World War II was the first conflict in history to see the daily use of strategic and tactical air power. Air power thus played a major role in the war, not only in support of ground operations but also in naval combat in the World War II Pacific theater.
Japanese air forces, divided into army and naval forces, contained the most sophisticated aircraft in the world by
1941, and scored triumphs against the United States at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and during campaigns in the Pacific early in 1942. But Japan suffered major defeats at the hands of the U. S. Navy at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and at the Battle of Midway in June 1942—encounters that underscored the new importance of air power in naval warfare, for the surface fleets never came in contact. The Battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944 brought the effective end of Japanese air power. The Japanese air forces, and Japan’s smaller aircraft industry, were overwhelmed by more numerous and mobile American air forces to the point that air defenses of the home islands were practically nonexistent when the American bombing campaign began in mid-1944.
In the European theater, the Germans demonstrated air power in a ground support role in Poland in September 1939. The German Luftwaffe quickly destroyed the Polish air force, enabling attacks at will on depots, factories, transportation centers, and enemy forces. This same pattern, using aircraft as “flying artillery,” was used in every German blitzkrieg campaign in Europe between 1940 and mid-1942. However, the Battle of Britain in 1940 and subsequent military operations severely strained the Luftwaffe, as did demands for home air defense after Allied bombings campaigns began in 1942. Although the Anglo-American strategic air campaigns encountered heavy Luftwaffe resistance, this threat ended by early 1944, as did Germany’s ability to provide air support for German troops in the field.
The Allies developed sophisticated tactical air forces. As they prepared for the invasion of Normandy, the British Royal Air Force and the U. S. Army Air Forces gained air superiority over Europe and destroyed transportation and communications networks vital to counterattacking enemy forces. When the Normandy invasion took place, Anglo-American air power was overwhelming, numbering approximately 12,000 aircraft, compared to 300 Luftwaffe aircraft. On D day, the Allies flew 15,000 sorties, the Luftwaffe only 100. For the remainder of the war, Allied air forces controlled European skies.
The Anglo-American strategic air campaigns against Germany and Japan were controversial and involved questions of effectiveness versus costs in money, material, and manpower, as well as the military value and morality of bombing urban areas. The British began the strategic bombing of Germany in 1940, but discovered that daylight long-range missions were costly and bombing inaccurate, prompting the start of night areas attacks on nonindustrial targets. When the U. S. Eighth Army Air Force arrived in Britain in 1942, its leaders emphasized daylight precision bombing in the erroneous belief that B-17 Flying Fortresses, using the Norden bombsight, could obtain significant results with acceptable losses. They asserted bombers could reach and destroy “choke points” in the German economy that would shut down the enemy war effort. Operations against ball bearing plants in 1943 had little impact, but the discovery that petroleum was the vital “choke point” quickly brought Germany to grief. In addition, the early 1944 advent of long-range escort fighters such as the U. S. P-51 Mustang and the P-47 Thunderbolt assured the survival of the bomber and made the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive more lethal. Although it failed to destroy enemy morale, strategic bombing reduced war production, snarled transportation and communications, and diverted significant resources from the fronts to home defense. Allied raids killed an estimated 600,000 German civilians.
In the Pacific, American raids on Japan, using the B-29 Superfortress, had little effect until bases were established in the Mariana Islands, and carpet bombing with napalm was substituted for high-level bombing in March 1945. Between March and August 1945, an estimated 60 percent of Japan’s urban areas were burned out, killing an estimated 500,000 people. In August 1945, American aircraft used the new atomic BOMB on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and World War II came to an end.
A country’s capacity for developing air power depended on the availability of a large industrial base, scientific and technical knowledge, a skilled workforce, secure training and base areas, and ample raw materials and fuel. Between 1939 and 1945, the United States, with its productive aircraft industry, produced some 300,000 aircraft. During the same period, the Soviet Union produced 157,000 aircraft; the United Kingdom, 131,000; Germany, 120,000; and Japan, 77,000. Aircraft losses were greatest for Germany
(95.000) , followed by the Soviet Union, the United States
(59.000) , Japan (49,000), and Great Britain (49,000).
Further reading: John Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Conrad C. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and Civilians: American Air Power Strategy in World War II (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1993); Michael Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987).
—Clayton D. Laurie
World History
