Strategic bombing during World War II

Henry Arnold
Carl Spaatz
Curtis LeMay
Charles Portal
Richard Peirse
Arthur Harris
Arthur Tedder
Clifford McEwen
George Jones
Alexander Novikov
Sergei Khudyakov
Alexander Golovanov

Naruhiko Higashikuni
Hajime Sugiyama
Masakazu Kawabe
Chūichi Nagumo
Rino Corso Fougier
Francesco Pricolo
Ettore Muti
Kálmán Ternegg [hu]
Gheorghe Jienescu [ro]
Jarl Lundqvist

• 60,000 civilians killed[2]
• 160,000 airmen (all Allies, Europe)^[3][4]

China:

• 260,000–351,000 Chinese civilians^[5][6]
• At least 682 aircrew from both the regular air force (RoCAF) and crew members from warlord air forces KIA^[7]

France:

• 67,000 civilians killed from US-UK bombing^[8]
• Half of the 2,500 French crewmen of the British RAF bomber command perished ^[9]

Netherlands:

• 1250-1350 killed (army and civilians) between 10–15 May 1940^[10][11]
• 10,000 Dutch civilians killed by air bombings from Allied Forces alone after 15 May 1940^[11]

Poland:

• 50,000 civilians in the 1939 campaign (including artillery bombardment and ground fighting).^[12] 2,500 - 7,000 civilians killed by bombing in Warsaw in 1939.^[13]
• 2416 airmen of bombing squadrons (Polish Airforce in the West)^[14]

Soviet Union:

• 51,526 - 500,000 Soviet civilians^[a][16]
• 2,700 airmen (Japan)^[17]

United States:

• 79,265 airmen/personnel (Europe)^[18]
• Over 3,033 airmen (Japan)^[19]

Yugoslavia:

• 1,500 - 17,000 civilians in Belgrade

Germany:

• 353,000–635,000 civilians killed, including foreign workers^[2][20][b]
• Very heavy damage to infrastructure

Japan:

• 330,000–500,000 civilians killed^[22]
• 20,000 soldiers killed
  (in Hiroshima)
• Very heavy damage to industry

Italy:

• 60,000–100,000 civilians killed^[23]
• 5,000 soldiers killed^[23]
• Heavy damage to industry

Hungary:

• 19,135–30,000 killed and 25,000 wounded^[24][25]
• Heavy damage to industry^[26]

Romania:

• 7,693 civilians killed and 7,809 wounded^[27]
• Destruction and heavy damage to infrastructure and oil refineries^[28]

Bulgaria:

• 1,374 dead and 1,743 injured^[29]
  12,564 buildings damaged, of which 2,670 completely destroyed^[29]

Thailand:

• At least 2,000 dead.^[30]

In the Pacific War, the Japanese frequently bombed civilian populations as early as 1937 in Shanghai, also, for example, in Chongqing. US air raids on Japan escalated from October 1944^[39] culminating in widespread firebombing and, in August 1945, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The effectiveness of the strategic bombing campaigns is controversial.^{[40][41][42][43]} Although they did not produce decisive military victories in themselves, some argue that strategic bombing of non-military targets significantly reduced enemy industrial capacity and production^[44][45] and was vindicated by the surrender of Japan.^[46] Estimates of the death toll from strategic bombing range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Millions of civilians were made homeless, and many major cities were destroyed, especially in Europe and Asia.

Legal considerations

The

Many reasons exist for the absence of international law regarding aerial bombing in World War II.[49] Most nations had refused to ratify such laws or agreements because of the vague or impractical wording in treaties such as the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare. Also, the major powers' possession of newly developed advanced bombers was a great military advantage; they would be hard pressed to accept any negotiated limitations regarding this new weapon. In the absence of specific laws relating to aerial warfare, the belligerents' aerial forces at the start of World War II used the 1907 Hague Conventions — signed and ratified by most major powers — as the customary standard to govern their conduct in warfare, and these conventions were interpreted by both sides to allow the indiscriminate bombing of enemy cities throughout the war.^[50]

General

If the first badly bombed cities —

Rotterdam, Belgrade, and London — suffered at the hands of the Germans and not the Allies, nonetheless the ruins of German and Japanese cities were the results not of reprisal but of deliberate policy, and bore witness that aerial bombardment of cities and factories has become a recognized part of modern warfare as carried out by all nations.^[50]

The concept of strategic bombing and its wide-scale implementation during WWII led to a post-war debate if it was moral.^{[53][54][55][56]} Three separate lines of ethical reasoning emerged.^[57]

The first was based on the

The second approach was grounded in the so-called "industrial web theory" that proposed to concentrate on destroying enemy military, industrial, and economic infrastructure instead of forces in the field as the fastest way to win the war.[58] Proponents of this approach argued that civilian deaths inflicted by strategic bombing of the cities during the WWII were justified in the sense that they allowed to shorten the war and thus helped to avoid much more casualties.^[59]

The third approach was demonstrated by Michael Walzer in his Just and Unjust Wars (1977). Walzer formulated the so-called "supreme emergency" thesis. While agreeing in general with prior Just War theoretical postulates, he came to a conclusion that a grave threat to a moral order would justify the use of an indiscriminate force.^[57]

Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby concluded his analysis of the ethics of bombing by these words,

A study of the ethics of bombing cannot fail to remind one that man is an illogical creature, still far more swayed by emotion than by calm reason. Man has wonderful powers of self-deception, and of the uncritical suppression of unwelcome facts; he is still capable of believing what he wants to believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Indeed, there are none so blind as will not see, or so deaf as will not hear. It is, therefore, no doubt unrealistic to hope for the general acceptance of rational views about such an emotive subject as the ethics of air bombardment.^[56]

Europe

Policy at the start of the war

Before World War II began, the rapid pace of aviation technology created a belief that groups of bombers would be capable of devastating cities. For example, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin warned in 1932, "The bomber will always get through."

When the war began on 1 September 1939 with Germany's

The British Government's policy was formulated on 31 August 1939: if Germany initiated unrestricted air action, the RAF "should attack objectives vital to Germany's war effort, and in particular her oil resources". If the Luftwaffe confined attacks to purely military targets, the RAF should "launch an attack on the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven" and "attack warships at sea when found within range".^[64] The government communicated to their French allies the intention "not to initiate air action which might involve the risk of civilian casualties"^[65]

While it was acknowledged bombing Germany would cause civilian casualties, the British government renounced deliberate bombing of civilian property, outside combat zones, as a military tactic.

Poland

During the German invasion of Poland, the Luftwaffe engaged in massive air raids against Polish cities,^[69] bombing civilian infrastructure^[69][70] such as hospitals^[68][69] and targeting fleeing refugees.^{[71][72][73][74]} Notably, the Luftwaffe bombed the Polish capital of Warsaw, and the small towns Wieluń and Frampol. The bombing of Wieluń, one of the first military acts of World War II and the first major act of bombing, was carried out on a town that had little to no military value.^[75] Similarly, the bombing of Frampol has been described as an experiment to test the German tactics and weapons effectiveness. British historian Norman Davies writes in Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory: "Frampol was chosen partly because it was completely defenceless, and partly because its baroque street plan presented a perfect geometric grid for calculations and measurements."^[76]

In his book, Augen am Himmel (Eyes on the Sky), Wolfgang Schreyer wrote:^[77]

Frampol was chosen as an experimental object, because test bombers, flying at low speed, weren't endangered by AA fire. Also, the centrally placed town hall was an ideal orientation point for the crews. We watched possibility of orientation after visible signs, and also the size of village, what guaranteed that bombs nevertheless fall down on Frampol. From one side it should make easier the note of probe, from second side it should confirm the efficiency of used bombs.

The directives issued to the Luftwaffe for the Polish Campaign were to prevent the Polish Air Force from influencing the ground battles or attacking German territory.^[78] In addition, it was to support the advance of German ground forces through direct tactical and indirect air support with attacks against Polish mobilisation centres and thus delay an orderly Polish strategic concentration of forces and to deny mobility for Polish reinforcements through the destruction of strategic Polish rail routes.^[78]

Preparations were made for a concentrated attack (Operation Wasserkante) by all bomber forces against targets in Warsaw.

The bombing of the rail network, crossroads, and troop concentrations played havoc on Polish mobilisation, while attacks upon civilian and military targets in towns and cities disrupted command and control by wrecking the antiquated Polish signal network.[82] Over a period of a few days, Luftwaffe numerical and technological superiority took its toll on the Polish Air Force. Polish Air Force bases across Poland were also subjected to Luftwaffe bombing from 1 September 1939.^[83]

On 13 September, following orders of the ObdL to launch an attack on Warsaw's Jewish Quarter, justified as being for unspecified crimes committed against German soldiers but probably in response to a recent defeat by Polish ground troops,^[84] and intended as a terror attack,^[85] 183 bomber sorties were flown with 50:50 load of high explosive and incendiary bombs, reportedly set the Jewish Quarter ablaze. On 22 September, Wolfram von Richthofen messaged, "Urgently request exploitation of last opportunity for large-scale experiment as devastation terror raid ... Every effort will be made to eradicate Warsaw completely". His request was rejected.^[85] However, Adolf Hitler issued an order to prevent civilians from leaving the city and to continue with the bombing, which he thought would encourage Polish surrender.^[86]

On 14 September, the French

Three days later, Warsaw was surrounded by the Wehrmacht, and hundreds of thousands of leaflets were dropped on the city, instructing citizens to evacuate the city pending a possible bomber attack.^[90] On 25 September the Luftwaffe flew 1,150 sorties and dropped 560 tonnes of high explosive and 72 tonnes of incendiaries.^[86][91] (Overall, incendiaries made up only three percent of the total tonnage dropped.)^[81]

To conserve the strength of the bomber units for the upcoming Western campaign, the modern He 111 bombers were replaced by Ju 52 transports using "worse than primitive methods" for the bombing.^{[91][92][93][94][95]} Due to prevailing strong winds they achieved poor accuracy, even causing some casualties to besieging German troops.^[92][93]

The only Polish raid against a target in Germany was executed by

There happened also a non-planned single bombing of the Free City of Danzig. On 7 September, at about 11 PM, a Polish Lublin R.XIII G seaplane was flying over the city, on a mission to attack the German Schleswig-Holstein battleship. However, the vessel had already left the city, so the seaplane flew over the center of Danzig, where it bombed and opened fire on the German troops celebrating the capitulation of the Polish garrison of Westerplatte.^[96][97]

The Western Front, 1939 to May 1940

On 3 September 1939, following the German invasion of Poland, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany and the war in the West began. The RAF bombed German warships and light vessels in several harbours on 3 and 4 September.^[98] Eight German Kriegsmarine men were killed at Wilhelmshaven – the war's first casualties from British bombs;^[99] attacks on ships at Cuxhaven^[100] and Heligoland followed.^[98][101] The 1939 Battle of the Heligoland Bight showed the vulnerability of bombers to fighter attack.

Germany's first strikes were not carried out until 16 and 17 October 1939, against the British fleet at Rosyth and Scapa Flow. Little activity followed.^[102] Meanwhile, attacks by the Royal Air Force dwindled to less than one a month. As the winter set in, both sides engaged in propaganda warfare, dropping leaflets on the populations below.^[103] The Phoney War continued.

The British government banned attacks on land targets and German warships in port due to the risk of civilian casualties.^[104] For the Germans, the earliest directive from the Luftwaffe head Hermann Göring permitted restricted attacks upon warships anywhere, as well as upon troop transports at sea.^[105] However, Hitler's OKW Direktive Nr 2 and Luftwaffe Direktive Nr 2, prohibited attacks upon enemy naval forces unless the enemy bombed Germany first, noting, "the guiding principle must be not to provoke the initiation of aerial warfare on the part of Germany."

After the

German bombing of France began on the night of 9/10 May. By 11 May, the French reported bombs dropped on Henin-Lietard, Bruay, Lens, La Fere, Loan, Nancy, Colmar, Pontoise, Lambersart, Lyons, Bouai, Hasebrouck, Doullens and Abbeville with at least 40 civilians killed.[108]

While Allied light and medium bombers attempted to delay the German invasion by striking at troop columns and bridges, the British War Cabinet gave permission for limited bombing raids against targets such as roads and railways west of the Rhine River.^[109][110]

Rotterdam Blitz

The Germans used the threat of bombing Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to try to get the Dutch to come to terms and surrender. After a second ultimatum had been issued by the Germans, it appeared their effort had failed and on 14 May 1940, Luftwaffe bombers were ordered to bomb Rotterdam in an effort to force the capitulation of the besieged city.^[111] The controversial bombing targeted the centre of the besieged city, instead of providing direct tactical support for the hard-pressed German 22nd Infantry Division (under Lt. Gen. von Sponeck, which had airlanded on 10 May) in combat with Dutch forces northwest of the city, and in the eastern part of the city at the Meuse river bridge.^[112] At the last minute, the Netherlands decided to submit and sent a plenipotentiary and other negotiators across to German lines. There was an attempt to call off the assault, but the bombing mission had already begun.^[113] In legal terms, the attack was performed against a defended part of a city vital for the military objectives and in the front-line, and the bombing respected Article 25 to 27 of the Hague Conventions on Land Warfare.^[114]

Out of 100 Heinkel He 111s, 57 dropped their ordnance, a combined 97 tons of bombs. In the resulting fire 1.1 square miles (2.8 km²) of the city centre were devastated, including 21 churches and 4 hospitals. The strike killed between 800 and 1,000 civilians, wounded over 1,000, and made 78,000 homeless.^[115] In 2022, archival research showed a total of 1,150 to 1,250 civilians, and Dutch army and Nazi army personnel were killed during the Rotterdam Blitz.^[10] Nearly twenty-five thousand homes, 2,320 stores, 775 warehouses and 62 schools were destroyed.^[116]

Whilst German historian Horst Boog says

Despite the British attacks on German cities, the Luftwaffe did not begin to attack military and economic targets in the UK until six weeks after the campaign in France was concluded.[123]

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz

On 22 June 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany. Britain was determined to keep fighting. On 1/2 July, the British attacked the German warships Scharnhorst^[129] and Prinz Eugen^[130] in the port of Kiel^[131] and the next day, 16 RAF bombers attacked German train facilities in Hamm.^[132]

The Battle of Britain began in early June 1940 with small scale bombing raids on Britain. These Störangriffe ("nuisance raids") were used to train bomber crews in both day and night attacks, to test defences and try out methods. These training flights continued through July and August, and into the first week of September.^[133] Hermann Göring's general order, issued on 30 June 1940, stated:

The war against England is to be restricted to destructive attacks against industry and air force targets which have weak defensive forces. ... The most thorough study of the target concerned, that is vital points of the target, is a pre-requisite for success. It is also stressed that every effort should be made to avoid unnecessary loss of life amongst the civilian population.

— Hermann Göring^[134]

The Kanalkampf of attacks on shipping and fighter skirmishes over the English Channel started on 4 July, and escalated on 10 July, a day which Dowding later proposed as the official start date for the Battle.^[135][136] Throughout the battle, Hitler called for the British to accept peace, but they refused to negotiate.^[137][138]

Still hoping that the British would negotiate for peace, Hitler explicitly prohibited attacks on London and against civilians.^[123] Any airmen who, intentionally or unintentionally, violated this order were punished.^[123] Hitler's No. 17 Directive, issued 1 August 1940, established the conduct of war against Britain and specifically forbade the Luftwaffe from conducting terror raids. The Führer declared that terror attacks could only be a means of reprisal, as ordered by him.^[139]

On 6 August Göring finalised plans for "Operation Eagle Attack" with his commanders: destruction of RAF Fighter Command across the south of England was to take four days, then bombing of military and economic targets was to systematically extend up to the Midlands until daylight attacks could proceed unhindered over the whole of Britain, then a major attack was to be made on London causing a crisis with refugees when the intended Operation Sea Lion invasion was due to begin.^[140][141] On 8 August 1940, the Germans switched to raids on RAF fighter bases.

The other night the English had bombed Berlin. So be it. But this is a game at which two can play. When the British Air Force drops 2000 or 3000 or 4000 kg of bombs, then we will drop 150 000, 180 000, 230 000, 300 000, 400 000 kg on a single night. When they declare they will attack our cities in great measure, we will eradicate their cities. The hour will come when one of us will break – and it will not be

National Socialist Germany!

— Adolf Hitler^[153]

The Blitz was underway.

Although the plan adopted by the Luftwaffe early September had mentioned attacks on the population of large cities, detailed records of the raids made during the autumn and the winter of 1940–41 does not suggest that indiscriminate bombing of the civilians was intended. The points of aim selected were largely factories and docks. Other objectives specifically allotted to bomber-crews included the City of London and the governmental quarter round Whitehall.

— Basil Collier^[156]

In addition to the conclusions of Basil Collier to that effect there are also, for example, the 1949 memoirs of General Henry H. Arnold who had been in London in 1941 and supported Collier's estimate. Harris noted in 1947 that the Germans had failed to take the opportunity to destroy English cities by concentrated incendiary bombing.^[157]

As the war continued, an escalating

Operation Abigail Rachel, the bombing of Mannheim, was one of the first revenge bombings by the British against a German city on 16 December. The British had been waiting for the opportunity to experiment with such a raid aimed at creating a maximum of destruction in a selected town since the summer of 1940, and the opportunity was given after the German raid on Coventry. Internally it was declared to be a reprisal for Coventry and Southampton. The new bombing policy was officially ordered by Churchill at the start of December, on condition it receive no publicity and be considered an experiment.^[159] Target marking and most bombs missed the city centre.^[160] This led to the development of the bomber stream. Despite the lack of decisive success of this raid, approval was granted for further Abigails.^[159]

This was the start of a British drift away from precision attacks on military targets and towards area bombing attacks on whole cities.^[161]

Germany later in the war

Goering's first chief of staff, Generalleutnant Walther Wever, was a big advocate of the Ural bomber program, but when he died in a flying accident in 1936, support for the strategic bomber program began to dwindle rapidly under Goering's influence. Under pressure from Goering, Albert Kesselring, Wever's replacement, opted for a medium, all-purpose, twin-engine tactical bomber. Erhard Milch, who strongly supported Goering's conceptions, was instrumental in the Luftwaffe's future. Milch believed that the German industry (in terms of raw materials and production capacity) could only produce 1,000 four-engine heavy bombers per year, but many times that number of twin-engine bombers. In spring of 1937, just when the Luftwaffe's own Technical Office had passed the Ju-89 and Do-19 heavy bomber models as ready for testing, Goering ordered a halt to all work on the four-engine strategic bomber program.^[162]

However, in 1939 the

The only heavy bomber design to see service with the Luftwaffe in World War II was the trouble-prone

The He 177A entered service in April 1942. At this time, after a destructive RAF attack on Lübeck, Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to retaliate with the so-called Baedeker Blitz:^[166]

The Führer has ordered that the air war against England be given a more aggressive stamp. Accordingly, when targets are being selected, preference is to be given to those where attacks are likely to have the greatest possible effect on civilian life. Besides raids on ports and industry, terror attacks of retaliatory nature are to be carried out against towns other than London. Minelaying is to be scaled down in favour of these attacks.

— Signal from the Führer's headquarters to the Luftwaffe High Command, 14 April 1942.^[166][167]

In January 1944, a beleaguered Germany tried to strike a blow to British morale with terror bombing with Operation Steinbock, nicknamed the "Baby Blitz" by the British. At this stage of the war, Germany was critically short of heavy and medium bombers, with the added obstacles of a highly effective and sophisticated British air-defence system, and the increasing vulnerability of airfields in occupied Western Europe to Allied air attack making the effectiveness of German retaliation more doubtful.

British historian Frederick Taylor asserts that "all sides bombed each other's cities during the war. Half a million Soviet citizens, for example, died from German bombing during the invasion and occupation of Russia. That's roughly equivalent to the number of German citizens who died from Allied raids."^[16][c] The Luftwaffe destroyed numerous Soviet cities through bombing, including Minsk, Sevastopol, and Stalingrad. 20,528 tons of bombs were dropped on Sevastopol in June 1942 alone.^[169] German bombing efforts on the Eastern Front dwarfed its commitments in the west. From 22 June 1941 to 30 April 1944, the Luftwaffe dropped 756,773 tonnes of bombs on the Eastern Front, a monthly average of 22,000 tonnes.^[170] German scientists had invented

The British and US directed part of their strategic bombing effort to the eradication of "wonder weapon" threats in what was later known as Operation Crossbow. The development of the V2 was hit preemptively in Operation Hydra of August 1943 against Peenemunde research facility.

The British later in the war

The purpose of the area bombardment of cities was laid out in a British Air Staff paper, dated 23 September 1941:

The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death.^[173]

During the first few months of the area bombing campaign, an internal debate within the British government about the most effective use of the nation's limited resources in waging war on Germany continued. Should the Royal Air Force (RAF) be scaled back to allow more resources to go to the British Army and Royal Navy or should the strategic bombing option be followed and expanded? An influential paper was presented to support the bombing campaign by Professor Frederick Lindemann, the British government's leading scientific adviser, justifying the use of area bombing to "dehouse" the German workforce as the most effective way of reducing their morale and affecting enemy war production.^[174]

If Russia can hold Germany on land I doubt whether Germany will stand 12 or 18 months' continuous, intensified and increased bombing, affecting, as it must, her war production, her power of resistance, her industries and her will to resist (by which I mean morale).^{[175][176][177]}

In the end, thanks in part to the dehousing paper, it was this view which prevailed and Bomber Command would remain an important component of the British war effort up to the end of World War II. A large proportion of the industrial production of the United Kingdom was harnessed to the task of creating a vast fleet of heavy bombers. Until 1944, the effect on German production was remarkably small and raised doubts whether it was wise to divert so much effort—the response being there was nowhere else the effort could have been applied, as readily, to greater effect.

Lindemann was liked and trusted by

On 14 February 1942, the

At this stage of the air war, the most effective and disruptive examples of area bombing were the "thousand-bomber raids". Bomber Command was able by organization and drafting in as many aircraft as possible to assemble very large forces which could then attack a single area, overwhelming the defences. The aircraft would be staggered so that they would arrive over the target in succession: the new technique of the "bomber stream".

On 30 May 1942, between 0047 and 0225 hours, in

Two further thousand-bomber raids were conducted over Essen and Bremen, but neither so utterly shook both sides as the scale of the destruction at Cologne and Hamburg.^[

(25,000 dead).

According to economic historian Adam Tooze, in his book The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, a turning point in the bomber offensive was reached in March 1943, during the Battle of the Ruhr. Over five months 34,000 tons of bombs were dropped. Following the raids, steel production fell by 200,000 tons, making a shortfall of 400,000 tons. Speer acknowledged that the RAF were hitting the right targets, and raids severely disrupted his plans to increase production to meet increasing attritional needs. Between July 1943 and March 1944 there were no further increases in the output of aircraft.^[180]

The bombing of Hamburg in 1943 also produced impressive results. Attacks on Tiger I heavy tank production, and of that of 88mm guns, the most potent dual-purpose artillery piece in the Wehrmacht, meant that output of both was "set back for months". On top of this, some 62 percent of the population was dehoused causing more difficulties. However, RAF Bomber Command allowed itself to be distracted by Harris' desire for a war winning blow, and attempted the fruitless missions to

destroy Berlin and end the war by spring, 1944.^[181]

In October 1943, Harris urged the government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign. To Harris, his complete success at Hamburg confirmed the validity and necessity of his methods, and he urged that:

the aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany.[182]^[183]
... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.^[184]

By contrast, the

Dortmund-Ems Canal and Mittelland Canal, produced tremendous traffic problems on the Rhine River. It had immediate effects on shipments of goods, and especially coal deliveries, upon which Germany's economy depended; with no more additional effort, by February 1945, rail transport (which competed for coal) had seen its shipments cut by more than half, and by March, "except in limited areas, the coal supply had been eliminated."^[185]

The devastating bombing raids of Dortmund on 12 March 1945 with 1,108 aircraft – 748 Lancasters, 292 Halifaxes, 68 Mosquitos – was a record attack on a single target in the whole of World War II. More than 4,800 tonnage of bombs was dropped through the city centre and the south of the city and destroyed 98% of buildings.[186]

Other British efforts

Operation Chastise, better known as the Dambusters raid, was an attempt to damage German industrial production by crippling its hydro-electric power and transport in the Ruhr area. The Germans also built large-scale night-time decoys like the Krupp decoy site (German: Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) which was a German decoy-site of the Krupp steel works in Essen. During World War II, it was designed to divert Allied airstrikes from the actual production site of the arms factory.

Operation Hydra of August 1943 sought to destroy German work on long-range rockets but only delayed it by a few months. Subsequent efforts were directed against V-weapons launch sites in France.

U.S. bombing in Europe

In mid 1942, the

airfields

, etc.

In January 1943, at the

Operation Pointblank. Chief of the British Air Staff Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Charles Portal was put in charge of the "strategic direction" of both British and American bomber operations. The text of the Casablanca directive read: "Your primary object will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial, and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened."^[187]

At the beginning of the combined strategic bombing offensive on 4 March 1943, 669 RAF and 303 USAAF heavy bombers were available.

In late 1943, the 'Pointblank' attacks manifested themselves in the Schweinfurt raids (

second). Despite the use of combat boxes and the assembly ships to form them, formations of unescorted bombers were no match for German fighters, which inflicted a deadly toll. In despair, the Eighth halted air operations over Germany until a long-range fighter could be found in 1944; it proved to be the North American P-51 Mustang

, which had the range to fly to Berlin and back.

USAAF leaders firmly held to the claim of "precision bombing" of military targets for much of the war, and dismissed claims they were simply bombing cities. However the weather over Europe seldom left the target visible. The American Eighth Air Force received the first

H2X radar sets (a derivative of the British H2S navigational radar) in December 1943. Within two weeks of the arrival of these first six sets, the Eighth command gave permission for them to area bomb a city using H2X and would continue to authorize, on average, about one such attack a week until the end of the war in Europe.^[188]

In reality, the

day bombing of WWII was "precision bombing" only in the sense that most bombs fell somewhere near a specific designated target such as a railway yard. Conventionally, the air forces designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1,000 feet (300 m) around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, overall, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area.^[189]

In the fall of 1944, only seven percent of all bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet of their aim point.

Nevertheless, the sheer tonnage of explosive delivered by day and by night was eventually sufficient to cause widespread damage, and forced Germany to divert military resources to counter it. The diversion of German fighter planes and

anti-aircraft 88 mm artillery

from the eastern and western fronts was a significant result of the Allied strategic bombing campaign.

For the sake of improving USAAF

in a series of attacks launched by the RAF and US forces in July 1943 on Hamburg

, roughly 50,000 civilians were killed and large areas of the city destroyed.

With the arrival of the brand-new

heavily armed Fw 190As became largely ineffective, clearing each force of bomber destroyers

in their turn from Germany's skies throughout most of 1944. With such heavy losses of their primary means of defense against the USAAF's tactics, German planners were forced into a hasty dispersal of industry, with the day fighter arm never being able to fully recover in time.

On 27 March 1944, the

USSTAF.^[190]

The twin campaigns—the USAAF by day, the RAF by night—built up into massive bombing of German industrial areas, notably

the Ruhr, followed by attacks directly on cities such as Hamburg, Kassel, Pforzheim, Mainz

and the often-criticized bombing of Dresden.

Approximately 10% of the bombs dropped on Germany are thought to have failed to explode.

Bombing in the Netherlands later in the war

Eventually, the Netherlands surrendered on the 15th of May 1940, after the bombings of multiple Dutch cities by the Luftwaffe from 10 to 14 May, which had killed 1250-1350 citizens.^[11] However, Zeeland continue to resist the German occupation with assistance from Belgian and French forces till the 27th of May, resulting in another bombing by the Luftwaffe in Middelburg on the 17th of May.^[191]

During the German occupation of the Netherlands from May 1940, the Allied Forces would perform approximately 600 strategic air bombings on Dutch soil.^[11] In most cases there were no civilians killed but due to the damage caused by these attacks, many of the survivors were left homeless and wounded. However, in total around 10,000 Dutch civilians were killed by airstrikes from the Allied Forces between May 1940 and May 1945.^[11]

Most of the losses by Allied airstrikes in the Netherlands were caused by mistakenly bombing the wrong target, initially aiming at German-occupied factories, transportation facilities, population registries, Sicherheitsdienst headquarters, or even German cities at the border. The Allies generally exercised restraint when planning bombing raids. It is mainly mistakes in implementation that have often caused the greatest damage. The cities of Amsterdam, Breskens, Den Helder, Rotterdam, and The Hague suffered immense losses in civilians and bombing damage by insufficiently accurate aiming. Sometimes the targets were too small, so the risks of 'collateral damage' were very high, as was shown by the bombing of the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the station yards of Haarlem, Utrecht, Roosendaal and Leiden, and the bridges in Zutphen and Venlo. However, the attacks on such small targets remained relatively limited. Less restraint was exercised by the Allies during the 1944–1945 bombings on the residential areas at the front line, such as Huissen, Venray, Montfort, Nijverdal, Goor and Haaksbergen, resulting in preventable civilian losses.^[11]

The occupying German forces had used the coast of the Netherlands to launch rocket attacks targeting British cities. This was another reasons for the Allies to perform airstrikes on Dutch soil, leading to one of the deadliest civilian airstrikes in the Netherlands. On 3 March 1945, the RAF mistakenly

V-2 launching facilities that had been used to attack British cities. However, the pilots were issued with the wrong coordinates, so the navigational instruments of the bombers had been set incorrectly. Combined with fog and clouds which obscured their vision, the bombs were instead dropped on the Bezuidenhout residential neighbourhood. At the time, the neighbourhood was more densely populated than usual with evacuees from The Hague and Wassenaar; 532 residents were killed^[192][193] and approximately 30,000 were left homeless.^[194][195]

During the end of the war in 1944–1945, the Luftwaffe would again drop bombs on multiple Dutch cities, which were already liberated by the Allies in Operation Market Garden while the rest of the country was still under German occupation.^[11] The Netherlands was one of the last European countries to eventually be liberated by the Allies on 5 May 1945.

Bombing in Romania

See also: Bombing of Romania in World War II, Western Allied Campaign in Romania, and Oil campaign of World War II

The first airstrikes against Romania occurred after Romania

Crimean Campaign

and overall deterioration of the Soviet position, Soviet attacks against Romania ceased.

The USAAF first dropped bombs on Romania on 12 June 1942 during the

Ciofliceni. In all, three people were killed and damage was minor. The bombing of Ploiești on 1 August 1943 (Operation Tidal Wave) was a far more serious affair. Tidal Wave heavily damaged four refineries and more lightly affected three; it damaged the Ploiești rail station but did not have much impact on the city itself. Câmpina was more severely damaged. 660 American aircrew were killed or captured, while petroleum exports exceeded pre-Tidal Wave levels by October.^[196][197] Around 100 civilians were killed and 200 wounded as a result of Operation Tidal Wave.^[197]

Anglo-American bombers first attacked Bucharest on 4 April 1944, aiming mainly to interrupt military transports from Romania to the Eastern Front and oil transports to Germany. Bucharest stored and distributed much of Ploiești's refined oil products.[196]^: 190 The bombing campaign of Bucharest continued until August 1944, after which Romania joined the Allies following a coup by King Michael I against Ion Antonescu. The operations against Bucharest resulted in destroying thousands of buildings and killing or injuring over 9,000 people.^[198] In all, the bombardments killed some 7,693 civilians and wounded another 7,809.^[27]

After the 23 August 1944 coup, the Luftwaffe began bombing Bucharest in the attempt to remove the King and Government from power. The raids lasted from 24 to 26 August and killed or wounded over 300 civilians and damaged many buildings.^[199]

Bombing in Italy

Italy, first as an Axis member and later as a

stone buildings, while German cities had centers made of wooden buildings. Milan and Turin were bombed again in February 1943; the heaviest raids were carried out in July (295 bombers dropped 763 tons of bombs on Turin, killing 792 people) and August (all three cities were bombed and a total of 843 bombers dropped 2,268 tons of bombs over Milan, causing about 900 casualties). These attacks caused widespread damage and prompted most of the cities' inhabitants to flee. The only other city in Italy to be subjected to area bombing was La Spezia, heavily bombed by the Bomber Command during April 1943, with slight casualties but massive damage (45% of the buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged,^[200]

and just 25–30% remained undamaged).

During 1944 and 1945 Milan, Turin and Genoa were instead bombed by

marshalling yards; nonetheless, imprecision in bombings caused further destruction of vast areas. By the end of the war, about 30–40% of the buildings in each of the three cities were destroyed, and both in Milan and Turin less than half of the city remained undamaged.^[201][202] 2,199 people were killed in Turin^[203] and over 2,200 in Milan. Several other cities in northern Italy suffered heavy damage and casualties due to USAAF bombings, usually aimed at factories and marshalling yards but often inaccurate; among them Bologna (2,481 casualties),^[204] Padua (about 2,000 casualties),^[205] Rimini (98% of the city was destroyed or damaged),^[206] Treviso (1,600 killed in the bombing of 7 April 1944, 80% of the city destroyed or damaged),^[207] Trieste (463 casualties on 10 June 1944),^[208] Vicenza

(317 casualties on 18 November 1944).

In

harbour facilities, marshalling yards, factories and airports, but the inaccuracy of the attacks caused extensive destruction and civilian casualties; among the cities hit the hardest were Naples (6,000 casualties^[209]), Messina (more than one third of the city was destroyed,^[210] and only 30% remained untouched), Reggio Calabria, Foggia (thousands of casualties), Cagliari (416 inhabitants were killed in the bombings of February 1943, 80% of the city was damaged or destroyed), Palermo, Catania and Trapani (70% of the buildings were damaged or destroyed^[211]

).

Central Italy was left untouched for the first three years of war, but from 1943 onwards it was heavily bombed by USAAF, with heavy damage (usually due to inaccuracy in bombing) to a number of cities, including Livorno (57% of the city was destroyed or damaged, over 500 people were killed in June 1943), Civitavecchia, Grosseto, Terni (1,077 casualties),^[212] Pisa (1,738 casualties),^[213] Pescara (between 2,200 and 3,900 casualties), Ancona (1,182 casualties),^[214] Viterbo (1,017 casualties)^[215] and Isernia (about 500 casualties on 11 September 1943).

was bombed on several occasions; the historic centre and the Vatican were spared, but the suburbs suffered heavy damage and between 3,000 and 5,000 casualties. Florence also suffered some bombings in the outskirts (215 people were killed on 25 September 1943), while the historical centre was not bombed. Venice

proper was never bombed.

In

suffered extensive bombing, which destroyed 60% of the city and killed about 1,000 of its 20,000 inhabitants, prompting most of the population to flee to mainland Italy (the town was later annexed to Yugoslavia

).

Except for Rome, Venice, Florence, Urbino and Siena, damage to cultural heritage in Italy was widespread.

Bombing in France

German-occupied France contained a number of important targets that attracted the attention of the British, and later American bombing. In 1940, RAF Bomber Command launched attacks against German preparations for

Operation Sealion, the proposed invasion of England, attacking Channel Ports in France and Belgium and sinking large numbers of barges that had been collected by the Germans for use in the invasion.^[216] France's Atlantic ports were important bases for both German surface ships and submarines, while French industry was an important contributor to the German war effort.^[217]

Before 1944, the Allies bombed targets in France that were part of the German war industry. This included raids such as those on the

Free French Air Force, operational since 1941, used to opt for the more risky skimming tactic when operating in national territory, to avoid civilian casualties. On 5 January 1945, British bombers struck the "Atlantic pocket" of Royan and destroyed 85% of this city. A later raid, using napalm

was carried out before it was freed from Nazi occupation in April. Of the 3,000 civilians left in the city, 442 died.

French civilian casualties due to Allied strategic bombing are estimated at half of the 67,000 French civilian dead during Allied operations in 1942–1945; the other part being mostly killed during tactical bombing in the Normandy campaign. 22% of the bombs dropped in Europe by British and American air forces between 1940 and 1945 were in France.[220] The port city of Le Havre had been destroyed by 132 bombings during the war (5,000 dead) until September 1944. It has been rebuilt by architect Auguste Perret and is now a World Heritage Site.

Soviet strategic bombing

See also: Shuttle bombing and Operation Frantic

The first Soviet offensive bomber campaign was directed against the Romanian oilfields in the summer of 1941.

Tupolev TB-7—from the island of Saaremaa, base of the 1st Torpedo Air Regiment.^[221] (At least one raid of the 81st Air Division took off from Pushkin Airport.) Besides thirty tonnes of bombs, they also dropped leaflets with Joseph Stalin's defiant speech of 3 July. The Soviets sent a total of 549 long-range bombers over German territory in all of 1941.^[221]

In March 1942 the strategic bombing arm of the Soviet Union was reorganized as the

Kursk Offensive, the bombers were directed against the German railroads behind the front.^[221] In April the Long Range Air Force expanded to eight air corps and eleven independent divisions containing 700 planes. After the Kursk preparations, the Soviets turned their attention to administrative and industrial targets in East Prussia in April. With 920 aircraft taking part, they dropped 700 tonnes of bombs there. The largest Soviet bomb of the war, an 11,000-pound weapon, was dropped on Königsberg during one of these raids.^[221]

Throughout 1943, the Soviets attempted to give the impression of cooperation between their bombers and those of the West.

18th Air Army.^[221]

The main task of the 18th Air Army was to support the final offensive against Germany, but it also undertook raids against Berlin,

Danzig and Königsberg.^[221] In total, 7,158 Soviet aircraft dropped 6,700 tonnes of bombs on Germany during the war, 3.1% of Soviet bomber sorties, 0.5% of all Allied "strategic" sorties against German-occupied territory and 0.2% of all bombs dropped on it.^[221]

After the war, Marxist historians in the Soviet Union and East Germany claimed that the Soviet strategic bombing campaign was limited by moral qualms over bombing civilian centres.

Vasili Sokolovsky admitted that the Soviets would have gladly launched a strategic bombing offensive had they the capability.^[221] In reality, the Soviets never geared aircraft production towards long-range bombers, beyond the small force of indigenously designed and produced Petlyakov Pe-8 four-engined "heavies", and so never had enough to mount an effective campaign. The land-based nature of warfare on the Eastern Front also required closer cooperation between the air forces and ground troops than did, for example, the defence of Great Britain.^[221]

Effectiveness of Allied Strategic Bombing

Strategic bombing has been criticized on practical grounds because it does not work predictably. The radical changes it forces on a targeted population can backfire, including the counterproductive result of freeing non-essential labourers to fill worker shortages in war industries.[41]

Much of the doubt about the effectiveness of the bomber war comes from the fact that German industrial production increased throughout the war.^[42] A combination of factors helped increase German war material output, these included; continuing development from production lines started before the war, limiting competing models of equipment, government enforced sharing of production techniques, a change in how contracts were priced and an aggressive worker suggestion program. At the same time production plants had to deal with a loss of experienced workers to the military, assimilating untrained workers, culling workers incapable of being trained, and utilizing unwilling forced labor. Strategic bombing failed to reduce German war production. There is insufficient information to ascertain how much additional potential industrial growth the bombing campaign may have curtailed.^[43] However, attacks on the infrastructure were taking place. The attacks on Germany's canals and railroads made transportation of materiel difficult.^[40]

The

Oil Campaign of World War II was, however, extremely successful and made a very large contribution to the general collapse of Germany in 1945. In the event, the bombing of oil facilities became Albert Speer's main concern; however, this occurred sufficiently late in the war that Germany would soon be defeated in any case.^{[citation needed}

]

German insiders credit the Allied bombing offensive with crippling the German war industry. Speer repeatedly said both during and after the war that it caused crucial production problems. Admiral

XXIIIs up until November 1944 "cannot be attributed to the air attack",^[40] however, "The attacks during the late winter and early spring of 1945 did close, or all but close, five of the major yards, including the great Blohm and Voss plant at Hamburg".^[40]

Adam Tooze contends that many of the sources on bombing effectiveness are "highly self-critical after-the-battle analyses" by the former Western Allies. In his book The Wages of Destruction, he makes the case that the bombing was effective.[222] Richard Overy argues that the bombing campaign absorbed a significant proportion of German resources that could have been used on the Eastern Front; according to Overy, in 1943 and 1944, two-thirds of German fighters were being used to fend off bomber attacks, which Overy argues was a significant hindrance for the Luftwaffe as it prevented them from conducting bombing operations against the Soviets even though such an air campaign had caused considerable damage to the Soviets early in the war. Overy also reports that by the end of 1943, 75% of Flak 88mm guns were being used in air defence, preventing them from being used for anti-tank work on the Eastern Front despite their effectiveness in such a role. Overy also estimates that Britain spent about 7% of her war effort on bombing, which he concludes was not a waste of resources.^[223]

Effect on morale

Strategic Bombing Survey

, Morale Division.

Although designed to "break the enemy's will", the opposite often happened. The British did not crumble under the German Blitz and other air raids early in the war. British workers continued to work throughout the war and food and other basic supplies were available throughout.

The impact of bombing on German morale was significant according to Professor John Buckley. Around a third of the urban population under threat of bombing had no protection at all. Some of the major cities saw 55–60 percent of dwellings destroyed. Mass evacuations were a partial answer for six million civilians, but this had a severe effect on morale as German families were split up to live in difficult conditions. By 1944, absenteeism rates of 20–25 percent were not unusual and in post-war analysis 91 percent of civilians stated bombing was the most difficult hardship to endure and was the key factor in the collapse of their own morale.^[224] The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that the bombing was not stiffening morale but seriously depressing it; fatalism, apathy, defeatism were apparent in bombed areas. The Luftwaffe was blamed for not warding off the attacks and confidence in the Nazi regime fell by 14 percent. By the spring of 1944, some 75 percent of Germans believed the war was lost, owing to the intensity of the bombing.^[225]

Buckley argues the German war economy did indeed expand significantly following Albert Speer's appointment as Reichsminister of Armaments, "but it is spurious to argue that because production increased then bombing had no real impact". The bombing offensive did do serious damage to German production levels. German tank and aircraft production, though reached new records in production levels in 1944, was in particular one-third lower than planned.^[44] In fact, German aircraft production for 1945 was planned at 80,000, showing Erhard Milch and other leading German planners were pushing for even higher outputs; "unhindered by Allied bombing German production would have risen far higher".^[45]

Journalist Max Hastings and the authors of the official history of the bomber offensive, Noble Frankland among them, has argued bombing had a limited effect on morale. In the words of the British Bombing Survey Unit (BBSU), "The essential premise behind the policy of treating towns as unit targets for area attack, namely that the German economic system was fully extended, was false." This, the BBSU noted, was because official estimates of German war production were "more than 100 percent in excess of the true figures". The BBSU concluded, "Far from there being any evidence of a cumulative effect on (German) war production, it is evident that, as the (bombing) offensive progressed ... the effect on war production became progressively smaller (and) did not reach significant dimensions."^[226][227]

Allied bombing statistics 1939–1945

According to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Allied bombers between 1939 and 1945 dropped 1,415,745 tons of bombs over Germany (51.1% of the total bomb tonnage dropped by Allied bombers in the European campaign), 570,730 tons over France (20.6%), 379,565 tons over Italy (13.7%), 185,625 tons over Austria, Hungary and the Balkans (6.7%), and 218,873 tons over other countries (7.9%).^[228]

RAF bombing sorties and losses 1939–1945[229] Sorties[d] Losses Night 297,663 7,449 Day   66,851    876 Total 364,484 8,325

RAF and USAAF bomb tonnages on Germany 1939–1945[229][clarification needed] Year RAF Bomber Command (tons) US 8th Air Force (tons) 1939          31 — 1940   13,033 — 1941   31,504 — 1942   45,561     1,561 1943 157,457   44,165 1944 525,518 389,119 1945 191,540 188,573 Total 964,644 623,418

Casualties

After the war, the U.S.

Strategic Bombing Survey reviewed the available casualty records in Germany and concluded that official German statistics of casualties from air attack had been too low. The survey estimated that at a minimum 305,000 were killed in German cities due to bombing and estimated a minimum of 780,000 wounded. Roughly 7,500,000 German civilians were also rendered homeless. Overy estimated in 2014 that in all about 353,000 civilians were killed by Allies bombing raids against German cities.^[230] In addition to the minimum figure given in the Strategic bombing survey, the number of people killed by Allied bombing in Germany has been estimated at between 400,000 and 600,000.^[20] In the United Kingdom, 60,595 Britons were killed by German bombing, and in France, 67,078 French people were killed by Allied bombing raids.^[2][8]

Belgrade was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe on 6 April 1941, when more than 17,000 people were killed.

Istat study of 1957 stated that 64,354 Italians were killed by aerial bombing, 59,796 of whom were civilians.^[23] Historians Marco Gioannini and Giulio Massobrio argued in 2007 that this figure is inaccurate due to loss of documents, confusion and gaps, and estimated the total number of civilian casualties in Italy due to aerial bombing as comprised between 80,000 and 100,000.^[233] Over 160,000 Allied airmen and 33,700 planes were lost in the European theatre.^[234][vague

]

Asia

Within Asia, the majority of strategic bombing was carried out by the Japanese and the US. The British Commonwealth planned that once the war in Europe was complete, a strategic bombing force of up to 1,000 heavy bombers ("Tiger Force") would be sent to the Far East. This was never realised before the end of the Pacific War.

Japanese bombing

Japanese strategic bombing was independently conducted by the

terror bombing of a civilian population of an era that was to become familiar with it".^[235] Bombing efforts mostly targeted large Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan, and Chongqing

, with around 5,000 raids from February 1938 to August 1943 in the latter case.

The bombing of Nanjing and Canton, which began on 22 and 23 September 1937, called forth widespread protests culminating in a resolution by the Far Eastern Advisory Committee of the League of Nations. Lord Cranborne, the British Under-Secretary of State For Foreign Affairs, expressed his indignation in his own declaration.

Words cannot express the feelings of profound horror with which the news of these raids had been received by the whole civilized world. They are often directed against places far from the actual area of hostilities. The military objective, where it exists, seems to take a completely second place. The main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians...

— Lord Cranborne^[236]

The Imperial Japanese Navy also carried out a carrier-based airstrike on the

Bombing of Darwin

, 19 February 1942).

Italian bombing

In 1940 and 1941, the

CANT Z.1007 and Savoia-Marchetti SM.82 bombers. For a year starting in June 1940, Italian bombers attacked Mandatory Palestine, mainly targeting Haifa and Tel Aviv for their large refineries and port facilities. The deadliest single attack came on 9 September 1940, when an Italian raid over Tel Aviv killed 137 people.^[237][238] While Italian efforts mainly focused on the Mandate of Palestine, one notable mission on 19 October 1940 struck instead at refinery facilities in Bahrain.^[239]

Allied bombing of South-East Asia

Main article:

Bombing of South-East Asia (1944–45)

After the Japanese invasion of Thailand (8 December 1941), the southeast Asian kingdom signed a treaty of alliance with Japan and declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom. The Allies dropped 18,583 bombs on Thailand during the war, resulting in the death of 8,711 people and the destruction of 9,616 buildings.^[240] The primary target of the campaign was Bangkok, the Thai capital. Rural areas were almost entirely unaffected.^[241]

In August 1942, the United States

victory over Japan, on 19 August the denizens of Hanoi broke into the streets and removed the black coverings off the street lamps.^[243]

In 1944–45, the

Netherlands East Indies. They also bombed the Japanese-occupied Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

.

U.S. bombing of Japan

Main article: Air raids on Japan

Conventional bombing damage to Japanese cities in World War II^[244]

City	% area destroyed
Yokohama	58%
Tokyo	51%
Toyama	99%
Nagoya	40%
Osaka	35.1%
Nishinomiya	11.9%
Shimonoseki	37.6%
Kure	41.9%
Kobe	55.7%
Ōmuta	35.8%
Wakayama	50%
Kawasaki	36.2%
Okayama	68.9%
Yahata	21.2%
Kagoshima	63.4%
Amagasaki	18.9%
Sasebo	41.4%
Moji	23.3%
Miyakonojō	26.5%
Nobeoka	25.2%
Miyazaki	26.1%
Ube	20.7%
Saga	44.2%
Imabari	63.9%
Matsuyama	64%
Fukui	86%
Tokushima	85.2%
Sakai	48.2%
Hachioji	65%
Kumamoto	31.2%
Isesaki	56.7%
Takamatsu	67.5%
Akashi	50.2%
Fukuyama	80.9%
Aomori	30%
Okazaki	32.2%
Ōita	28.2%
Hiratsuka	48.4%
Tokuyama	48.3%
Yokkaichi	33.6%
Ujiyamada	41.3%
Ōgaki	39.5%
Gifu	63.6%
Shizuoka	66.1%
Himeji	49.4%
Fukuoka	24.1%
Kōchi	55.2%
Shimizu	42%
Ōmura	33.1%
Chiba	41%
Ichinomiya	56.3%
Nara	69.3%
Tsu	69.3%
Kuwana	75%
Toyohashi	61.9%
Numazu	42.3%
Choshi	44.2%
Kofu	78.6%
Utsunomiya	43.7%
Mito	68.9%
Sendai	21.9%
Tsuruga	65.1%
Nagaoka	64.9%
Hitachi	72%
Kumagaya	55.1%
Hamamatsu	60.3%
Maebashi	64.2%

The United States began effective strategic bombing of Japan in late 1944, when

Emperor Hirohito's viewing of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945 is said to have been the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender five months later.^[245]

Conventional bombing

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The first U.S. raid on the Japanese main island was the Doolittle Raid of 18 April 1942, when sixteen

B-25 Mitchells were launched from the USS Hornet (CV-8) to attack targets including Yokohama

and Tokyo and then fly on to airfields in China. The raid was a military pinprick but a significant propaganda victory. Because they were launched prematurely, none of the aircraft had enough fuel to reach their designated landing sites, and so either crashed or ditched (except for one aircraft, which landed in the Soviet Union, where the crew was interned). Two crews were captured by the Japanese.

The key development for the bombing of Japan was the B-29 Superfortress, which had an operational range of 1,500 miles (2,400 km); almost 90% of the bombs (147,000 tons) dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this bomber. The first raid by B-29s on Japan was on 15 June 1944, from China. The B-29s took off from Chengdu, over 1,500 miles away. This raid was also not particularly effective: only forty-seven of the sixty-eight bombers hit the target area.

Raids of Japan from mainland China, called

Chester Nimitz's island-hopping campaign captured Pacific islands close enough to Japan to be within the B-29's range, the Twentieth Air Force was assigned to XXI Bomber Command, which organized a much more effective bombing campaign of the Japanese home islands. Based in the Marianas (Guam and Tinian

in particular), the B-29s were able to carry their full bomb loads and were supplied by cargo ships and tankers. The first raid from the Mariana was on 24 November 1944, when 88 aircraft bombed Tokyo. The bombs were dropped from around 30,000 feet (10,000 m) and it is estimated that only around 10% hit their targets.

Unlike all other forces in theater, the

U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific

, which was commanded by Carl Spaatz.

As in Europe, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) tried daylight precision bombing. However, it proved to be impossible due to the weather around Japan, "during the best month for bombing in Japan, visual bombing was possible for [just] seven days. The worst had only one good day."^[246] Further, bombs dropped from a great height were tossed about by high winds.

General LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command, instead switched to mass firebombing night attacks from altitudes of around 7,000 feet (2,100 m) on the major conurbations. "He looked up the size of the large Japanese cities in the World Almanac and picked his targets accordingly."^[247] Priority targets were Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Despite limited early success, particularly against Nagoya, LeMay was determined to use such bombing tactics against the vulnerable Japanese cities. Attacks on strategic targets also continued in lower-level daylight raids.

The first successful firebombing raid was on Kobe on 3 February 1945, and following its relative success the USAAF continued the tactic. Nearly half of the principal factories of the city were damaged, and production was reduced by more than half at one of the port's two shipyards.

fire storm. It was the most destructive conventional raid, and the deadliest single bombing raid of any kind in terms of lives lost, in all of military aviation history,^[248] even when the missions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are taken as single events.^[249] The city was made primarily of wood and paper, and the fires burned out of control. The effects of the Tokyo firebombing proved the fears expressed by Admiral Yamamoto in 1939: "Japanese cities, being made of wood and paper, would burn very easily. The Army talks big, but if war came and there were large-scale air raids, there's no telling what would happen."^[250]

In the following two weeks, there were almost 1,600 further sorties against the four cities, destroying 31 square miles (80 km²) in total at a cost of 22 aircraft. By June, over forty percent of the urban area of Japan's largest six cities (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki) was devastated. LeMay's fleet of nearly 600 bombers destroyed tens of smaller cities and manufacturing centres in the following weeks and months.

Leaflets were dropped over cities before they were bombed, warning the inhabitants and urging them to escape the city. Though many^[who?], even within the Air Force, viewed this as a form of psychological warfare, a significant element in the decision to produce and drop them was the desire to assuage American anxieties about the extent of the destruction created by this new war tactic. Warning leaflets were also dropped on cities not in fact targeted, to create uncertainty and absenteeism.

A year after the war, the

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey reported that American military officials had underestimated the power of strategic bombing combined with naval blockade and previous military defeats to bring Japan to unconditional surrender without invasion. By July 1945, only a fraction of the planned strategic bombing force had been deployed yet there were few targets left worth the effort. In hindsight, it would have been more effective to use land-based and carrier-based air power to strike merchant shipping and begin aerial mining at a much earlier date so as to link up with effective submarine anti-shipping campaign and completely isolate the island nation. This would have accelerated the strangulation of Japan and perhaps ended the war sooner.^[251] A postwar Naval Ordnance Laboratory survey agreed, finding naval mines dropped by B-29s had accounted for 60% of all Japanese shipping losses in the last six months of the war.^[252] In October 1945, Prince Fumimaro Konoe said the sinking of Japanese vessels by U.S. aircraft combined with the B-29 aerial mining campaign were just as effective as B-29 attacks on industry alone,^[253] though he admitted, "the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s." Prime Minister Baron Kantarō Suzuki reported to U.S. military authorities it "seemed to me unavoidable that in the long run Japan would be almost destroyed by air attack so that merely on the basis of the B-29s alone I was convinced that Japan should sue for peace."^[252]

Nuclear bombings

Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

hypocentre

.

While the bombing campaign against Japan continued, the U.S. and its allies were preparing to invade the Japanese home islands, which they anticipated to be heavily costly in terms of life and property. On 1 April 1945, U.S. troops invaded the island of Okinawa and fought there fiercely against not only enemy soldiers, but also enemy civilians. After two and a half months, 12,000 U.S. servicemen, 107,000 Japanese soldiers, and over 150,000 Okinawan civilians (included those forced to fight) were killed. Given the casualty rate in Okinawa, American commanders realized a grisly picture of the intended invasion of mainland Japan. When President Harry S. Truman was briefed on what would happen during an invasion of Japan, he could not afford such a horrendous casualty rate, added to over 400,000 U.S. servicemen who had already died fighting in both the European and Pacific theaters of the war.^[254]

Hoping to forestall the invasion, the United States, the United Kingdom, and China issued a Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, demanding that the Japanese government accept an unconditional surrender. The declaration also stated that if Japan did not surrender, it would be faced with "prompt and utter destruction", a process which was already underway with the incendiary bombing raids destroying 40% of targeted cities, and by naval warfare isolating and starving Japan of imported food. The Japanese government ignored (mokusatsu) this ultimatum, thus signalling that they were not going to surrender.^[255]

In the wake of this rejection, Stimson and George Marshall (the Army chief of staff) and Hap Arnold (head of the Army Air Forces) set the atomic bombing in motion.^[256]

On 6 August 1945, the B-29 bomber

Second General Army and Fifth Division).^[258] On 9 August, three days later, the B-29 Bockscar flew over the Japanese city of Nagasaki in northwest Kyushu and dropped an implosion-type, plutonium-239 atomic bomb (code-named Fat Man by the U.S.) on it, again accompanied by two other B-29 aircraft for instrumentation and photography. This bomb's effects killed roughly 39,000–80,000 people,^[257] including roughly 23,000–28,000 Japanese war industry employees, an estimated 2,000 Korean forced workers, and at least 150 Japanese soldiers. The bomb destroyed 60% of the city.^[258][259] The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, partly owing to the inadvertent targeting of the industrial zone, leaving 68–80% of the non-dock industrial production destroyed.^[260]

Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki,

Hirohito announced Japan's surrender to the Allies on 15 August 1945, signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September 1945, officially ending the Pacific War and World War II. The two atomic bombings generated strong sentiments in Japan against all nuclear weapons. Japan adopted the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbade the nation from developing nuclear armaments. Across the world anti-nuclear activists have made Hiroshima the central symbol of what they are opposing.^[261]

See also

• Amerika bomber
• Civilian casualties of strategic bombing
• Defense of the Reich
  , the strategic defensive aerial campaign fought by the German Luftwaffe over Germany and German-occupied Europe
• Emergency Fighter Program
• List of Polish cities damaged in World War II
• List of strategic bombing over Germany in World War II
• Bombing of Wiener Neustadt in World War II
• The Blitz
• Air raids on Japan
• Army Air Forces
• Bombing of Guernica, the bombing of the Spanish city of Guernica carried out by the German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War

Notes

1. ^ British historian Richard Overy considers the 500,000 order of magnitude, claimed after the war in Soviet publications, to be "a rhetorical statistic, to demonstrate the level of sacrifice of the Soviet people and the wickedness of the German enemy". The figure "bears no relation to the detailed wartime documentary evidence". A much lower figure (51,526) is borne out by such evidence and "is much more consistent with the nature of the German bombing effort and the declining capability of the German bomber force as it struggled to sustain support for the ground war with dwindling resources",^[15]
2. ^ The 353,000 estimate is from Richard Overy, who explains this figure as follows:^[21] "If it is assumed that the figure of 271,000 dead by January 1945 is a realistic, if not precise, total (and there are archive figures which suggest a lower sum), it is possible to extrapolate from the last five months of heavy raiding for which records exist (September 1944 to January 1945) in order to find a possible order of magnitude for deaths in the last three months of the war. The average death toll for these five months was 18,777, which would give an aggregate figure for the whole war period of 328,000, though it would not allow for the exceptional casualty level at Dresden, confirmed by the latest research at approximately 25,000. Adding this would produce a total figure of approximately 353,000, representing 82,000 deaths in the last months. Detailed reconstruction of deaths caused by Royal Air Force bombing from February to May 1945, though incomplete, suggests a total of at least 57,000. If casualties inflicted by the American air forces are assumed to be lower, since their bombing was less clearly aimed at cities, an overall death toll of 82,000 is again statistically realistic. In the absence of unambiguous statistical evidence, the figure of 353,000 gives an approximate scale consistent with the evidence. It is a little over half the figure of 625,000 arrived at in the 1950s."
3. ^ British historian Richard Overy considers this order of magnitude to be "a rhetorical statistic, to demonstrate the level of sacrifice of the Soviet people and the wickedness of the German enemy". The figure "bears no relation to the detailed wartime documentary evidence". A much lower figure (51,526) is borne out by such evidence and "is much more consistent with the nature of the German bombing effort and the declining capability of the German bomber force as it struggled to sustain support for the ground war with dwindling resources",^[168]
4. ^ A sortie was one aircraft on a single combat operation

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221. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q} Horst Boog; Derry Cook-Radmore, trans., "Part I: The Strategic Air War in Europe and Air Defence of the Reich, 1943–44", in Germany and the Second World War, Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943–44/5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 [Stuttgart: Deutsche Veralgs-Anstalt GmbH, 2005]), 153–58.
222. ^ "Modern History: World War II, strategic bombing and the liberal-democratic mode of war". ADAM TOOZE. 12 July 2017. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
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224. ^ Buckley 1998, p. 166.
225. ^ Kershaw 1987, pp. 206–207.
226. ^ British Bombing Survey Unit (BBSU) Report, p.41, paras 137-8, corroborated in United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) report No.31, The attack on German cities (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1945);^{[page needed]} Noble, Frankland, The Bombing Offensive Against Germany: Outlines and Perspectives, London: Faber 1965, p.114;
227. ^ Hastings, p. 352, quoting German post-war Statistical Office calculations.
228. ISBN 978-1-4411-8581-5
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232. ISBN 0-19-860446-7
233. ^ Marco Gioannini, Giulio Massobrio, Bombardate l'Italia. Storia della guerra di distruzione aerea 1940–1945, p. 492
234. ^ Kenneth K. Hatfield (2003). "Heartland heroes: remembering World War II.". p.91.
235. Macmillan & Co
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236. ^ The Illustrated London News, Marching to War 1933–1939, Doubleday, 1989, p.135
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238. ^ Yehuda Lapidot. "Why Italian Planes Bombed Tel-Aviv?". IsraCast. Archived from the original on 21 September 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
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240. ^ E. Bruce Reynolds, Thailand's Secret War: The Free Thai, OSS, and SOE During World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 354 n. 68.
241. ^ Reynolds, Thailand's Secret War, 431.
242. ^ David G. Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (University of California Press, 1995), 271–74.
243. ^ Marr, Vietnam 1945, 401.
244. ISBN 0-553-29926-3
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245. ISBN 1-56311-483-6
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246. ISBN 978-0-671-42444-2.p.42
247. ISBN 978-0-671-42444-2.p.43
248. ^ "9 March 1945: Burning the Heart Out of the Enemy". Wired. Condé Nast Digital. 9 March 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
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250. ^ Spector, Ronald (1985). "Eagle Against the Sun." New York: Vintage Books. p. 503.
251. ^ "United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific War). 1 July 1946". Anesi.com. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
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253. ^ Major John S. Chilstrom, School of Advanced Airpower Studies. Mines Away! The Significance of U.S. Army Air Forces Minelaying in World War II. Diane Publishing, 1992.
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• Collier, Basil. The Defence of the United Kingdom. HMSO, 1957.
  OCLC 59930716
• Corum, James. (2007). The Luftwaffe: The Operational Air War, 1918–1940. University of Kansas Press.
  ISBN 0-7006-0836-2
• Corum, James S. (2013). "The Luftwaffe's Campaigns in Poland and the West 1939–1940: A Case Study of Handling Innovation in Wartime". Security and Defence Quarterly. 1 (1): 158–189.
  doi:10.35467/sdq/103158
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• Davis, Richard G. (2006) "Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2009. Retrieved 3 October 2011. Air University Press.
• Garrett, Stephen (1993). Ethics and Airpower in World War II. New York: St. Martin's Press.
  ISBN 978-0-312-08683-1
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• Hall, Cargill (1998). Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment. Air Force History and Museums Program.
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• Griehl, Manfred; Dressel, Joachim (1998). Heinkel He 177-277-274. Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing. p. 53.
• Hallion, Richard P. Decisive Air Power Prior to 1950 USAF History and Museums Program.
• ISBN 0-330-39204-2
• Hinchcliffe, Peter (1996) The other battle : Luftwaffe night aces versus Bomber Command. Airlife Publishing,
  ISBN 978-1-85310-547-0
• Hooton, E.R (1994). Phoenix Triumphant; The Rise and Rise of the Luftwaffe. London: Arms & Armour Press.
  ISBN 1-86019-964-X
• Hooton, E.R (1997). Eagle in Flames; The Fall of the Luftwaffe. London: Arms & Armour Press.
  ISBN 1-86019-995-X
• Hooton, E.R (2007). Luftwaffe at War; Blitzkrieg in the West: Volume 2. London: Chevron/Ian Allan.
  ISBN 978-1-85780-272-6
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• Hooton, E.R. (2016). War over the Steppes: The air campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941–45. Osprey.
  ISBN 978-1-47281562-0
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• Jane's (1989). All the World's Aircraft 1940/41/42/43/44/45. London, Random House,
  ISBN 1-85170-199-0
• Levine, Alan J. (1992). The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940–1945. Greenwood.
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• Longmate, Norman (1983). The Bombers. Hutchinson.
  ISBN 0-09-151580-7
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• Murray, Williamson (1983). Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933–1945. Maxwell AFB: Air University Press.
  ISBN 978-1-58566-010-0. Archived from the original
  on 9 January 2011. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
• Nelson, Hank (2003). A different war: Australians in Bomber Command Archived 2 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine paper presented at the 2003 History Conference – Air War Europe
• Nelson, Hank (2006). Chased by the Sun: The Australians in Bomber Command in World War II, Allen & Unwin,
  ISBN 978-1-74114-847-3
• Overy, Richard J. (1980) The Air War Stein and Day.
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• Pataky, Iván; Rozsos, László; Sárhidai, Gyula (1993). Légi háború Magyarország felett [Air War over Hungary] (in Hungarian). Vol. 2. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó.
  ISBN 963-327-173-8
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• Poeppel, Hans and Prinz von Preußen, Wilhelm-Karl and von Hase, Karl-Günther. (2000) Die Soldaten der Wehrmacht. Herbig Verlag.
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• Price, Alfred. Kampfflieger -Bombers of the Luftwaffe January 1942-Summer 1943, Volume 3. 2005, Classic Publications.
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• Hansen, Randall (2008). Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942–1945. Toronto:
  ISBN 978-0-385-66403-5
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• Ray, John. The Night Blitz. Booksales.
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• Richards, Denis (1953). The Fight at Odds. Royal Air Force 1939–1945. Vol. I. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Archived from the original on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
• Richards, Denis. The Hardest Victory: RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War. London: Coronet, 1995.
  ISBN 0-340-61720-9
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• R.J. Rummel. Was World War II American Urban Bombing Democide?
• Sherwood Ross. How the United States Reversed Its Policy on Bombing Civilians, The Humanist, Vol. 65, July–August 2005
• Smith, J. Richard and Creek, Eddie J. (2004). Kampflieger. Vol. 1.: Bombers of the Luftwaffe 1933–1940 Classic Publications.
  ISBN 978-1-903223-42-0
• Smith, J. Richard and Creek, Eddie J. (2004). Kampflieger. Vol. 2.: Bombers of the Luftwaffe July 1940 – December 1941. Classic Publications.
  ISBN 978-1-903223-43-7
• Spaight. James M. Bombing Vindicated Geoffrey Bles, London 1944. ASIN: B0007IVW7K (Spaight was Principal Assistant Secretary of the British Air Ministry)
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• Taylor, Frederick (2005). Dresden: Tuesday, 13 February 1945. London: Bloomsbury.
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• United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy. 1945.
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• 徐 (Xú), 露梅 (Lùméi). 隕落 (Fallen): 682位空军英烈的生死档案 - 抗战空军英烈档案大解密 (A Decryption of 682 Air Force Heroes of The War of Resistance-WWII and Their Martyrdom). 东城区, 北京， 中国: 团结出版社, 2016.
  ISBN 978-7-5126-4433-5
  .

Further reading

• Childers, Thomas (2008). "Facilis descensus averni est: The Allied Bombing of Germany and the Issue of German Suffering". Central European History. 38: 75.
  S2CID 145726489
  .
• 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#3 pp 401–435,
  doi:10.1080/01402390903189436
• Coffey, Thomas M. (1977). Decision over Schweinfurt. New York: Doubleday.
  ISBN 978-0-679-50763-5
  .
• Coffey, Thomas M. (1982). HAP: The Story of the U.S. Air Force and the Man who Built It, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold. New York: Viking Press.
  ISBN 978-0-670-36069-7
  .
• Coffey, Thomas M. (1987). Iron Eagle : The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay. Random House Value publishing.
  ISBN 978-0-517-55188-2
  .
• Crane, Conrad C. American Airpower Strategy in World War II: Bombs, Cities, Civilians, and Oil (2016).
• Crane, Conrad C. Bombs, Cities, and Civilians: American Airpower Strategy in World War II (1993).
• Craven, Wesley F.; Cate, James Lea (1948–1958). The Army Air Forces in World War II, volumes 1–8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  ISBN 978-0-405-12137-1
  .
• Garretsen, Harry; Schramm, Marc; Brakman, Steven. The Strategic Bombing of German Cities during World War II and its Impact for Germany (PDF). Discussion Paper Series nr: 03-09. Tjalling, C. Koopmans Research Institute,
  Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University. Archived from the original
  (PDF) on 24 August 2006. Retrieved 26 April 2006.
• Great Britain Air Ministry (1983). The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force. Arms and Armour Press.
  ISBN 978-0-85368-560-9
  .
• Greer, Ron (2005). Fire from the Sky: A Diary Over Japan. Jacksonville, Arkansas, U.S.A.: Greer Publishing.
  ISBN 978-0-9768712-0-0
  .
• Guillian, Robert (1982). I Saw Tokyo Burning: An Eyewitness Narrative from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Jove Pubns.
  ISBN 978-0-86721-223-5
  .
• Hansell, Haywood S. The Strategic Air War Against Germany and Japan: A Memoir (1986) online
• Harris, Arthur (1998). Bomber Offensive. Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal.
  ISBN 978-1-85367-314-6
  .
• Hayward, Joel S.A. Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942–1943. University Press of Kansas, 1998.
  ISBN 978-0-7006-1146-1
• Kennet, Lee (1982). A History of Strategic Bombing. New York: Scribner.
  ISBN 978-0-684-17781-6
  .
• Lemay, Curtis E.; Yenne, Bill (1988). Superfortress: The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power. McGraw-Hill.
  ISBN 978-0-07-037164-4
  .
• McGowen, Tom (2001). Air Raid!:The Bombing Campaign. Brookfield, Connecticut, U.S.A.: Twenty-First Century Books.
  ISBN 978-0-7613-1810-1
  .
• Middlebrook, Martin; Everitt, Chris (1990). The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939–1945. London: Penguin.
  ISBN 978-0-14-012936-6
  .
• Mierzejewski, Alfred (1987). The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944–1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
  ISBN 978-0-8078-6338-1
  .
• Milward, Alan S. (1965). The German Economy at War. London: Prometheus Books.
  ISBN 978-0-485-11075-3
  .
• Patler, Nicholas. "Is the U.S. Haunted by Its Nuclear Past? Dropping the atomic bomb crossed a moral threshold." The Progressive Christian (Winter 2009), pp 15–19,36.
• Patler, Nicholas. "Book Reviews/Essay: A Twentieth Century History of Bombing Civilians, and A History of Bombing." Journal of Critical Asian Studies (March 2011), 153–156.
• Ross, Stewart Halsey (2003). Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II. The Myths and the Facts. McFarland & Co.
  ISBN 978-0-7864-1412-3
  .
• Rumpf, Hans (1963). The bombing of Germany. Translated by Fitzgerald, Edward. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Shannon, Donald H. (1976). United States air strategy and doctrine as employed in the strategic bombing of Japan. U.S. Air University, Air War College.
  OCLC 2499355
  .
• Smith, Major Phillip A. Bombing to Surrender: The contribution of air power to the collapse of Italy, 1943 (Pickle Partners Publishing, 2014).
• Verrier, Anthony (1974). The Bomber Offensive. New York: Pan.
  ISBN 978-0-330-23864-9
  .
• Spaight, James M (1944). Bombing Vindicated. G. Bles.
  OCLC 1201928
  . – Spaight was Principal Assistant Secretary of the Air Ministry (U.K)
• ISBN 978-1-84574-437-3
  .
• Weigley, Russell (1981). Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-253-13333-5
  .

External links

• The Blitz: Sorting the Myth from the Reality by BBC History
• Liverpool Blitz— Experience 24 hours in a city under fire in the Blitz from National Museums Liverpool
• Coventry Blitz Resource Centre
• The 376th Heavy Bombardment Group Oral Histories^{[permanent dead link]} at Ball State University
• Allied Bombers and Crews Archived 27 November 2010 at the
  Life magazine
• Annotated bibliography for conventional bombing during World War II Archived 8 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• The Revenger's Tragedy by Leo McKinstry (in New Statesman)