Air Force of China, and
coordinating with the Second United Front of the National Revolutionary Army
(NRA) and People's Liberation Army (PLA), engaging in massive air-battles,
close-air support operations, air-interdiction strikes, facing indiscriminate
terror-bombing campaigns against all manners of civilian targets inflicted by
the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Navy Air
Service. The Chinese Air Force equipped with a maximum of only about 300
imported operational combat aircraft at any given time, was stretched thin over
a massive area of the northern, eastern, and southern fronts against
approximately 1,000 operational combat aircraft of the Imperial Japanese forces
supported by their own robust and rapidly developing aviation industry.
Major
air battles and skirmishes between the Chinese Air Force and the Japanese Army
and Navy air forces continued over a vast range of the Chinese mainland, and
beyond, even after the Battle of Shanghai, Battle of Nanking and Battle of
Taiyuan were lost by the end of 1937, new frontlines were quickly being drawn
at the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Canton, the
Battle of South Guangxi/Kunlun Pass, among very many other engagements through
1938 and into 1939.
The
Chinese Air Force was initially equipped with a mixed-bag of fighter and bomber
aircraft at the beginning of the war in 1937 that included the Boeing Model 281
(Peashooter), Curtiss A-12 Shrikes, Curtiss Hawk IIs/Hawk IIIs, Fiat CR.32s,
Heinkel He 111s, Martin B-10s, Northrop Gammas, etc, and while giving good
account in their many missions against the Imperial Japanese onslaught, these
were mostly lost through continued attrition as the war raged on through the
end of 1937. The Chinese Air Force however would continue to fight on for years
to come as they were replenished through the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of
1937, and transitioning almost entirely into Soviet-made Polikarpov I-15, I-153
and I-16 fighters as well as Tupolev SB-2 and TB-3 bombers by 1938. Fighting
capacity was greatly bolstered with support from the aviators of the Soviet
Volunteer Group, which was active from late 1937 until the end of 1939, and
remained stationed in China at limited capacity until December of 1940. The
Chinese unfortunately would remain with these increasingly obsolescent aircraft
as the enemy made tremendous advancements in aircraft and engine technologies.
Airwar
Stalemate at the National Fortress of Chongqing
With
the fall of Wuhan/Hubei province to the Japanese, the wartime capital of China
had been pushed back to Chongqing, where an all-airwar campaign against targets
in Sichuan province between the CAF and the IJAAF/IJNAF would rage for years in
a cat and mouse game under the codenames "Operation 100", "101"
and "102" IJA/IJN "joint-strike force" terror-bombing
campaigns. Despite the general obsolescence of the Chinese fighter aircraft
against the new Japanese Schnellbombers, the CAF improvised, continuing to
inflict casualties and losses against the Japanese raiders, culminating with
the well-timed deployment of experimental air-burst bombs launched against the
massive heavy bomber formations in August of 1940, and climaxing with the
introduction of the most advanced fighter aircraft of the time: the Mitsubishi
A6M "Zero", which gained almost complete air-supremacy with its unheard-of
performance against the Chinese Air Force the following month, and would incredibly
remain largely unheard-of almost a year and a half later when the allied air
powers faced the scourge of the Zero fighter as the Imperial Japanese war
machine expanded into the Pacific with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In
1940–41, well before Pearl Harbor, the United States decided on an aggressive
air campaign against Japan using Chinese bases and American pilots wearing
Chinese uniforms. The United States created, funded, and provided crews and
equipment for an American Volunteer Group of combat aviators, commonly referred
to as the "Flying Tigers", a nominally Chinese Air Force unit
composed almost entirely of Americans, led by General Claire Lee Chennault.
Tasked with the defense of "The Hump" supply-lifeline between the
British bases in Burma (Myanmar) and India, and the wartime port-of-entry into
China, Kunming city, the Flying Tigers employed dissimilar hit-and-run
air-tactics using the heavy-firepower and high-speed diving of the well-armored
P-40 Warhawk fighter-attack planes, racking up a strong record against the
Japanese Army Air Force operating in the CBI theater of operations beginning in
December of 1941. Chennault called for strategic bombing against Japanese
cities, using American bombers based in China. The plan was approved by
Roosevelt and top policy makers in Washington, and equipment was on the way in
December 1941. It proved to be futile. American strategic bombing of Japan from
Chinese bases began in 1944, including the firebombing of Wuhan, using Boeing
B-29 Superfortress under the command of General Curtis Lemay, but the distances
and the logistics made an effective campaign impossible.
Pacific Air War
Japan
did not have a separate air force. Its aviation units were integrated into the
Army and Navy, which were not well coordinated with each other. Japanese
military aircraft production during World War II produced 76,000 warplanes, of
which 30,000 were fighters and 15,000 were light bombers.
Japanese
Air War 1941–42
Washington
tried to deter Japanese entry into the war by threatening the firebombing of
Japanese cities using B-17 strategic bombers based in the Philippines. The US
sent too little too late, as the Japanese easily overwhelmed the American
"Far Eastern Air Force" the day after Pearl Harbor.
Japanese
naval air power proved unexpectedly powerful, sinking the American battleship
fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, then raging widely across the Pacific
and Indian oceans to defeat elements of the British, American, Dutch, and
Australian forces. Land-based airpower, coordinated efficiently with land
forces, enabled Japan to overrun Malaya, Singapore, and the Philippines by
spring 1942.
The
Doolittle Raid used 16 B-25 bombers (taking off from aircraft carriers) to bomb
Tokyo in April 1942. Little physical damage was done, but the episode shocked
and stunned the Japanese people and leadership.
1942
At
the Battle of the Java Sea, February 27, 1942, the Japanese Navy destroyed the
main ABDA (American, British, Dutch, and Australian) naval force. The
Netherlands East Indies campaign resulted in the surrender of Allied forces on
Java. Meanwhile, Japanese aircraft had all but eliminated Allied air power in
South-East Asia and began attacking Australia, with a major raid on Darwin,
February 19. A raid by a powerful Japanese Navy aircraft carrier force into the
Indian Ocean resulted in the Battle of Ceylon and sinking of the only British
carrier in the theatre, HMS Hermes, as well as two cruisers and other ships,
effectively driving the British fleet out of the Indian Ocean and paving the
way for Japanese conquest of Burma and a drive towards India.
The
Japanese seemed unstoppable. However, the Doolittle Raid caused an uproar in
the Japanese Army and Navy commands—they had both lost face in letting the
Emperor be threatened. As a consequence, the Army relocated overseas fighter
groups to Japan, groups needed elsewhere. Even more significantly, the Naval
command believed it had to extend its eastern defense perimeter, and they
focused on Midway as the next base.
Coral
Sea and Midway
By
mid-1942, the Japanese Combined Fleet found itself holding a vast area, even
though it lacked the aircraft carriers, aircraft, and aircrew to defend it, and
the freighters, tankers, and destroyers necessary to sustain it. Moreover,
Fleet doctrine was incompetent to execute the proposed "barrier"
defense. Instead, they decided on additional attacks in both the south and central
Pacific. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought between May 4–8, 1942 off the
coast of Australia, the opposing fleets never saw one another; it was an air
exchange. While the Americans had greater losses and arguably a tactical loss,
they gained a strategic victory, as Japan cancelled a planned offensive.
In
the Battle of Midway, the Japanese split their fleet, sending much of their
force and a feint toward Alaska. The Americans realized Alaska was not the main
target, and desperately concentrated its resources to defend Midway. Japan had
272 warplanes operating from four carriers; the U.S. Navy had 233, but there
were also another 115 AAF land-based aircraft; the Navy aircraft flew from
three carriers. In an extraordinarily close battle, due to tactical errors by
the Japanese commander, the Japanese lost their four main aircraft carriers,
and were forced to retreat. They never again launched a major offensive in the
Pacific.
Guadalcanal
The
Japanese had built a major air base on the island of Rabaul, but had difficulty
keeping it supplied. American naval and Marine aviation made Rabaul a frequent
bombing target.
A
Japanese airfield was spotted under construction at Guadalcanal. The Americans
made an amphibious landing in August 1942 to seize it, sent in the Cactus Air
Force, and started to reverse the tide of Japanese conquests. As a result,
Japanese and Allied forces both occupied various parts of Guadalcanal. Over the
following six months, both sides fed resources into an escalating battle of
attrition on the island, at sea, and in the sky, with eventual victory going to
the Americans in February 1943. It was a campaign the Japanese could ill
afford. A majority of Japanese aircraft from the entire South Pacific area was
drained into the Japanese defense of Guadalcanal. Japanese logistics, as
happened time and again, failed; only 20% of the supplies dispatched from
Rabaul to Guadalcanal ever reached there.
1943–1945
After
1942, the United States made a massive effort to build up its aviation forces
in the Pacific, and began island-hopping to push its airfields closer and
closer to Tokyo. Meanwhile, the Japanese were unable to upgrade their aircraft,
and they fell further and further behind in numbers of aircraft carriers. The
forward island bases were very hard to supply—often only submarines could get
through—and the Japanese forces worked without replacements or rest, and often
with inadequate food and medicine. Their morale and performance steadily
declined. Starvation became an issue in many bases.
The
American airmen were well-fed and well-supplied, but they were not rotated and
faced increasingly severe stress that caused their performance to deteriorate.
They flew far more often in the Southwest Pacific than in Europe, and although
rest time in Australia was scheduled, there was no fixed number of missions
that would produce transfer back to the States. Coupled with the monotonous,
hot, sickly environment, the result was bad morale that jaded veterans quickly
passed along to newcomers. After a few months, epidemics of combat fatigue
would drastically reduce the efficiency of units. The men who had been at
jungle airfields longest, the flight surgeons reported, were in the worst
shape:
Many have chronic dysentery or
other disease, and almost all show chronic fatigue states ... They appear
listless, unkempt, careless, and apathetic with almost masklike facial
expression. Speech is slow, thought content is poor, they complain of chronic
headaches, insomnia, memory defect, feel forgotten, worry about themselves, are
afraid of new assignments, have no sense of responsibility, and are hopeless
about the future.
Strategic
Bombing of Japan
The
flammability of Japan's large cities, and the concentration of munitions
production there, made strategic bombing the preferred strategy of the
Americans. The first efforts were made from bases in China. Massive efforts
(costing $4.5 billion) to establish B-29 bases there had failed when in 1944
the Japanese Army simply moved overland and captured them. The Marianas
(especially the islands of Saipan and Tinian), captured in June 1944, gave a
close, secure base for the very-long-range B-29. The "Superfortress"
(the B-29) represented the highest achievement of traditional (pre-jet)
aeronautics. Its four 2,200 horsepower Wright R-3350 supercharged engines could
lift four tons of bombs 3,500 miles at 33,000 feet (high above Japanese flak or
fighters). Computerized fire-control mechanisms made its 13 guns exceptionally
lethal against fighters. However, the systematic raids that began in June 1944,
were unsatisfactory, because the AAF had learned too much in Europe; it
overemphasized self-defense. Arnold, in personal charge of the campaign
(bypassing the theatre commanders) brought in a new leader, General Curtis
LeMay. In early 1945, LeMay ordered a radical change in tactics: remove the
machine guns and gunners, fly in low at night. (Much fuel was used to get to
30,000 feet; it could now be replaced with more bombs.) The Japanese radar,
fighter, and anti-aircraft systems were so ineffective that they could not hit
the bombers. Fires raged through the cities, and millions of civilians fled to
the mountains.
Tokyo
was hit repeatedly and first suffered a serious blow with the Operation Meetinghouse
raid on the night of March 9/10 1945, a conflagration that destroyed nearly
270,000 buildings over a 16 square mile (41 km2) area, killing at
least 83,000, and estimated by some to be the single most destructive bombing
raid in military history. On June 5, 51,000 buildings in four miles of Kobe were
burned out by 473 B-29s; Japanese opposition was fierce, as 11 B-29s went down
and 176 were damaged. Osaka, where one-sixth of the Empire's munitions were
made, was hit by 1,733 tons of incendiaries dropped by 247 B-29s. A firestorm
burned out 8.1 square miles, including 135,000 houses; 4,000 died. The Japanese
local officials reported:
Although damage to big
factories was slight, approximately one-fourth of some 4,000 lesser factories,
which operated hand-in-hand with the big factories, were completely destroyed
by fire ... Moreover, owing to the rising fear of air attacks, workers in general
were reluctant to work in the factories, and the attendance fluctuated as much
as 50 percent.
The
Japanese army, which was not based in the cities, was largely undamaged by the
raids. The Army was short of food and gasoline, but, as Iwo Jima and Okinawa
proved, it was capable of ferocious resistance. The Japanese also had a new
tactic that it hoped would provide the bargaining power to get a satisfactory
peace, the Kamikaze.
Kamikaze
In
late 1944, the Japanese invented an unexpected and highly effective new tactic,
the Kamikaze suicide plane aimed like a guided missile at American ships.
Kamikaze means 'divine wind'. The attacks began in October 1944 and continued to
the end of the war. Most of the aircraft used in kamikaze attacks were
converted obsolete fighters and dive-bombers. The quality of construction was
very poor, and many crashed during training or before reaching targets.
Experienced pilots were used to lead a mission because they could navigate;
they were not Kamikazes, and they returned to base for another mission. The
Kamikaze pilots were inexperienced and had minimal training; however most were
well-educated and intensely committed to the Emperor.
Kamikaze
attacks were highly effective at the Battle of Okinawa in Spring 1945. During
the three-month battle, 4,000 kamikaze sorties sank 38 US ships and damaged 368
more, killing 4,900 sailors in the American 5th Fleet. Destroyers and destroyer
escorts, doing radar picket duty, were hit hard, as the inexperienced pilots
dived at the first American ship they spotted instead of waiting to get at the
big carriers. Task Force 58 analyzed the Japanese technique at Okinawa in
April, 1945:
Rarely have the enemy attacks
been so cleverly executed and made with such reckless determination. These
attacks were generally by single or few aircraft making their approaches with
radical changes in course and altitude, dispersing when intercepted and using
cloud cover to every advantage. They tailed our friendlies home, used decoy
planes, and came in at any altitude or on the water."
The
Americans decided their best defense against Kamikazes was to knock them out on
the ground, or else in the air long before they approached the fleet. The Navy
called for more fighters and more warning. The carriers replaced a fourth of
their light bombers with Marine fighters; back home the training of fighter
pilots was stepped up. More combat air patrols circling the big ships, more
radar picket ships (which themselves became prime targets), and more attacks on
airbases and gasoline supplies eventually worked. Japan suspended Kamikaze
attacks in May 1945, because it was now hoarding gasoline and hiding planes in
preparation for new suicide attacks in case the Allied forces tried to invade
their home islands.
The
Kamikaze strategy allowed the use of untrained pilots and obsolete planes, and
since evasive maneuvering was dropped and there was no return trip, the scarce
gasoline reserves could be stretched further. Since pilots guided their
airplane like a guided missile all the way to the target, the proportion of
hits was much higher than in ordinary bombing, and would eventually see the
introduction of a purpose-built, air-launched rocket-powered suicide aircraft
design in small numbers to accomplish such missions against U.S. Navy ships.
Japan's industry was manufacturing 1,500 new planes a month in 1945.
Toward
the end of the war, the Japanese press encouraged civilians to emulate the kamikaze
pilots who willingly gave their lives to stop American naval forces. Civilians
were told that the reward for such behavior was enshrinement as a warrior-god
and spiritual protection in the afterlife.
Expecting
increased resistance, including far more Kamikaze attacks once the main islands
of Japan were invaded, the U.S. high command rethought its strategy and used
atomic bombs to end the war, hoping it would make a costly invasion
unnecessary.
Atomic
Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The
air attacks on Japan had crippled her ability to wage war but the Japanese had
not surrendered. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman,
United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of the Chinese
Nationalist Government Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which
outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the
Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, she would
face "prompt and utter destruction." The Japanese government ignored
this ultimatum (Mokusatsu, "kill by silence"), and vowed to continue
resisting an anticipated Allied invasion of Japan. On August 6, 1945, the
"Little Boy" enriched uranium atomic bomb was dropped on the city of
Hiroshima, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man"
plutonium core atomic bomb over Nagasaki. Both cities were destroyed with
enormous loss of life and psychological shock. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito
announced the surrender of Japan, stating:
Moreover, the enemy has begun
to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed
incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to
fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the
Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human
civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our
subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial
Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the
provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers."
Europe, 1939–1941
The
Luftwaffe gained significant combat experience in the Spanish Civil War, where
it was used to provide close air support for infantry units. The success of the
Luftwaffe's Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers in the blitzkriegs that shattered Poland
in 1939 and France in 1940, gave Berlin inordinate confidence in its air force.
Military professionals could not ignore the effectiveness of the Stuka, but
also observed that France and Poland had minimal effective air defense. Outside
Britain, the idea of an integrated air defense system had not emerged; most
militaries had a conflict between the advocates of anti-aircraft artillery and
fighter aircraft for defense, not recognizing that they could be complementary,
when under a common system of command and control; a system that had a common
operational picture of the battle in progress.
Invasion
of Poland
Luftwaffe
aircraft closely supported the advance of the Army mechanized units, most
notably with dive bombers, but also with light observation aircraft, such as
Fieseler Storch, that rapidly corrected the aim of artillery, and gave
commanders a literal overview of the battle. Allied analysts noted that Poland
lacked an effective air defense, and was trying to protect too large an area.
France
and the Low Countries; Dunkirk
German
air-ground coordination was also evident in the 1940 German campaign in the Low
Countries and France. The continental air defenses were not well-organized.
The
Germans deployed among others the tri-motor Ju 52 transport for airborne troops
in the attack on the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. The first large-scale air
attack with paratroops in history subsequently occurred during the Battle for
The Hague. No fewer than 295 Ju 52s were lost in that venture and in other
parts of the country, due to varying circumstances, among which were accurate
and effective Dutch anti-aircraft defenses and German mistakes in using soggy
airfields not able to support the heavy aircraft. Thus, almost an entire year's
production was lost in the Netherlands. These losses were never surpassed in
any air battle in history. The lack of sufficient numbers of aircraft most
probably heavily influenced the decision not to invade England following the
Battle of Britain. In total, the Germans lost over 2,000 planes in the
continuous air war over the Netherlands. This high number can also be
attributed to the main Allied air lanes into Germany, that led directly over
the Netherlands. Altogether, over 5,000 aircraft were lost over the Netherlands
(Allied and German), and over 20,000 crew lost their lives in these mishaps.
Most of these crew were buried locally, so that the Netherlands has some 600
places where Allied and Nazi airmen are buried. This makes the country the
densest burial place for air crew in all of Europe.
While
German aircraft inflicted heavy losses at the Battle of Dunkirk, and soldiers
awaiting evacuation, while under attack, bitterly asked "Where was the
Royal Air Force?", the RAF had been operating more effectively than other
air defenses in the field, meeting the German attacks before they reached the
battlefield.
Battle
of Britain
Air
superiority or supremacy was a prerequisite to Operation Sea Lion, the planned
German invasion of Britain. The Luftwaffe's primary task was intended to be the
destruction of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The warplanes on both sides were
comparable. Germany had more planes, but they used much of their fuel getting
to Britain, and so had more limited time for combat.
The
Luftwaffe used 1,300 medium bombers guarded by 900 fighters; they made 1,500 sorties
a day from bases in France, Belgium, and Norway. The Germans realized their Ju
87 Stukas and Heinkel He 111s were too vulnerable to modern British fighters.
The RAF had 650 fighters, with more coming out of the factories every day.
Three main fighter types were involved in the battle—the German Messerschmitt
Bf 109E, and the British Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. The
Hurricane accounted for most of the British kills throughout the battle because
it made up the majority of the RAF fighter force—however, its kill-loss ratio
was inferior to that of its counterpart the Spitfire. Of the three aircraft,
the Hurricane was designed much earlier and was generally considered the least
capable. Despite the high numbers of Hurricanes in the RAF at that time, the
Spitfire became synonymous with the Battle of Britain and was somewhat of a
symbol of resistance in the minds of the British public through the battle. The
Bf 109E subtype's short combat radius of 330 km (205 mi) – due to limited fuel
capacity as designed — prevented it from adequately "escorting" the
Kampfgeschwader wings' medium bombers over England, limiting it to only some
ten minutes of air combat over the UK before it had turn back to northern
France for a safe return — this serious deficiency was not corrected until
after the major air battles over England, through September 1940, had
concluded.
The
Royal Air Force also had at its disposal a complex and integrated network of
reporting stations and operations control rooms incorporating the new
innovation of radar. Known as the Dowding system (after Hugh Dowding, the
commander of RAF Fighter Command during the battle and the man who ordered its
implementation), it was the first integrated air defense system in the world,
and is often credited with giving the RAF the ability to effectively counter
German raids without the need for regular patrols by fighter aircraft,
increasing the efficiency with which the RAF fighter force could operate. As
such, the Dowding system is also often credited with a significant role in the
overall outcome of the battle, and comparisons with the air warfare that
occurred over France in the spring and early summer of 1940, in which there was
no such system and in which the allied air forces were comprehensively defeated,
seem to support this.
At
first the Germans focused on RAF airfields and radar stations. However, when
the RAF bomber forces (quite separate from the fighter forces) attacked Berlin,
Hitler swore revenge and diverted the Luftwaffe to attacks on London. Using
limited resources to attack civilians instead of airfields and radar proved a
major mistake as the civilians being hit were far less critical than the
airfields and radar stations that were now ignored. London was not a factory
city and British aircraft production was not impeded; indeed it went up. The
last German daylight raid came on September 30; the Luftwaffe realized it was
taking unacceptable losses and broke off the attack; occasional blitz raids hit
London and other cities from time. In all some 43,000 civilians were killed.
The Luftwaffe lost 1,411 planes shot down of a grand total of 2,069 which were
written off, the British lost about the same number, but could repair 289 of
them. The British additionally lost 497 aircraft of Bomber and RAF Coastal
Command shot down during that same period and hundreds of planes destroyed on
the ground, lost by accidents or also written off. The successful British
defense resulted from a better system that provided more concentration, better
utilization of radar, and better ground control.
Invasion
of the Soviet Union
Operation
Barbarossa opened in June 1941, with striking initial German successes. In the
air, many of the Soviets' aircraft were inferior, while the disparity in pilot
quality may have been even greater. The purges of military leadership during
the Great Terror heavily impacted command and control in all services.
At
the outbreak of the war, VVS (Soviet Air Force) had just been purged of most of
its top officers and was unready. By 1945 Soviet annual aircraft production
outstripped that of the German Reich; 157,000 aircraft were produced.
In
the first few days of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Luftwaffe
destroyed 2,000 Soviet aircraft, most of them on the ground, at a loss of only
35 aircraft. The main weakness accounting for the heavy aircraft losses in 1941
was the lack of experienced generals, pilots, and ground support crews, the
destruction of many aircraft on the runways due to command failure to disperse
them, and the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht ground troops, forcing the Soviet
pilots on the defensive during Operation Barbarossa, while being confronted
with more modern German aircraft.
The
Soviets relied heavily on Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik ground assault aircraft—the
single most-produced military aircraft design of all time with some 36,183
examples produced, and the Yakovlev Yak-1 fighter, the beginning of a family of
fighters from Alexander S. Yakovlev's design bureau in its many variants during
the war years with just over 34,500 Yak-1, Yak-3, Yak-7, and Yak-9 aircraft
produced in total; each of which became the most produced aircraft series of
all time in their respective classes, together accounting for about half the
strength of the VVS for most of the Great Patriotic War. The Yak-1 was a modern
1940 design and had more room for development, unlike the relatively mature
design of the Messerschmitt Bf 109, itself dating from 1935. The Yak-9 brought
the VVS to parity with the Luftwaffe, eventually allowing it to gain the upper
hand over the Luftwaffe until in 1944, when many Luftwaffe pilots were
deliberately avoiding combat.
Chief
Marshal of Aviation Alexander Novikov led the VVS from 1942 to the end of the
war, and was credited with introducing several new innovations and weapons
systems. For the last year of the war German military and civilians retreating
towards Berlin were hounded by constant strafing and light bombing. In one
strategic operation, the Yassy-Kishinev Strategic Offensive, the 5th and 17th
Air Armies and the Black Sea Fleet Naval Aviation aircraft achieved a 3.3:1
superiority in aircraft over the Luftflotte 4 and the Royal Romanian Air Force,
allowing almost complete freedom from air harassment for the ground troops of
the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts.
The
Luftwaffe operated from bases in Norway against the convoys to the Soviet
Union. Long-range reconnaissance aircraft, circling the convoys out of their
anti-aircraft artillery range, guided in attack aircraft, submarines, and
surface ships.
North Africa 1942–43
The
Anglo-American invasion of Vichy French controlled north-west Africa was under
command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. in November, 1942, at a time when the
Luftwaffe was still strong. Air operations were split – one force under US
control and the other under British control. One of Eisenhower's corps
commanders, General Lloyd Fredendall, used his planes as a "combat air
patrol" that circled endlessly over his front lines ready to defend
against Luftwaffe attackers. Like most infantrymen, Fredendall assumed that all
assets should be used to assist the ground forces. More concerned with defense
than attack, Fredendall was soon replaced by George Patton.
Likewise,
the Luftwaffe made the mistake of dividing up its air assets, and failed to
gain control of the air or to cut Allied supplies. The RAF in North Africa,
under Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, concentrated its air power and defeated the
Luftwaffe. The RAF had an excellent training program (using bases in Canada),
maintained very high aircrew morale, and inculcated a fighting spirit. Senior
officers monitored battles by radar, and directed planes by radio to where they
were most needed.
The
RAF's success convinced Eisenhower that its system maximized the effectiveness
of tactical air power. The point was that air power had to be consolidated at
the highest level, and had to operate almost autonomously. Brigade, division,
and corps commanders lost control of air assets (except for a few unarmed
little "grasshoppers;" observation aircraft that reported the fall of
artillery shells so the gunners could correct their aim). With one airman in
overall charge, air assets could be concentrated for maximum offensive capability,
not frittered away in ineffective "penny packets." Eisenhower—a
tanker in 1918 who had theorized on the best way to concentrate
armor—recognized the analogy. Split up among infantry in supporting roles tanks
were wasted; concentrated in a powerful force they could dictate the terms of
battle.
The
fundamental assumption of air power doctrine was that the air war was just as important
as the ground war. Indeed, the main function of the sea and ground forces,
insisted the air enthusiasts, was to seize forward air bases. Field Manual
100–20, issued in July 1943, became the airman's bible for the rest of the war,
and taught the doctrine of equality of air and land warfare. The idea of
combined arms operations (air, land, sea) strongly appealed to Eisenhower and
Douglas MacArthur. Eisenhower invaded only after he was certain of air supremacy,
and he made the establishment of forward air bases his first priority.
MacArthur's leaps reflected the same doctrine. In each theatre the senior
ground command post had an attached air command post. Requests from the front
lines went all the way to the top, where the air commander decided whether to
act, when and how. This slowed down response time—it might take 48 hours to
arrange a strike—and involved rejecting numerous requests from the infantry for
a little help here, or a little intervention there.
Operations Against Allied
Convoys
German
air reconnaissance against North Atlantic and Russian convoys increased, with
CAM ships carrying a single fighter still the main defense. The Luftwaffe's
first major attack on the convoys began on 25 April 1942 when the 34-ship
convoy PQJ6 was attacked. PQ17 to Murmansk started with 36 ships; only two made
it through when the Admiralty, falsely thinking Germany was attacking with a
battleship, ordered the convoy, and its escort, to scatter. There was no
battleship, but the Luftwaffe and a pack of German submarines sank one cruiser,
one destroyer, two patrol boats (4,000 tons), and 22 merchant ships (139,216
tons). Nevertheless, most convoys did get through.
1943
In
some areas, such as the most intense part of the Battle of the Atlantic, the
Germans enjoyed fleeting success. Grueling operations wasted the Luftwaffe away
on the eastern front after 1942.
In
early 1943 the Allied strategic bombers were directed against U-boat pens,
which were easy to reach and which represented a major strategic threat to
Allied logistics. However, the pens were very solidly built—it took 7,000
flying hours to destroy one sub there, about the same effort that it took to
destroy one-third of Cologne.
Japan
was also still recovering from Midway. It kept producing planes but made few
innovations and the quality of its new pilots deteriorated steadily. Gasoline
shortages limited the training and usage of the air forces.
British Technical Advances
Building
on their lead in radar and their experience with the Battle of the Beams, RAF
Bomber Command developed a variety of devices to enable precision strategic
bombing. Gee and Oboe were beam-riding blind bombing aids, while H2S
was the first airborne ground-scanning radar system – enabling improved
navigation to a target and bombing at night and through cloud if necessary.
These could be used in conjunction with Pathfinder bombers to guarantee
accurate strikes on targets in all weathers.
The
British also developed the techniques of Operational Research and Analysis,
using mathematical techniques to examine military tactics and recommend best
practice. These were used to optimize the impacts of night bombing raids, which
were expanded to sizes in excess of 1000 bombers attacking one objective.
Defensive technologies were invented, such as rear-facing airborne radar to
detect night-fighters and the use of Window to blind German radar, giving the
RAF striking capability far in excess of that which the Luftwaffe had been able
to achieve.
The
de Havilland Mosquito bomber was beginning to be delivered in late 1942,
combining a useful bomb load with speed to evade German fighters, it was used
to harass German air defenses as well as challenging strikes such as that on a
Gestapo headquarters or prisons as in Operation Jericho
The
RAF also developed the use of "earthquake bombs" to attack huge
structures thought to be invulnerable to conventional bombing. Creating the largest
bomb used in the war and a specialist squadron to deliver it, a number of
critical German infrastructure assets were destroyed, such as the Möhne and
Edersee Dams.
The
use of developments such as these contributed greatly to the success of the air
bombing strategy during the remainder of the war.
Mediterranean Theatre
In
the Mediterranean, the Luftwaffe tried to stop the invasions of Sicily and
Italy with tactical bombing. They failed because the Allied air forces
systematically destroyed most of their air fields. The Germans ferociously
opposed the Allied landing at Anzio in February 1944, but the Luftwaffe was
outnumbered 5 to 1 and so outclassed in equipment and skill that it inflicted
little damage. Italian air space belonged to the Allies, and the Luftwaffe's
strategic capability was nil. The Luftwaffe threw everything it had against the
Salerno beachhead, but was outgunned ten to one, and then lost the vital
airfields at Foggia.
Foggia
became the major base of the 15th Air Force. Its 2,000 heavy bombers hit
Germany from the south while the 4,000 heavies of the 8th Air Force used bases
in Britain, along with 1,300 RAF heavies. While bad weather in the north often
cancelled raids, sunny Italian skies allowed for more action. After that the
Luftwaffe had only one success in Italy, a raid on the American port at Bari,
in December 1943. Only 30 out of 100 bombers got through, but one hit an
ammunition ship which was secretly carrying a stock of mustard gas for
retaliatory use should the Germans initiate the use of gas. Clouds of American
mustard gas caused over 2,000 Allied and civilian casualties.
1944–45
In
early 1944, the Allies continued to bomb Germany, while carefully attacking
targets in France that could interfere with the invasion, planned for June.
Destroying the Luftwaffe, 1944
In
late 1943, the AAF suddenly realized the need to revise its basic doctrine:
strategic bombing against a technologically sophisticated enemy like Germany
was impossible without air supremacy. General Arnold replaced Ira Eaker with
Carl Spaatz and, most critically, Maj. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, who fully
appreciated the new reality. They provided fighter escorts all the way into
Germany and back, and cleverly used B-17s as bait for Luftwaffe planes, which
the escorts then shot down. Doolittle's slogan was "The First Duty of 8th
AF Fighters is to Destroy German Fighters.", one aspect of modern
"Offensive Counter-Air" (OCA). In one "Big Week" in
February, 1944, American bombers protected by hundreds of fighters, flew 3,800
sorties dropping 10,000 tons of high explosives on the main German aircraft and
ball-bearing factories. The US suffered 2,600 casualties, with a loss of 137
bombers and 21 fighters. Ball bearing production was unaffected, as Nazi
munitions boss Albert Speer repaired the damage in a few weeks; he even managed
to double aircraft production. Sensing the danger, Speer began dispersing
production into numerous small, hidden factories.
By
1944, the Allies had overwhelming advantages. The Luftwaffe would have to come
out and attack or see its planes destroyed at the factory. Before getting at
the bombers, ideally with the twin-engined Zerstörer heavy fighters meant for
such tasks, the Germans had to confront the more numerous American fighters.
The heavily armed Messerschmitt Bf 110 could kill a bomber, particularly those
armed with a quartet each of the BR 21 large-caliber air-to-air unguided
rockets, but its slower speed made it easy prey for Thunderbolts and Mustangs.
The big, slow twin-engine Junkers Ju 88C, used for bomber destroyer duties in
1942-3 as the American heavy bomber offensive got under way in August 1942, was
dangerous because it could stand further off and fire its autocannon armament
into the tight B-17 formations, sometimes with the specialized Ju 88P
heavy-caliber Bordkanone armed bomber destroyers attacking; but they too were
hunted down. The same fate also faced single-engined fighters carrying pairs of
the BR 21 rockets each; and the later-used, heavily autocannon-armed Sturmbock
bomber destroyer models of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-8 that replaced the
twin-engined "destroyers". Germany's severe shortage of aviation fuel
had sharply curtailed the training of new pilots, and most of the instructors
had been themselves sent into battle. Rookie pilots were rushed into combat
after only 160 flying hours in training compared to 400 hours for the AAF, 360
for the RAF, and 120 for the Japanese. The low quality German pilots of this
late stage in the war never had a chance against more numerous, better trained
Allied pilots.
The
Germans began losing one thousand planes a month on the western front (and another
400 on the eastern front). Realizing that the best way to defeat the Luftwaffe
was not to stick close to the bombers but to aggressively seek out the enemy,
by March 1944 Doolittle had ordered the Mustangs to "go hunting for
Jerries. Flush them out in the air and beat them up on the ground on the way
home.", as Mustangs were now ordered to fly in massive "fighter
sweeps" well ahead of the American combat box heavy bomber formations, as
a determined form of air supremacy effort, clearing the skies well ahead of the
bombers of any presence of the Luftwaffe's Jagdflieger fighter pilots. By early
1944, with the Zerstörergeschwader-flown heavy Bf 110G and Me 410A Hornisse
twin-engined fighters being decimated by the Mustangs whenever they appeared,
direct attack against the bombers was carried out instead by the Luftwaffe's
so-named Gefechtsverband formations with heavily armed Fw 190As being escorted
by Bf 109Gs as high-altitude escorts for the autocannon-armed 190As when flying
against the USAAF's combat box formations. However, Doolittle's new air
supremacy strategy fatally disabled virtually any and all of the Luftwaffe's
defensive efforts throughout 1944. On one occasion German air controllers
identified a large force of approaching B-17s, and sent all the Luftwaffe's 750
fighters to attack. The bogeys were all Mustangs flying well ahead of the
American bombers' combat boxes, which shot down 98 interceptors while losing
11. The actual B-17s were well behind the Mustangs, and completed their mission
without a loss. In February, 1944, the Luftwaffe lost 33% of its frontline
fighters and 18% of its pilots; the next month it lost 56% of its fighters and
22% of the pilots. April was just as bad, 43% and 20%, and May was worst of
all, at 50% and 25%. German factories continued to produce many new planes, and
inexperienced new pilots did report for duty; but their life expectancy was
down to a few combat sorties. Increasingly the Luftwaffe went into hiding; with
losses down to 1% per mission, the bombers now got through.
By
April 1944, Luftwaffe tactical air power had vanished, and Eisenhower decided
he could go ahead with the invasion of Normandy. He guaranteed the invaders
that "if you see fighting aircraft over you, they will be ours."
Normandy
As
the Luftwaffe disintegrated in 1944, escorting became less necessary and
fighters were increasingly assigned to tactical ground-attack missions, along
with the medium bombers. To avoid the lethal fast-firing German quadruple 20mm
flak guns, pilots came in fast and low (under enemy radar), made a quick run,
then disappeared before the gunners could respond. The main missions were to
keep the Luftwaffe suppressed by shooting up airstrips, and to interdict the
movement of munitions, oil, and troops by attacking at railway bridges and tunnels,
oil tank farms, canal barges, trucks, and moving trains. Occasionally a choice
target was discovered through intelligence. Three days after D-Day, Ultra
intelligence pinpointed the location of Panzer Group West headquarters. A quick
raid by British aircraft destroyed its radio gear and killed many key officers,
ruining the Germans' ability to coordinate a panzer counterattack against the
beachheads.
On
D-Day itself, Allied aircraft flew 14,000 sorties, while the Luftwaffe managed
a mere 260, mostly in defense of its own battered airfields. In the two weeks
after D-Day, the Luftwaffe lost 600 of the 800 planes it kept in France. From
April through August 1944, both the AAF's and the RAF's strategic bombers were
placed under Eisenhower's direction, where they were used tactically to support
the invasion. Airmen protested vigorously against this subordination of the air
war to the land campaign, but Eisenhower forced the issue and used the bombers
to simultaneously strangle Germany's supply system, burn out its oil
refineries, and destroy its warplanes. With this accomplished, Eisenhower
relinquished control of the bombers in September.
In
Europe in summer 1944 the AAF started operating out of bases in France. It had
about 1,300 light bomber crews and 4,500 fighter pilots. They claimed
destruction of 86,000 railroad cars, 9,000 locomotives, 68,000 trucks, and
6,000 tanks and armored artillery pieces. P-47 Thunderbolts alone dropped
120,000 tons of bombs and thousands of tanks of napalm, fired 135 million
bullets and 60,000 rockets, and claimed 4,000 enemy planes destroyed. Beyond
the destruction itself, the appearance of unopposed Allied fighter-bombers
ruined morale, as privates and generals alike dived for the ditches. Field
Marshal Erwin Rommel, for example, was seriously wounded in July, 1944, when he
dared to ride around France in the daytime. The commander of the elite 2nd
Panzer Division fulminated:
They have complete mastery of
the air. They bomb and strafe every movement, even single vehicles and
individuals. They reconnoiter our area constantly and direct their artillery
fire ... The feeling of helplessness against enemy aircraft has a paralyzing effect,
and during the bombing barrage the effect on inexperienced troops is literally
'soul-shattering.'"
Battle of the Bulge
At
the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the Allies were caught by surprise by
a large scale German offensive. In the first days bad weather grounded all
planes. When the skies cleared, 52,000 AAF and 12,000 RAF sorties against
German positions and supply lines immediately doomed Hitler's last offensive.
General George Patton said the cooperation of XIX TAC Air Force was "the
best example of the combined use of air and ground troops that I ever
witnessed."
Strategic Operations
An
around-the-clock campaign attacked Germany, with British bombers at night and
U.S. aircraft during the day. The aircraft, tactics, and doctrines were
different; there is argument over how complementary they were in achieving
strategic effect.
The
Luftwaffe reached a maximum size of 1.9 million airmen in 1942. Grueling
operations wasted it away on the Eastern Front after 1942. It lost most of its
fighter aircraft to Mustangs in 1944 while trying to defend against massive
American and British air raids, and many of the men were sent to the infantry.
The Luftwaffe in 1944–45 concentrated on anti-aircraft defenses, especially the
flak batteries that surrounded all major German cities and war plants. They
consumed a large fraction of all German munitions production in the last year
of the war. The flak units employed hundreds of thousands of women, who engaged
in combat against the Allied bombers.
The
jet-powered German Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe far outclassed the best allied
piston engined fighters on an individual basis (the British and American jets
were in the development stage when the war ended.) However, its protracted
development history (including such factors as, a substantial cutback in
funding jet engine research during the critical 1941–42 development period,
Germany's lack of access to certain exotic raw materials necessary to produce
durable jet engines, allied strategic bombing of jet engine production lines,
and Hitler personally ordering design modifications to make the aircraft
functional as a fighter-bomber) ensured that the Me 262 was delayed and
produced too late and in too small numbers to stem the Allied tide. The Germans
also developed air-to-surface missiles (Fritz X, Hs 293,) surface-to-air
missiles (Wasserfall,) cruise missiles (V-1) and ballistic missiles (V-2,) and
other advanced technologies of air warfare, to little strategic effect.
Captured examples of these weapons, and especially of their designers,
contributed to Allied and Soviet military technologies of the Cold War, and
also of the space race.
Destroying Germany's Oil and
Transportation
Besides
knocking out the Luftwaffe, the second most striking achievement of the
strategic bombing campaign was the destruction of the German oil supply. Oil
was essential for U-boats and tanks, while very high-quality aviation gasoline
was essential for piston-engined aircraft. Jet engines ran on cheap kerosene,
and rockets used plain alcohol; the railroad system used coal, which was in
abundant supply.
The
third notable achievement of the bombing campaign was the degradation of the German
transportation system—its railroads and canals (there was little road traffic).
In the two months before and after D-Day, American B-24 Liberators, B-17 Flying
Fortresses, and British heavy bombers such as the Lancasters hammered away at
the French railroad system. Underground Resistance fighters sabotaged some 350
locomotives and 15,000 freight cars every month. Critical bridges and tunnels
were cut by bombing or sabotage. Berlin responded by sending in 60,000 German
railway workers, but even they took two or three days to reopen a line after
heavy raids on switching yards. The system deteriorated quickly, and it proved
incapable of carrying reinforcements and supplies to oppose the Normandy
invasion.
Effect of the Strategic Bombing
Germany
and Japan were burned out and lost the war in large part because of strategic
bombing. Targeting became more accurate in 1944, but the solution to inaccurate
bombs was using more of them. The AAF dropped 3.5 million bombs (500,000 tons)
against Japan, and 8 million (1.6 million tons) against Germany. The RAF
expended about the same tonnage against Germany. US Navy and Marine bombs
against Japan are not included, nor are the two atomic bombs.
The
cost of the US tactical and strategic air war against Germany was 18,400
aircraft lost in combat, 51,000 dead, 30,000 POWs, and 13,000 wounded. Against
Japan, the AAF lost 4,500 planes, 16,000 dead, 6,000 POWs, and 5,000 wounded;
Marine Aviation lost 1,600 killed, 1,100 wounded. Naval aviation lost several
thousand dead.
One
fourth of the German war economy was neutralized because of direct bomb damage,
the resulting delays, shortages, and roundabout solutions, and the spending on
anti-aircraft, civil defense, repair, and removal of factories to safer
locations. The raids were so large and often repeated that in city after city,
the repair system broke down. The bombing prevented the full mobilization of
German economic potential. Planning minister Albert Speer and his staff were
effective in improvising solutions and work-arounds, but their challenge became
more difficult every week as one backup system after another broke down. By
March 1945, most of Germany's factories, railroads, and telephones had stopped
working; troops, tanks, trains, and trucks were immobilized. About 25,000
civilians died in Dresden on Feb. 13–14, where a firestorm erupted. Overy
estimated in 2014 that in all about 353,000 civilians were killed by British
and American bombing of German cities.
Joseph
Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, was disconsolate when his beautiful ministry
buildings were totally burned out: "The air war has now turned into a
crazy orgy. We are totally defenseless against it. The Reich will gradually be
turned into a complete desert."
The
Dresden raid was to be dwarfed by what was to hit Japan starting less than a
month later—as initiated by General Curtis E. LeMay, a series of firebombing
raids, launched with the first attack by some 334 American B-29 Superfortress
heavy bombers on the night of March 9–10, 1945, codenamed Operation
Meetinghouse, burned out some 16 square miles (41 km2) of the
capital city of Japan and turned out to be the single most destructive bombing
raid in all of aviation history, even greater in initial loss of life (at
100,000 lives lost at minimum, and up to 1.5 million people homeless) than the
August 6 & 9 atomic raids, each taken as single events.
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Neufeld,
Michael J. The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic
Missile Era (1995)
Swords,
Seán S. Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar (1986)
Tactical
Aircraft, Weapons, Tactics and Combat
Batchelor,
John and Bryan Cooper. Fighter: A History of Fighter Aircraft (1973)
Cooling,
Benjamin Franklin ed. Close Air Support (1990) GPO
Craven,
Wesley Frank and J. L. Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II (1949), vol.
6: Men and Planes online edition
Francillon,
R. J. Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War (1970)
Gruen,
Adam L. Preemptive defence: Allied Air Power Versus Hitler's V-Weapons,
1943–1945 (1999) online edition
Hallion,
Richard P. D Day 1944: Air Power Over the Normandy Beaches and Beyond (1998)
online edition
Hallion,
Richard P. Strike From the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack,
1911–1945 (1989)
Hogg,
I.V. Anti-Aircraft: A History of Air Defence (1978)
Jane's
Fighting Aircraft of World War II (1989)
Lundstrom,
John B. The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat From Pearl Harbor to Midway
(1984)
McFarland,
Stephen L. and Wesley Phillips Newton. To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air
Superiority over Germany, 1942–1944 (1991)
Mikesh,
Robert C. Broken Wings of the Samurai: the Destruction of the Japanese Airforce
(1993)
Mixon,
Franklin G. "Estimating Learning Curves in Economics: Evidence from Aerial
Combat over the Third Reich." KYKLOS 46 (Fall 1993) 411–19. Germans
learned faster (if they survived)
Mortensen.
Daniel R. ed. Airpower and Ground Armies: Essays on the Evolution of
Anglo-American Air Doctrine, 1940–1943, (1998)"online edition".
Okumiya,
Masatake and Jiro Horikoshi, with Martin Caidin, Zero! (1956)
Schlaifer,
Robert. Development of Aircraft Engines (1950)
Sherrod,
Robert. History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II (1952)
Spire,
David N. Air Power for Patton's Army: The 19th Tactical Air Command in the Second
World War (2002) online edition
Warnock,
A. Timothy. Air Power versus U-boats: Confronting Hitler's Submarine Menace in
the European theatre (1999) online edition
Werrell,
Kenneth P. Archie, Flak, AAA, and SAM: A Short Operational History of
Ground-Based Air defense (GPO 1988)"online edition".
Atomic
Bomb and Surrender of Japan
Allen,
Thomas B. and Norman Polmar. Code-Name Downfall: The Secret Plan to Invade Japan-And
Why Truman Dropped the Bomb (1995)
Bernstein,
Barton. "Eclipsed by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Early Thinking About Tactical
Nuclear Weapons," International Security (Spring 1991) 149–173 in JSTOR
Bernstein,
Barton F. "The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered." Foreign Affairs, 74
(Jan–Feb 1995) 135–52.
Feis,
Herbert. Japan Subdued: The Atomic Bomb and the End of the War in the Pacific
(1961)
Gordin,
Michael D. (2009). Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War.
Princeton University Press.
Holley,
I. B., ed. Hiroshima After Forty Years (1992)
Jones,
Vincent C. Manhattan: The Army and the Bomb (GPO, 1985), official construction
history
Libby,
Justin. "The Search for a Negotiated Peace: Japanese Diplomats Attempt to
Surrender Japan Prior to the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." World
Affairs, 156 (Summer 1993): 35–45.
Miles,
Rufus E. Jr. "Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of a Half Million American Lives
Saved" International Security 10 (Fall 1985): 121–40.
Pape,
Robert A. "Why Japan Surrendered." International Security 18 (Fall
1993): 154–201 in JSTOR
Rhodes,
Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), good overview excerpt and text
search
Rotter,
Andrew J. Hiroshima: The World's Bomb (2008) excerpt and text search
Skates,
John. The Invasion of Japan (1994), excellent military history of the greatest
non-battle of all time
VanderMuelen,
Jacob. "Planning for V-J Day by the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Atomic
Bomb Controversy." Journal of Strategic Studies 16 (June 1993), 227–39.
AAF did not expect quick surrender; bomb was military use
Walker,
J. Samuel. "The Decision to Drop the Bomb: A Historiographical
Update," Diplomatic History 14 (1990) 97–114. Especially useful.
Walker,
J. Samuel. Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs
Against Japan (2004) online excerpt
Ethics
and Civilians
Childers,
Thomas. "'Facilis descensus averni est': The Allied Bombing of Germany and
the Issue of German Suffering," Central European History Vol. 38, No. 1
(2005), pp. 75–105 in JSTOR
Crane,
Conrad C. Bombs, Cities and Civilians: American Airpower Strategy in World War
II (1993)
Crane,
Conrad C. "Evolution of U.S. Strategic Bombing of Urban Areas,"
Historian 50 (November 1987) 14–39, defends AAF
Davis,
Richard G. "Operation 'Thunderclap': The US Army Air Forces and the
Bombing of Berlin." Journal of Strategic Studies (March 1991) 14:90–111.
Garrett,
Stephen A., Ethics and Airpower in World War II: The British Bombing of German
Cities (1993)
Havens,
Thomas R. H. Valley of Darkness: The Japanese People and World War Two (1978)
Hopkins,
George F. "Bombing and the American Conscience During World War II,"
The Historian 28 (May 1966): 451–73
Lammers,
Stephen E. "William Temple and the bombing of Germany: an Exploration in
the Just War Tradition." The Journal of Religious Ethics, 19 (Spring
1991): 71–93. Explains how the Archbishop of Canterbury justified strategic
bombing.
Markusen,
Eric, and David Kopf. The Holocaust and Strategic Bombing: Genocide and Total
War in the Twentieth Century (1995)
Overy,
Richard. The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940–1945
(2014) covers strategic bombing by and upon all major countries excerpt and
text search
Schaffer,
Ronald. "American Military Ethics in World War II: The Bombing of German Civilians,"
Journal of American History 67 (1980) 318–34 in JSTOR
Schaffer,
Ronald. Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II (1985)
Spaight,
J. M. Air Power and War Rights (1947), legal
Speer,
Alfred. Inside the Third Reich (1970), memoir of top Nazi economic planner
Walzer,
Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations
(1977), philosophical approach
Strategic
Bombing: Doctrine
Boog,
Horst, ed. The Conduct of the Air War in the Second World War (1992)
Clodfelter,
Mark. "Aiming to Break Will: America's World War II Bombing of German Morale
and its Ramifications," Journal of Strategic Studies, June 2010, Vol. 33
Issue 3, pp 401–435
Davis,
Richard G. "Bombing Strategy Shifts, 1944–45," Air Power History 39
(1989) 33–45
Griffith,
Charles. The quest Haywood Hansell and American strategic bombing in World War
II. (1999)
Haywood
S. Hansell. The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler. Arno Press; 1980.
Kennett,
Lee B. A History of Strategic Bombing (1982)
Koch,
H. W. "The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany: the Early Phase,
May–September 1940." The Historical Journal, 34 (March 1991) pp 117–41.
online at JSTOR
Levine,
Alan J. The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940–1945 (1992) online edition
MacIsaac,
David. Strategic Bombing in World War Two (1976)
McFarland,
Stephen L. "The Evolution of the American Strategic Fighter in Europe,
1942–44," Journal of Strategic Studies 10 (1987) 189–208
Messenger,
Charles, "Bomber" Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive,
1939–1945 (1984), defends Harris
Overy.
Richard. "The Means to Victory: Bombs and Bombing" in Overy, Why the
Allies Won (1995), pp 101–33
Sherry,
Michael. The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (1987), important
study 1930s–1960s
Smith,
Malcolm. "The Allied Air Offensive," Journal of Strategic Studies 13
(Mar 1990) 67–83
Sterrett,
James. Soviet Air Force Theory, 1918–1945 (Routledge, 2007)
Verrier,
Anthony. The Bomber Offensive (1968), British
Webster,
Charles and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany,
1939–1945 (HMSO, 1961), 4 vol. Important official British history
Wells,
Mark K. Courage and air warfare: the Allied aircrew experience in the Second
World War (1995)
Werrell,
Kenneth P. "The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: Costs and Accomplishments,"
Journal of American History 73 (1986) 702–713; good place to start. in JSTOR
Werrell,
Kenneth P. Death From the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing (2009)
Strategic
Bombing: Aircraft and Target
Beck,
Earl R. Under the Bombs: The German Home Front, 1942–1945 (1986)
Berger,
Carl. B-29: The Superfortress (1970)
Bond,
Horatio, ed. Fire and the Air War (1974)
Boog,
Horst, ed. Germany and the Second World War: Volume VII: The Strategic Air War
in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943–1944/5 (Oxford UP, 2006),
928pp official German history vol 7 excerpt and text search; online edition
Charman,
T. C. The German Home Front, 1939–45 (1989)
Craven,
Wesley Frank and J. L. Cate. The Army Air Forces in World War II (1949), vol.
6: Men and Planes online edition
Cross,
Robin. The Bombers: The Illustrated Story of Offensive Strategy and Tactics in
the Twentieth Century (1987)
Daniels,
Gordon ed. A Guide to the Reports of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey
(1981)
Davis,
Richard G. Bombing the European Axis Powers: A Historical Digest of the Combined
Bomber Offensive, 1939–1945 (2006)"online edition" (PDF).
Edoin,
Hoito. The Night Tokyo Burned: The Incendiary Campaign against Japan (1988),
Japanese viewpoint
Hansen,
Randall. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942–1945 (2009), says
AAF was more effective than RAF
Hastings,
Max. Bomber Command (1979)
Haulman,
Daniel L. Hitting Home: The Air Offensive Against Japan, (1998) online edition
Hecks,
Karl. Bombing 1939–45: The Air Offensive Against Land Targets in World War Two
(1990)
Jablonsky,
Edward. Flying Fortress (1965)
Jane's
Fighting Aircraft of World War II (1989), reprint of 1945 edition
Johnsen,
Frederick A. B-17 Flying Fortress: The Symbol of Second World War Air Power
(2000) excerpt
MacIsaac,
David, ed. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (10 v, 1976) reprints of
some reports
Madej,
Victor. ed. German war economy: the motorization myth (1984) (based on v. 64a,
77, and 113 of the U.S. Strategic Bombing reports on oil and chemical
industry.)
Madej,
Victor. ed. The War machine: German weapons and manpower, 1939–1945 (1984)
Middlebrook,
Martin. The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission: American Raids on 17 August 1943
(1983)
Mierzejewski,
Alfred C. The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944–1945: Allied Air Power
and the German National Railway (1988)
Pape,
Robert A. Punishment and Denial: The Coercive Use of Air Power (1995)
Ralph,
William W. "Improvised Destruction: Arnold, LeMay, and the Firebombing of
Japan," War in History, Vol. 13, No. 4, 495–522 (2006) online at Sage
Read,
Anthony, and David Fisher. The Fall of Berlin (1993)
Searle,
Thomas R. "'It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers': The
Firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945" The Journal of Military History, Vol.
66, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 103–133 in JSTOR
United
States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Campaigns of the Pacific War. (1946)
Online edition
United
States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report: (European War) (1945) online
edition key primary source
United
States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report: (Pacific War) (1946) online edition
key primary source
Westermann,
Edward B. Flak: German Anti-Aircraft defenses, 1914–1945 (2005)
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| The B-29 was the long range U.S. strategic bomber used to carpet bomb Japan. It was the largest aircraft to have a significant operational role in the war, and remains the only aircraft in history to have ever used a nuclear weapon in combat. |
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| A still from camera gun film shows tracer ammunition from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I of No. 609 Squadron RAF, flown by Flight Lieutenant J H G McArthur, hitting a Heinkel He 111 on its starboard quarter. These aircraft were part of a large formation from KG 53 and KG 55 which attacked the Bristol Aeroplane Company's works at Filton, Bristol, just before midday on 25 September 1940. No. 609 Squadron were based at Middle Wallop, Hampshire. |
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| German "Fritz-X" Guided Bomb in the Air Power Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. |
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| Personnel who directed the development of the BAT (left to right): Dr. H. K. Skramstad; R. C. Newhouse; Lt. Cmdr. Otho MacCracken; Capt. D. P. Tucker; Cmdr. L. P. Tabor; Dr. H. L. Dryden; W. H. A. Boyd; R. A. Lamm. Absent: Dr. P. R. Stout. |
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| The Chinese Air Force survived to fight with combat aircraft replenishments from 1937-41 through treaty with the Soviets; here a Chinese Polikarpov I-16 fighter preserved at the Datangshan Aviation Museum |
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| Xu Jixiang of the 17th PS, 5th PG with an I-15bis; the fighter he fought in the A6M Zero fighter's debut aerial-combat engagement on 13 September 1940 over Chongqing. |
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| Bombs from a Japanese B5N aircraft falling around the Netherlands cruiser Java on 15 February 1942, without sustaining damage. On 27 February during the Battle of the Java Sea, she was struck by a torpedo fired from a Japanese warship and sank 15 minutes later, just before midnight. |
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| Cactus Air Force aircraft crowd Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, circa in 1942. Visible are (circa) 21 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, eight Grumman TBF-1 Avenger torpedo bombers, three Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina patrol planes and four Boeing B-17E/F Flying Fortress bombers. |
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| Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33) "Judy" in a suicide dive against the USS Essex (CV-9), 1256 hours, November 25, 1944. Dive brakes are extended, the burning non-self-sealing port wing tank of the Yokosuka "Suisei" is trailing smoke. |
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| A formation of Heinkel He 111 medium bombers, the most numerous German bomber of the Battle of Britain. |
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| Hurricane Mk1, RAF serial R4118, squadron code UP-W, UK civil registration G-HUPW, at the Royal International Air Tattoo, Fairford, Gloucestershire, England. The aircraft was delivered new to 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron in August 1940. It flew 49 combat sorties from Croydon, England, destroying 3 enemy aircraft and damaging two others. Still painted in its original markings, R4118 is the only Hurricane from the Battle of Britain still flying. |
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| Arming the underwing Werfer-Granate 21 rocket mortar of an Fw 190 A-8/R6 of Stab/JG 26. |
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| Bf 110 of Nachtjagdgeschwader 4 (NJG 4). The Bf 110 built to shoot down heavy Allied bombers by day, but mostly achieved success as a repurposed night fighter with Lichtenstein radar fitted. |
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| Oblique aerial view of ruined residential and commercial buildings south of the Eilbektal Park (seen at upper right) in the Eilbek district of Hamburg, Germany. These were among the 16,000 multi-storied apartment buildings destroyed by the firestorm which developed during the raid by Bomber Command on the night of 27/28 July 1943 (Operation GOMORRAH). The road running diagonally from upper left to lower right is Eilbeker Weg, crossed by Rückertstraße. |
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| Tokyo was scorched by air raids. Taken from the sky near Ryogoku Station to the south. The bottom of the photo is Ryogoku Station, the large dome-shaped building on the right of the center is the old Ryogoku Kokugikan (currently Ryogoku City Core, which is different from the location of the new Kokugikan), and running left and right in front of it Keiyo road, at the far right is the Sumida River, visible and a bridge from the front truss bridge of the Shin'ohashi era (some of Meiji-mura stored at) and the suspension bridge of the Kiyosubashi era. |
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| Contemporary painting of Short Stirlings getting ready for take-off. |
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| Contemporary painting of an Fw 190 attacking a Short Stirling as a crewman bails out of the stricken bomber. |
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| American air leaders, General Ira Eaker (left background), who commanded the Eighth Air Force in its early missions, and General Carl Spaatz, who eventually commanded all American air forces in Europe. As head of the Eighth Bomber Command, Eaker was Harris's counterpart. Eaker and Harris disagreed on the daylight vs. nighttime theory of bombardment. With Spaatz's backing Eaker prevailed and American bombers flew day missions and the British continued to bomb at night. |
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| View of members of the 422nd Night Fighter Squadron looking at a magazine, in the European Theater during World War II, circa 1943-1945. Caption on the reverse reads, “Pre-flight ‘Briefing’ by Lt. Phil Guba.” Philip M. Guba, Jr. is holding the magazine. Louis L. Bost can be seen standing behind it, and James Mogan is standing at far right. |
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| Major Joseph H. Foss, on the left, the commanding officer of VMF-115, escorts Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, on the right, during Lindbergh’s “combat visit” to fly the Chcnae Vought F4U Corsair with the squadron at Emirau in May 1944. Walking just behind them is Maj. Marion E. Carl. |
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| Robert S. Johnson in his Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, 13 April 1944. |
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| USAAF bombardment of Iwo Jima in 1945 . |
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| B-17 bombers of the U.S. Twelfth Air Force dropped fragmentation bombs on the important El Aouina airdrome at Tunis, Tunisia, and covered the airdrome and field completely. On the field below enemy planes can be seen burning, on February 14, 1943. |
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| Luftwaffe nemesis. B-17F Flying Fortresses of the Eighth Air Force 390th Bomb Group over Europe; contrails made by their escort fighters curve through the sky above the formation. |
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| While on a bombing run over Salamaua, New Guinea, before its capture by Allied forces, photographer Sgt. John A. Boiteau aboard an army Liberator took this photograph of a B-24 Liberator during World War II. Bomb bursts can be seen below in lower left and a ship at upper right along the beach. January 1943. |
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| A B-25 bomber of the U.S. Army 5th Air Force strikes against a Japanese ship in the harbor at Rabaul, New Britain during an air raid on the Japanese-held air and naval base. November 2, 1943. |
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| This June 6, 1944 photo shows B-26 Marauders flying toward France during the D-Day invasion. |
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| A formation of Boeing B-29 Superfortresses of the 73rd Bomb Wing fly over Mt. Fuji, Japan in 1945. |
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| Flames spread through the city of Tarumiza, Kyushu, Japan, after incendiary bombing by the 499th Bomb Squadron, 345th Bomb Group. |
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| A night view of burning Toyama, Japan on August 1, 1945, after 173 American B-29 bombers dropped incendiary bombs on the city. Formerly a big producer of aluminum, the city was 95.6% demolished. |
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| Incendiary bombs are dropped from B-29 Superfortresses of the U.S. Army Air Forces on already-burning landing piers and surrounding buildings in Kobe, Japan, on June 4, 1945. |
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| In flight over the Japanese city of Kobe, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress trails smoke and fire, on July 17, 1945. |
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| Ground crew members prepare bombs to be loaded into the racks of the waiting B-29 Superforts, at a U.S. airbase on Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. “Dauntless Dotty” in the background. November 1944. |
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| Japanese night raiders are greeted with a lacework of antiaircraft fire by the U.S. Marine defenders of Yontan airfield, on Okinawa during World War II. In the foreground are Marine Corsair fighter planes of the “Hells Belles” squadron standing silhouetted against the sky. March 1945. |
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| Sailors stand among wrecked airplanes at Ford Island Naval Air Station as they watch the explosion of the USS Shaw in the background, during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. December 7, 1941. |
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| Col. Jim Howard of the 354th Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force, receives the Medal of Honor from Gen. Carl A. Spaatz for his action of 11 January 1944. |
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| Left to right: P-38 pilots Bob Adams, John Johes, Jess Gidley. |
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| P-38 pilot in flight gear. |
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| P-38 wartime postcard “Keep ‘em Flying!” |
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| Fifteenth Air Force P-38s return to base, Italy, 1944. |
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| The top two U.S. aces of World War II. Maj Richard Bong and Maj Thomas McGuire. McGuire was killed in combat on January 7, 1945 and Bong died in the crash of a P-80 jet he was test flying on August 6, 1945. |
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| Colonel James Beckwith, commander of the 15th Fighter Group, in his P-51 Mustang 'Squirt' leading P-51s of the 45th Fighter Squadron from their base on Saipan to their new base on Iwo Jima, March 7, 1945. Note the VLR tanks. |
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| C-47 Skytrains in Vee-of Vees formation. |
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| Douglas SBD Dauntless. |
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| SBD Dauntless' (8-S-9 and 8-S-13) from VS-8 fly over the burning Japanese cruiser Mikuma on 6 June 1942. A combined effort from aircraft from Hornet and Enterprise landed at least five direct hits on the cruiser causing her torpedoes to explode. The ship sank sometime later in the day with the loss of 650 of her crew, 240 survivors were picked up by the Japanese cruisers Mogami, Asashio and Arashio. Two more survivors were picked up by the USS Trout (SS-202) three days later. Mogami, Asashio and Arashio were all damaged by the same aircraft with Mogami taking six direct hits. |
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| Grumman TBF-1 Avenger. |
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| View of scale glider model in flight, moments after being launched by the teenage boy at right foreground. Boy wears the uniform of the Hitler Youth organization; several Nazi officers can be seen looking on from background. |
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| Messerschmitt Bf 110D-1, Zerstörergeschwader 26 "Horst Wessel" (ZG26) flying over Sicily, 1942. |
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| Daimler-Benz DB-605 engine Mercedes-Benz Messerschmitt Bf 109. |
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| An Heinkel He 111 releasing a stick of 110-pound bombs over England. These small weapons were housed in the bomb bay nose-up, and tumbled away from the aircraft after release. |
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| Heinkel He 111s heading for Russia in 1942. |
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| Heinkel He 111. |
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| Heinkel He 111. |
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| Bombs fall from an He 111 into Warsaw. A composite photograph. |
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| Junkers Ju 52. |
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| Junkers Ju 52/3m transports unloading supplies at a desert airfield for Rommel’s Afrika Korps. A Messerschmitt Me 110 fighter in the foreground was part of the force protecting the transports during their flight. |
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| Junkers Ju 52 minesweeper shot down by RAF Hawker Hurricane off Lorient. |
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| A Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber of the Luftwaffe wings over as its pilot acquires a target while flying above embattled Yugoslavia. |
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| More and more girls were joining the Luftwaffe under Germany’s total conscription campaign. They were replacing men transferred to the army to take up arms instead of planes against the advancing allied forces. Here, German girls are shown in training with men of the Luftwaffe, somewhere in Germany, on December 7, 1944. |
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| Partly completed Heinkel He-162 fighter jets sit on the assembly line in the underground Junkers factory at Tarthun, Germany, in early April 1945. The huge underground galleries, in a former salt mine, were discovered by the 1st U.S. Army during their advance on Magdeburg. |
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| Hangar at the Merseburg airfield west of Leipzig. |
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| The wreckage of a German bomber smolders in a Kent apple orchard. |
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| Dornier Do 17. |
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| Dornier Do 17. |
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| Junkers Ju 87 Stukas. |
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| Junkers Ju 88 bombers on their way to Kos for an operation. |
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| Friedrich Lang, Erich Hartmann and Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer receive the Oak Leaves with Swords, Horst Kaubisch, Eduard Skrzipek and Adolf Glunz the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross from Adolf Hitler. |
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| Members of the RAAF pose with Schnaufer’s Messerschmitt Bf 110G-4, G9+BA, Stab/NJG 1, Schleswig, Germany, shortly after the end of the war, 19 June 1945. |
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| Messerschmitt Bf 110 under attack from a Supermarine Spitfire, caught on the latter’s gun camera film. |
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| Junkers Ju 87 Stuka bombing a Russian bridge built to replace the destroyed bridge upstream, Novgorod, Russia. |
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| Hawker Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain. |
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| Contemporary painting of a Stirling cockpit. |
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| Bristol Blenheim Mark Is of No. 62 Squadron RAF, flying in formation over Tengah, Singapore, on departing for their new base at Alor Star, Malaya. |
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| Three Lockheed Hudson aircraft, including NZ2001, Royal New Zealand Air Force, Whenuapai, August 1941. |
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| "New Zealand Fights in Pacific Skies" poster showing a pilot standing on the wing of a Curtiss P-40 "Warhawk". |
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| Photo used to create the above poster. This photo may be a composite of two or more photos. The aircraft in flight have definitely been added, the palm tree and sky may also be from another photo. |
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| Brewster Buffalo pilots of No. 488 (New Zealand) Squadron based at Kallang display the tail fin of a Japanese aircraft which they shot down over Johore, Malaya, January 1942. |
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| Douglas Boston light bombers of No. 24 Squadron, South African Air Force, flying low over the Tunisian desert, March 1943. Several South African fighter, bomber and reconnaissance squadrons operated during the North African campaign. No. 24 Squadron was the longest serving, having arrived from a deployment in East Africa in May 1941. |
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| Junkers Ju 87B dropping a 250kg SC250 and four 50kg SC50 bombs. |
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| Junkers Ju 87 under construction, Dessau-Roßlau, Germany. |
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| The biggest shipping center for London’s food supplies, Tilbury, was the target of numerous German air attacks. Bombs dropping on the port of Tilbury, on 4 October 1940. The first group of bombs hit the ships lying in the Thames, the second struck the docks. |
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| British workers in a salvage yard break up the remains of wrecked German raiders which were shot down over England. 26 August 1940. |
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| A huge scrap heap where German planes, brought down over Great Britain, were dumped, photographed on 27 August 1940. The large number of German planes downed during raids on Britain made a substantial contribution to the national scrap metal salvage campaign. |
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| A Heinkel He 111 bomber flies over London in the autumn of 1940. The Thames River runs through the image. |
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| A Dornier Do 215 drops its load of bombs above England, during an attack on 20 September 1940. |
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| The effects of a large concentrated attack by the Luftwaffe, on London dock and industry districts, on 7 September 1940. Factories and storehouses were seriously damaged; the mills at the Victoria Docks (below at left) show damage wrought by fire. |
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| Luftwaffe aces meet Hitler after an awards ceremony at the Berghof, 1944. Eight of the officers shown here accounted for a total of 1,486 aerial kills. |
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| Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers fly over, Immola, 2 July 1944. |
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| Under British military escort, two captured Luftwaffe crewmen walk out of the London Underground, September 1940. |
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| Aerial view of bombs exploding during a German bombing run over Poland in September 1939. |
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| American soldiers looking at a dead German pilot and his wrecked plane near Gela, Sicily, July 12, 1943. |
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| A German bomber, with its starboard engine on fire, goes down over an unknown location, during World War II, in November, 1941. |
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| Douglas A-20 Havocs over a target in France. |
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| Douglas A-20J-10-DO Havoc (43-10129) of the 409th or 416th Bomb Group after being hit by flak over Germany. |
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| Douglas A-20 Havocs in bombing formation, circa 1943. |
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| Fairey Albacores, Fleet Air Arm. |
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| Amiot 143 medium bombers over France. |
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| Pilots of the AVG (Flying Tigers) run to their P-40 fighters during a raid. |
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| Japanese Nakajima B5N Kate shown during the Pearl Harbor attack, 7 December 1941. Japanese caption reads, “Pearl Harbor in flame and smoke, gasping helplessly under the severe pounding of our sea eagles.” Taken from the captured Japanese publication Victory on the March, photograph dated 11 December 1944. |
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| Japanese aircraft on mission to attack Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. |
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| United States Navy aviation cadets check flight boards for last minute instructions at the Naval Air Training Center at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, November 1942. Note the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3 Canary in the background. |
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| A formation of aircraft led by Douglas TBDs followed by Northrop BT dive bombers flies over U.S. Navy ships during exercises at sea, 1938-1939. |
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| US Navy K-class airships of Airship Patrol Squadron ZP-11 and several TBM Avengers in hurricane storage at NAS South Weymouth, Massachusetts, on 14 September 1944. |
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| At a remote base in the Aleutian Islands, U.S. Navy aircrew amuse themselves with cribbage—and posters of pin-up girls. |
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| Chess game occupies the time of two Navy pilots in their quarters at an Aleutians Islands advanced base, circa 1942-1943. |
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| The condensation trails from German and British fighter planes engaged in an aerial battle appear in the sky over Kent, along the southeastern coast of England, on 3 September 1940. |
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| Two barrage balloons come down in flames after being shot by German war planes during an aerial attack over the Kent coast in England, on 30 August 1940. |
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| Captured Ki-84 “Frank” over the Luzon plain in formation with a USAAF North American P-51D Mustang, U.S. Navy Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, and a Royal New Zealand Air Force Supermarine Seafire. |
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| Aircraft of the 7th Photographic Group, 8th United States Army Air Force based at Mount Farm, Oxfordshire. |
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| RAAF Beauforts flying a close air support mission for Australian troops in New Guinea. |
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| Bristol Beaufighter Mk Xs of No. 404 Squadron RCAF on a training sortie from Dallachy in Scotland, February 1945. These rocket-armed strike aircraft took part in operations against enemy shipping off the Norwegian coast. As the war progressed, Germany’s supplies of iron ore and other strategic materials from neutral Sweden were successfully interdicted by the RAF’s anti-shipping squadrons. |
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| No. 418 (Intruder) Squadron briefing in England. From left to right: Flying Officer F. W. Halwood, Flight Lieutenant Massey Beveridge, Wing Commander Paul Davoud, Flying Officer Doug Alcorn, Squadron Leader Charles Moran, Flying Officer L.E.S. Spackman, Flying Officer James Johnson, Flight Lieutenant H. Lisson. |
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| No. 418 (Intruder) Squadron members inscribing their names on linen, indicating each member of the Squadron on VE Day. From Left to Right, Flight Lieutenant C. Redeker, Flight Lieutenant A. G. Eckert, Flying Officer M. Zimmer. |
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| S/L C.C. Moran with F/O O. Martin, No. 418 (Intruder) Squadron, RCAF. |
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| Canadian fighter pilot with a Hawker Hurricane in the background. |
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| Pilots from No. 401 Squadron, RCAF, run to their Hurricane aircraft circa 1941. Ground crew are waiting to help the pilots put on their parachutes and get into the aircraft. The Hurricanes could skim off the ground three minutes after an alarm was sounded. |
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| Vickers Wellington of No 426 Squadron RCAF returns to base after taking a flak hit that blew out the rear turret, killing the gunner. April 9, 1943. |
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| Right, unexploded German bomb. Left, the same type of German bomb. |
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| Contemporary painting of Wellingtons attacking enemy battleship. |
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| Breda Ba.64 served with the 5th and 50th Regiments of the Italian air force in 1937-38 when they were often photographed and filmed for propaganda purposes. |
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| A member of the 2107th Ordnance-Ammo Battalion inspecting a store of 4000-pound bombs, some under camouflage netting, along the roadside at the Sharnbrook Ordnance Depot, Bedfordshire, England, UK. July 1943. |
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| Mechanics service a Vultee BT-13A Valiant at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, where black airmen trained before flying combat missions in Europe. |
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| Aerial view of an attack on a Japanese seaplane base, circa 1943. Note the planes visible: Probably some four Mitsubishi A6M-2N "Rufe" fighters on the beach, some five Aichi E13A "Jake" reconnaissance planes (one overturned), and two wrecks, one of a 4-engined plane (H6K or H8K). The base was probably located in the Solomons or New Guinea. |
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| Aichi Е13А1. |
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| Twelve Brewster Buffalo Mark Is of No. 243 Squadron RAF, based at Kallang, Singapore, in flight over the Malayan jungle in in formations of three, accompanied by a Bristol Blenheim Mark IV of No, 34 Squadron RAF (lower right), based at Tengah. |
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| Brewster B-239 (S/N BW-354) of the Finnish air force. |
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| A group of PBYs of VP-9 in flight between San Diego and Pearl Harbor, January 18, 1939. |
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| Jimmy Stewart, former movie star, is sworn in as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Corps by Lt. E.L. Reid, personnel officer of the west coast training center at Moffett Field, California, on January 1, 1941. Stewart was one of Hollywood’s most popular actors before he was inducted into the Army in 1941. |
