** war and social upheaval: World War II -- air tactics








World War II Technology: Air Tactics

Japanese air raid on Chunking
Figure 1.--Japan used its air power when it invaded China (1937). The Chinese air force was very small and cities and the country had virtually no air defenses. Japanese air strategy was primariily to bomb Chinese cities with goal of forcing the China to make peace. Civilians suffered terribly. Western journalists recorded what was happening. This is the aftermath of a Japanese raid on Chunking. Despite the disparity of air power, the Japanese air force had little impact on the war in China. The Chinese withdrew to the interior and refused to surrender. The primary impact was to publicize the imporality to people in the United States and Europe. Notblky at the Hirohima nd Ngasaki menoril in Japon, there is no mention of the Japanese bombing of civikins in China dor nearky 15 years and tge 20 million people the Japnese killed duing the War.

It was aeronautics that most destinguished World War II from earlier wars. There were two primary alternatives to air war. One alternative was tactical air operations to support land troops at the front. The second was strategic air operations targeting a country's ability to support the front-line soldiers. World War I ended before either alternative had been really tested. As a result, air war planning during the inter-War era ws largely theoretical. Many countries rejected the bombing of civilians as immoral. This was, however, a position not accepted by the Axis countries which launched the War. The Allies hesitated to bomb cities at the onset of the War, but the British once they survived the Blitz set out to build a massive bomber force. Even before entering tghe War, the United States adopted the doctrinme of a strategic air war. The United states believed that they could accurately bomb specific targets without causing massive civilian casualties. And the United States had the capacity to build both a strategic and tactical air force. pMilitary theorists in the inter-War era debated the most effective approach, but the alternatives chosen in World War II were largely determined by the country's industrial capacity. The air doctrine adopted varied greatly from country to country. Both the Germans and Japanese put considerable emphasis on air power. The Germans began World War II with the world's most modern air force. They did not, however, have the largest industrial capacity to build aircraft. The German advantage was gained by a crash building program before the British and French began to rearm. Even so, the Luftwaffe was a tactical airforce designed to support the Wehrmacht's land offensive as part of Blitzkrieg. Germany did not have the industrial capacity to buld a strategic air force and had no substantial force of plans to wage a stategic bombing campaign. America and Britain did have the industrial capacity to build a strategic air force. In the Pacific, The Japanese also introduced air power. The Japanese has amall aviation industry, but China had even less. The Japanese placed less emphasis on close ground support, but from an early point began bombing Chinese cities with little opposition. The Japanese unlike the Germans created a poweful naval fleet air arm. World War II, as a result, was the first real air war. Both the Bitish and Germans were preparng a strategic bombing campaign in World War I, but the War ended before it had begun. Thus air commanders when World War II erupted had no real idea how to wage a strategic air campaign. Theorists had addressed the topic, but without actual experience, they remained theories when Hitler invaded Poland launcjhing the War. Nor except for the Germans did they understand how air forces could be used to efficely support land operations. This was in part due to the fact that the Luftwaffe was not created until 1935 and the Germans used officers recruited from the Heer. Britain and America on the other hand had a staff core that were focused on air warfare and an industrial base that could supply both strtegic and tactical aircraft. Little noticed at the time, the British during the Battle of Britain were already outproduciung the Germans in aircraft. Even without strategic bombers, the Germans at the onset of the War began bombing cities in Poland. bombing. They were so confidant of victory and disfainful of other countries that they believed that German cities would never be targeted.

Air War Alternatives

It was aeronautics that most destinguished World War II from earlier wars. There were two primary alternatives to air war. One alternative was tactical air operations to support land troops at the front. The second was strategic air operations targeting a country's ability to support the front-line soldiers. World War I ended before either alternative had been really tested. As a result, air war planning during the inter-War era ws largely theoretical. World War II, was the first real air war. Both the Bitish and Germans were preparng a strategic bombing campaign in World War I, but the War ended before it had begun. Thus air commanders when World War II erupted had no real idea how to wage a strategic air campaign. Theorists had addressed the topic, but without actual experience, they remained theories when Hitler and Stalim invaded Poland launching the War. Nor except for the Germans did air commanders understand how air forces could be used to efficely support land operations. One of the amazing aspects of the War is how long it took Germany's adversaries to develop the tactical capabilities ((close ground support) tht had made the Luftwaffe so effective. German effectiveness was ironivally part due to the fact that the Luftwaffe was not officially created until 1935 (actul development began in 1933 after Hitler sized power) and the Germans used officers recruited from the Heer with little or no air expereience or training. Britain and America on the other hand had a staff core that were focused on air warfare and an industrial base that could supply both strtegic and tactical aircraft. Little noticed at the time, the British during the Battle of Britain were already outproduciung the Germans in aircraft. Even without strategic bombers, the Germans at the onset of the War began bombing cities in Poland. bombing. They were so confidant of victory and disfainful of other countries that they believed that German cities would never be targeted.

Industrial Capacity

Military theorists in the inter-War era debated the most effective approach, but the alternatives chosen in World War II were largely determined by the country's industrial capacity. The air doctrine adopted thus varied greatly from country to country. Only a few counties had the industrial capacity to build powerful air forces. And here the United States stood alone. Its huge industrial capacity gave it the ability to build aircraft and the implements of war like no other. But the United States was steadfastly isolationist and opposed to entering another great war. American air planners were strongly fixed on strategic bombing. Protected by two great oceans, there was little attention given to possible tactical operations, despite the fact that the air force was a unit of the U.S. Army. American air commanders saw their operations, if called upon, as a way of avoiding the costly ground operation of World War I. American industry once the War began astound not only the Axis powers, but the American military as well. Several other countries had the capacity of building air forces, although on a much smaller scale. Britain took a similar approach, although had only the Channel rather than an ocean as a geographic barrier--fortunately for humanity, those 21 miles was just wide enough. The British focus was on bombers rather than fighters seeing this as a deterrent force against possible adversaries. As a result, Britain almost entered World War II with obsolete biplane (two wing) fighters. Because off the World War I experience, Britain was the only country to develop an integrated air defense system before the War. Britain had two big advantages. It had a relatively large automobile industry which could be converted to aircraft production, and importantly efficient aircraft production. And the Channel meant that Britain could focus on its air and naval forces. Germany had Europe's largest industrial economy, second only to he United States. And that industrial capacity was significantly expanded by the acquisition of Czechoslovakia before the War (1938). Hitler building on policies of pre-War governments rapidly built the world's most powerful air force. He could have been out-built by the British and French, but they were both slow to react. While Germany's industrial capacity was large, it was not capable of building both a tactical and strategic force. They chose to build a tactical force. Hitler trusted Göring and his crony Udet to make the decisions. And tactical air required less industry than building strategic forces. Here Germany was constrained by economic factors. Unlike Britain, the Germans could not just concentrate on air forces. They had to build a powerful ground force. And despite having a considerable advantage in heavy industry, German had a rather small and inefficient small automobile industry. This proved to be a major weakness in the German war economy once Hitler and Stalin launch the War. France was a much smaller country than Germany, but combined Britain and France had a larger industrial economy. Like Britain, French leaders and military commanders were focused on defensive war, assuming that any future war would play out like World War I, descending into static trench warfare. This put them vulnerable to the military the Germans were developing. Unlike Britain, France did not have the Channel. They expended huge resources on the Maginot Line. Even so, the French had an aviation industry and built a small, but capable air force. Production was slowed by left-wing labor unions. But at the start of the War France fielded a potentially capable force with modern aircraft. Tragically, unimaginative French military leaders used it terribly. The French commanders dispersed it meaning only weak air opposition was encountered when the Germans struck in the Ardennes (May 1940). As a result, the French Air Force was a non-factor in the War. Vichy authorities tried to cover this up. And Propaganda Minister Goebbels trumped the supposed superiority of German weaponry which was not true, but highly effective propaganda. Interestingly, the Germans made little use of the French aircraft industry during the War. Italy was not a heavily industrialized country. They had a small aviation industry and made some reasonable aircraft, but did not have the industrial capacity to build aircraft in the numbers required by World War II. In some ways the Soviet Red Air Force is similar to the French Air Force, only the Soviets did not capitulate. The Soviets had a capable air force, in fact the Red Air Force was the World's largest, but it was handled unimaginably stupidly. Much of it was positioned close to the front and destroyed within a week largely on the ground by the Luftwaffe (June 1941). Stalin had even given orders nit to fire on German planes because his primary concern was an accidental breakout of hostilities. Increasingly he trusted Hitler, but thought ht the German generals wanted to provoke a war. In addition he ordered the NKVD murder many of the more imaginative commanders in the purges of the 1930s. As a result, the Red Army had to fight the NAZI onslaught of 1941 and even 1942 with little or no air support. This began to change (1943). Some aircraft factories had been successfully moved beyond the Urals where production slowly resumed. And American Lend-Lease made a huge contribution, providing both air craft as well as aluminum, instrumentation (a notable weakness in early Soviet aircraft), and aviation fuel. As a result the Red Air Force was back in business (1943). And they were greatly aided by the German withdrawal of hard-pressed fighter squadrons back to the Reich to protect cities from Allied bombers. Japan was the only industrialized nation in Asia. And they built a small air force which hey unleashed on China, bombing Chinese cities with little opposition. There was, however, little or no actual close air support. A major problem was radios that were not reliable. Japanese air forces, both Army and Navy, were highly effective in the first year of the Pacific War (1942). This was achieved by two factors. First was the highly trained Japanese aviators. Second was the light weight (meaning total lack of defensive armor) of the Japanese aircraft. This advantage was soon lost in combat. The experienced, highly competent Japanese aviators were lost in air battles during 1942 and Japan did not have a training program that could replace then in the needed numbers. The Americans in contrast developed tactics to deal with Japanese fighters, launched a massive training program, and introduced advanced aircraft that outperformed the Japanese. This was clearly observable in the Solomons campaign (1943), but culminated in the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot (1944).

Civilian Morale

One of the unknowns to military planners as Europe moved toward war was the reaction of civilians to strategic bombing. It was widely believed that 'the bomber would always get through' meaning that there was no way to stop them. This was was a phrase introduced by British Prime-Minister Stanley Baldwin (1932). At he time, Baldwin was right. Bomber speeds were actually faster than fighters. A year later Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany (1933). This lead to increasing concern about the possibility of war and bombing. Major improvements in fighter aircraft occurred in the 1930s which improved air defenses. The refinement of radar also made improved air defense systems possible which was first demonstrated in the Battle of Britain (1940), Most countries except for Germany and America had the capability to create integrated defensive stems. Even so, it was clearly impossible to stop a bombing force by a major air force. It was possible to attrit bombers depending on the defensive capability, but not to stop all of them. What was still unknown is how a civilian population would respond to a sustained bombing campaign. The one World War I experience that the air planners had to go on was the World War I British experience. The Germans used both Zeppelins and Gotha bombers to bomb London and other British cities. In World War I terms, these were mere mere pin pricks, but they had a huge impact on British public opinion. It infuriated the British people, but there was no mass panic. Given the reaction, many air commanders believed that civilian morale could collapse under a really sustained bombing campaign with large numbers of modern bombers. The Czech Government surrender even before the War. Poland was not a real test as the German Army advanced so quickly and then the Soviet Red Army attacked from the East. And the Dutch Government surrendered after Rotterdam was bombed. As the War developed, however, it became clear that civilian populations proved much more resilient to conventional bombing than the air chiefs had anticipated. This might have proven differently if the belligerents had employed chemical weapons. it was widely assumed in inter-War planning that chemical weapon would be used They were not, except by Japan against the Chinese. And this despite the fact that the Germans had developed advanced nerve agents. The two countries most heavily bombed were Britain and Germany and in both countries, civilian morale did not collapse and the economy continued to function. And this was the case in London despite the fact that adequate provisions had not been made for bomb shelters. What did occur was a desire to pursue the War with increased determination and fierceness. This was not a major factor in totalitarian societies which had the capacity to compel obedience. It was a factor with the democracies which had been so reluctant to wage war. And this was also important in the still-neutral United States where public opinion was being powerfully affected, especially by the NAZI air assault on London which was being covered live by American broadcast reporters. The same was true in other heavily bombed localities like Leningrad and Malta as long as military forces kept the invading army at bay. The Allies air campaign was much more massive than any campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe and Japanese air forces. And the German and Japanese war economies did eventually collapse, but there was no total collapse of civilian morale as was the case in the Central Powers at the end of World War I. [Citino] This loyalty to Hitler is something that bis rarely discussed in the morality debate and needs to be. More important than the bombing seems to have been the food supply. Hitler unlike the Kaiser in World War I, managed to keep the German people reasonably well fed by depriving occupied people of food. This continued until the very last months of the War. The Japanese were beginning to starve in the last few months of the War, but civilian morale did not crack. Instead large numbers of people moved into th countryside. We suspect, however, that one reason the occupation of Japan went so smoothly was the efforts made to feed the population.

Moral Issues

Many countries before Workd War II rejected the bombing of civilians as immoral. This was, however, a position not accepted by the Axis countries which launched the War. Both Germany and Japan began bombing cities even before the War began, the Japanese in Chima (1931) and and the Germans in Spain (1936) and both countries sugnificantly expanded the bombing of cities once they launched the War. The Democracies responded and actually had a much greater capacity to conduct strategic operations. The moral concern was dropped given the Axis use of bombing and the desire to avoid the casualties of ground warfare. The morality of the air campaign is a still hotly debated question. At the time, none of the major combatant countries with bombing formations (Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States) questioned their own use of bombing on moral grounds, although the Allies began to have concerns at the ebd of the War, especially after the Dresden raid. . America and Britain accused NAZI Germany of war crimes when it conducted terror bombing of cities with that explicit goal. The Japanese did the same in China. After the the NAZIs began using this tactic, both America and Britain subsequently launched much more massive assaults on German and later Japanese cities. Although the goal was never described explicity as terror, the differences if you were a German civilian would be difficult to determine. The German foreign minister coming to Washington in November 2002 recalled cowering in a bomb shelter during the Allied bombing. A HBC reader remembers the glow in the night sky from raging fires in a nearby city after Allied bombing runs. Much of the debate over the morality of the aerial campaign really are questions on the morality of war itself. There are questions, however, that pertain uniquely to the World War II aerial campaign itself. HBC does not seek to answer the moral questions. A thorough discussion would be a study in itself. We do believe, however, that it is important to pose some of the major questions.

Country Trends

At the time of World War II, air tatics were still just theories. There was a range of different theories adopted by the major powers. The Allies hesitated to bomb German cities at the onset of the War, but the British once they survived the Blitz set out to build a massive bomber force. Even before entering the War, the United States adopted the doctrinme of a strategic air war. The United states believed that they could accurately bomb specific targets without causing massive civilian casualties. And the United States had the capacity to build both a strategic and tactical air force. Both the Germans and Japanese put considerable emphasis on air power. The Germans began World War II with the world's most modern air force. They did not, however, have the largest industrial capacity to build aircraft. The German advantage was gained by a crash building program before the British and French began to rearm. Even so, the Luftwaffe was a tactical airforce designed to support the Wehrmacht's land offensive as part of Blitzkrieg. Germany did not have the industrial capacity to buld a strategic air force and had no substantial force of plans to wage a stategic bombing campaign. America and Britain did have the industrial capacity to build a strategic air force. We notice the pacifists who played a huge rile vin causing the War after the War charging the British and Amnereicns with war crimes. They insist that the Western Allies were wrong to wage a strategic bombing campign when it was clear after the battle of Britain that bombing does not work. This is a fundmentally flawed analysis. The Germans to win the War needed quick victories. And this was unobtainable in the time and wuth the fiorce availble. The situation was very different for the Allies. Once Britain had survivd the Blitz, the War became war of attrition and as in World War I, a war that Germny was not going to win a war of attrition. And the Allies had both the time and the resources capable of scourging the Reich from the Baltic to the Alps. In the Pacific, The Japanese also introduced air power. The Japanese has a small aviation industry, but China had even less. The Japanese placed less emphasis on close ground support, but from an early point began bombing Chinese cities with little opposition. But bombing a largely agricultural country only involved Japan in a quagmire. The Japanese unlike the Germans created a poweful naval fleet air arm. It heloped win a huge empire, but was incaopble of bringing the war to America. The Japnese like the Germns planned a short war. Incredably, they decided that the way to bring the war in China to a successful conclusion was to attack the United States. The militrists who started the war thought their ciuntry' wood nd por cities eere safe from the bombing they were subjecting China to because the United States had no bomber that could reach Japan. It proved to be monumental misclcuiltion by poorly educated minds with no foresight. Within a few short months of Pearl Harbor, American aircraft designers were working on the B-29 Super Fortress.

Sources

Citino, Robert A. The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The Gerrman Campaigns of 1944-1945 (2018). Citino is one of the firemist authorities in the Wehrmacht. He primarily discusses why the German Army, especially the officer corps, remained loyal to Hitler to the end. And this include most of the soldiers, maening not just the SS, as well as the civilian population. With the officer corps it was understandable and Citino explains why. With civilaims it is more difficult to understand.

Hughes, Thomas Alexander. Over Lord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II (The Free Press: New York, 1995), 380p.







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Created: 4:42 AM 7/5/2011
Last updated: 11:00 AM 2/25/2022