Bomber Command

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Bomber Command is an organisational

Normandy Landings, may be used for tactical bombing), and is composed of bombers (i.e. planes used to bomb
targets).

RAF Bomber Command

Main article: RAF Bomber Command

RAF Bomber Command was formed in 1936 to be responsible for all bombing activities of the RAF. It found especial fame during World War II, when its aircraft were used for devastating night-time air raids on Germany and occupied Europe, principally the former, their bombing raids causing tremendous destruction of urban areas and factories.

Much of its personnel was drawn from outside the United Kingdom, many coming from the

No. 6 Group, which represented about one-sixth of Bomber Command's strength, was a Royal Canadian Air Force
unit. Some non-British personnel came from occupied European countries.

At its height, Bomber Command under Air Chief Marshal Sir

attrition rate
of any British unit.

Various aircraft were used, from the obsolete and horrendously vulnerable Fairey Battle in 1939 to the command's most numerous and successful aircraft, the Avro Lancaster. Bomber Command used not only British aircraft but also American-built machines such as the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator (although less than 2% of Bomber Command's wartime sorties were flown by US-built aircraft); in the case of the former they were the first to be put into battle and gave useful information on improvements before the US entered the war.

RAF Bomber Command was merged into RAF Strike Command in 1968.

USAAF

Whereas the Bomber Command in the RAF was a single organisation, reporting directly to the

IX Bomber Command, XX Bomber Command and XXI Bomber Command
.

VIII Bomber Command

Main article:
VIII Bomber Command

VIII Bomber Command was the UK-based strategic bomber arm of the

15th Air Force in Italy
.

IX Bomber Command

Main article:
IX Bomber Command

European Theater of Operations
, the B-24s transferred to Twelfth Air Force, then to the newly created Fifteenth. IX Bomber Command equipped with Martin B-26 medium bombers and Douglas A-20 light bombers in preparation for the Normandy Invasion.

XX Bomber Command

Main article: XX Bomber Command

XX Bomber Command was part of the Twentieth Air Force and flew missions from China against mainland Japan in Operation Matterhorn.

The forward airbases in China were supplied out of India by the flying supplies over the Hump from India.

The key development for bombing Japan was the

Boeing B-29, with an operational range of 1500 miles (2,400 km); almost 90% of the bombs dropped on Japan's Home Islands (147,000 tons) were delivered by B-29s. The first mission from China was on June 15, 1944, from Chengdu
, over 1500 miles away. This first attack was not particularly damaging to Japan. Only forty-seven of the sixty-eight B–29s airborne hit the target area in Tokyo; four aborted with mechanical problems, four crashed, six jettisoned their bombs because of mechanical difficulties, and others bombed secondary targets or targets of opportunity. Only one B–29 was lost to enemy aircraft.

Bombing from China was never a satisfactory arrangement because not only were the Chinese forward airbases difficult to supply via "The Hump" (as the Himalayas' foothills were called), but the B-29s operating from them could only reach Japan if they substituted some of the bomb load for extra fuel tanks in the bomb-bays. When Admiral

Chester Nimitz's island-hopping campaign captured islands close enough to Japan to be within the range of B-29s, XXI Bomber Command
commanded Twentieth Air Force units flying from the islands in a much more effective bombing campaign of the Japanese home islands.

XXI Bomber Command

Main article: XXI Bomber Command

In the Pacific, XXI Bomber Command was also part of the

cottage industry
.

The air attacks on Japan included the most devastating single air raid in history. It was not, as some might think, the result of dropping the

firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March 1945, which created a conflagration and killed 100,000 people and destroyed 16 square miles of the city, far more damage and deaths than either the atomic bombing of Hiroshima or of Nagasaki
.

References

  1. ^ "Campaign medal call for WWII Bomber Command veterans". BBC News. 2018-05-26. Retrieved 2021-07-25.

External links

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