Strategic bombing during World War II
Strategic bombing during World War II was greater in scale than any wartime attack the world had previously witnessed. The strategic bombing campaigns conducted by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Empire of Japan used conventional weapons, incendiaries, and nuclear weapons.
The government of the Third Reich authorised the bombing of civilian targets from the first days of the war. The British government ordered the RAF to adhere strictly to the Amsterdam draft international rules prohibiting attacking civilian infrastructure outside the combat zones, but this adherence was abandoned on May 15, 1940, one day after the Rotterdam Blitz.[1][2] On August 24 1940 some German aircraft strayed over London and dropped bombs in the east and northeast of the city. A period of reciprocal retaliation begun, mainly focussed on industrial areas. In February 1942 the British abandoned attempts at strategic precision bombing and with the issuing of the area bombing directive to the RAF, put most of their strategic bombing efforts into area bombardment and the "dehousing" of the German workforce.
The United States Government entered the war intending to use strategic precision bombing, which was used with mixed success in Europe and never abandoned as a policy. However over Japan because of the jetstream, strategic precision bombing proved to be a failure and the policy was abandoned in favour of policy of area bombardment.
In World War II aerial bombardment claimed 60,595 British and between 305,000 and 600,000 German civilian lives,[3][4] The American fire bombing of Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and many other Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killed between 330,000 and 500,000 Japanese civilians.[5] as well as over 100,000 airmen[6]
Europe
The September Campaign
- Main article: Invasion of Poland
From the beginning of the war Germany engaged in massive air raids against Polish cities, bombing civilians, hospitals, and refugees. Cities like Warsaw,Wieluń,Frampol and many others were devastated by indiscriminate German air bombardments, often targeting civilians. In the case of Frampol, the city was destroyed as test case to determine the effects and accuracy of bombardment. The first bombs on Germany during World War II were dropped by a single PZL.23 Karaś of the 21st squadron on a factory in Olawa. Even though the Polish Air Force had a small fleet of modern medium-range bombers such as the PZL.37 Łoś, before the full scale of German war atrocities became known, Polish officers were reluctant to order strategic bombardment of targets in Germany for humanitarian reasons. Then just in a period of a few days, Luftwaffe numerical and technological superiority took its toll on the Polish Air Force and such operations were impossible.
The German attack (The Blitz)
- Main article: The Blitz
The British had been deeply psychologically affected by the German strategic bombing campaign of World War I. It was the first time in hundreds of years London had been successfully attacked by an enemy. In the interwar years, British calculations of the likely effect of a strategic bombing from the data gathered during the German campaign suggested a strategic attack on an enemy's cities using the latest generation of bombers would knock an enemy out of the war without the need for the stalemate of trench warfare. In addition, it was widely believed there was no defense against bombers (hence the famous quote, "The bomber will always get through."). This, and the fact British bombers lacked the range and numbers to inflict a telling blow on Germany, had been important factors in the British adoption of appeasement of Adolf Hitler during the 1930s. The destruction expected to result from a strategic bombing campaign using conventional bombs and poison gas was thought to be on a scale which would not be seen in reality until the atomic bomb was developed.
When the war broke out in 1939, Britain's RAF had just 488 bombers of all kinds, mostly obsolescent, with only about 60 of the capable new Vickers Wellington: many of the remainder had insufficient range to reach the Ruhr (let alone Berlin), had negligible defensive armament, and could not carry a useful payload. In any case, there were no effective bomb sights, very few bombs of a size that could cause significant damage, and even such obvious things as maps of Europe for navigating to and from the target were in very short supply. Furthermore, the sheer difficulty of navigating, by night, long distances to accurately attack small targets was severely underestimated.
Germany, in contrast, had abandoned plans to produce strategic bombers. With German technical resources already hard pressed to supply other needs, with Luftwaffe doctrine geared to close support of the army, and with the benefit of practical experience in Spain, German planners focused on tactical bombers to act as airborne artillery for the army, and fighters to protect them. When the fighting for Western Europe began in earnest, all three major powers (Britain, Germany and France) concentrated on daylight tactical bombing. German Stukas and medium bombers were highly effective in the military support role; the French Air Force, torn by political intra-service conflict and a lack of logistical preparation, was largely unable to employ its large numbers of modern aircraft; and the British found bravery was no substitute for proper training, doctrine, and equipment— British bomber losses in the defense of France were catastrophic, and the results negligible. In that first year of the war, strategic bombing was almost forgotten. It was in a sense, however, the calm before the storm.
Toward the end of the Battle of Britain, a German bomber crew mistakenly bombed London. The RAF responded by bombing Berlin on the night of 25/26 August. This was politically embarrassing for Goering as he had boasted of the Luftwaffe ability to protect major German cities. Not realizing how close the Luftwaffe was to defeating Fighter Command, Goering switched from attacking airfields and strictly military targets to bombing cities, in particular London, which was attacked for the first time on September 7. Many other British cities were hit, including Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Belfast, Cardiff, and Coventry. The given aim was strategic—to destroy ports and industrial installations—but there is no room to doubt destroying the will of ordinary people to fight was a major factor, perhaps the major factor. [7]
Gradually, in the face of heavy losses to fighters, the Luftwaffe resorted to night bombing. Targeting had been a problem in daylight; by night it was basically impossible, with accuracy being approximately "one city". British civilian casualties were heavy. The expected collapse in civilian morale, however, did not eventuate; indeed, it is widely believed the bombings had the opposite effect.
Over the next year, an escalating war of electronic technology developed. German scientists improvised a series of radio navigation aids to help their navigators find targets in the dark and through overcast, while the British struggled to develop countermeasures (most notably airborne radar, as well as deceptive beacons and jammers).
Despite causing a great deal of damage and sorely trying the civilian population, the defenses gradually became more formidable, and the need to divert as many squadrons as possible to the Eastern Front saw the Blitz gradually fade away into mere nuisance raids.
The British attack
Britain started with its own night strategic bombing campaign, which built up from Bomber Command's tiny beginnings in 1940 to truly massive strength by the end of the war. The effects of strategic bombing were very poorly understood at the time and grossly overrated. Particularly in the first two years of the campaign, few understood just how little damage was caused and how rapidly the Germans were able to replace lost production—despite the obvious lessons to be learned from the United Kingdom's own survival of the blitz.
Mid-way through the air war, it slowly began to be realized the campaign was having very little effect. Despite an ever-increasing tonnage of bombs dispatched, the inaccuracy of delivery was such any bomb falling within five miles of the target was deemed a "hit" for statistical purposes, and even by this standard, many bombs missed..[8] Indeed sometimes in post raid assessment the Germans could not decide which town (not the installation in the town) had been the intended target because the scattering of bomb craters was so wide.
These problems were dealt with in two ways: first the precision targeting of vital facilities (ball-bearing production in particular) was abandoned in favour of "area bombing".
"Bomber" Harris, who ran the bombing campaign, said "for want of a rapier, a bludgeon was used". He felt that as much as it would be far more desirable to deliver effective pin-point attacks, as the capacity to do so simply did not exist, and since it was war, it was necessary to attack with whatever was at hand. He accepted area bombing, knowing it would kill civilians, because it was a choice of area bombing or no bombing at all, and area bombing would mean dropping large quantities of bombs into an area full of activities and industries being harnessed for the German war effort.
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This change of policy was agreed by the Cabinet in 1942 after a paper was presented by Professor F.W. Lindemann, the British government's leading scientific adviser, proposing the "dehousing" of the German workforce through area aerial bombing of German cities. This policy was driven in part by Bomber Command's inability to hit, or even find, targets smaller than cities; early days, even finding cities proved problematic.[9] Air Marshal Arthur Harris (commonly known as "Bomber" Harris) was appointed to carry out the task and issued a new directive. As the campaign developed, improvements in the accuracy of the RAF raids were joined by better crew training, electronic aids, and new tactics such as the creation of a "pathfinder" force to mark targets for the main force.
A very large proportion of the industrial production of the United Kingdom was harnessed to the task of creating a vast fleet of heavy bombers—so much so other vital areas of war production were under-resourced, notably the development of effective tanks[citation needed] and above all the provision of long-range aircraft to safeguard Atlantic shipping from submarine attack. 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 no where else the effort could have been applied to greater effect. The effect on German allocation of forces, however, gradually became significant, as Germany devoted upwards of one fourth of its war production to anti-aircraft protection.[citation needed] Every extra anti-aircraft battery and night fighter squadron was one fewer to fight Russian forces on the Eastern Front. The disruption of the German transportation system was extensive. Despite German efforts to minimize loss of industrial productivity through dispersal of production facilities, as well as the extensive use of slave labour, the Nazi regime experienced a decline in the ability to supply war materiél. Furthermore, the Luftwaffe had been significantly weakened in the course of their defensive efforts so that by mid 1944, the Allies experienced day-time air dominance for the balance of the war, which would be critical to the Allied success in the Normandy Campaign and susequent operations to the end of the war.
US bombing in Europe
Mid-way through the war, the United States Army Air Forces arrived to begin its own strategic bombing campaign, which was conducted in daylight. In Europe, the American Eighth Air Force heavy bombers carried smaller payloads than British aircraft (because of the need for defensive armament) but were generally able to deliver them somewhat more accurately[citation needed]. USAAF leaders firmly held to the claim of "precision" bombing of military targets for much of the war, and energetically refuted claims that they were simply bombing cities. In reality, the day bombing was "precision bombing" only in the sense that most bombs fell somewhere near a specific designated target such as a railway yard, whereas the night bombing campaign targeted cities with area bombardment. Nevertheless, the sheer tonnage of explosive delivered by day and by night was eventually sufficient to cause widespread damage, and, more importantly from a military point of view, forced Germany to divert resources to counter it. This was to be the real significance of the Allied strategic bombing campaign—resource allocation.
U.S. operations began with 'Pointblank' attacks, designed to eliminate key features of the German economy. These attacks manifested themselves in the infamous Schweinfurt raids. 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; it proved to be the P-51 Mustang, which had the range to fly to Berlin and back.
With the arrival of the brand-new Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, command of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe was consolidated into the United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF). With the addition of the Mustang to its strength the Combined Bomber Offensive was resumed. Planners targeted the Luftwaffe in an operation known as 'Big Week' (20 February - 25 February 1944) and succeeded brilliantly - losses were so heavy German planners were forced into a hasty dispersal of industry and the day fighter arm never fully recovered.
On March 27, 1944, the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued orders granting control of all the Allied air forces in Europe, including strategic bombers, to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, who delegated command to his deputy in SHAEF Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder. There was resistance to this order from some senior figures, including Spenser-Churchill, Harris, and Carl Spaatz, but after some debate, control passed to SHAEF on April 1 1944. When the Combined Bomber Offensive officially ended on April 1, Allied airmen were well on the way to achieving air superiority over all of Europe. While they continued some strategic bombing, the USAAF along with the RAF turned their attention to the tactical air battle in support of the NEPTUNE. It was not until the middle of September that the strategic bombing campaign of Germany again became the priority for the USSTAF.[11]
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.
Effectiveness
Despite its popularity with the military and politicians, strategic bombing has been criticized on practical grounds because it does not always work reliably, and on moral grounds because of the large civilian casualties that result.
For instance, the strategic bombing survey conducted by the United States in 1946 determined German industrial production in aircraft, steel, armor, and other sectors had risen hugely during the war despite strategic bombing. However, the increase in production was far less than German potential, and far less than increases in Britain and the United States. Furthermore, most of the supplies could not reach the battlefronts because of transportation failures caused by the bombing. The tanks that reached the western front in summer 1944 were drawn by oxen because their fuel supply was so limited.
The attacks on oil production, oil refineries and tank farms was however extremely successful and made a very large contribution to the general collapse of Germany in 1945. Speer's major concern was the bombing of oil facilities; however, this occurred sufficiently late in the war Germany would soon be defeated in any case. Nevertheless, it is fair to say the oil bombing campaign materially shortened the war, thereby saving large numbers of lives.
However, German insiders credit the Allied bombing offensive with severely handicapping them. Speer repeatedly said (both during and after the war) it caused crucial production problems. A particular example comes from Admiral Karl Dönitz, head of the U-Boat arm, who noted in his memoirs failure to get the revolutionary Type XXI U-boats (which could have completely altered the balance of power in the Battle of the Atlantic) into service was entirely the result of the bombing. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, however, concluded the delays in deploying the new submarines cannot be attributed to air attack.
Much of the misunderstanding about the effectiveness of the bomber war comes from that oft-stated fact German industrial production increased throughout the war. While this is true, it fails to note production also increased in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Canada and Australia. And, in all of those countries, the rate of production increased much more rapidly than Germany. Until late in the war, industry had not been geared for war and German factory workers only worked a single shift. Simply by going to three shifts, production could be tripled with no change to the infrastructure. However, attacks on the infrastructure were taking place. The attacks on Germany's canals and railroads made transportation of materials difficult at best. Increased industrial output in the face of a destroyed transportation infrastructure tends to be ineffective.
Effect on morale
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.
In Germany, morale did not effectively breakdown in the face of the bombing campaign, which was far more extensive and comprehensive in effect, scope and duration than that endured by Great Britain. Additionally, the Germans clearly differentiated between behavior and morale: behavior was more or less unchanged; as with Japan, there were no riots in Germany demanding national capitulation and German workers, with grim stoicism, maintained industrial production as high as they could; German civilian morale, too, was strained by the bombing but remained intact right to the end of the war. Many German civilians, mostly women and children, had evacuated the cities by the latter stages of the war. Those who were workers were replaced in some, but not all, factories by prisoners or forced laborers with low morale, who were severely punished by their SS guards if their work performance faltered; most surviving German industrial workers, however, continued to work at their factories and remained at their posts (while most forced laborers were confined to factories within the precincts or within the vicinity of the concentration camps that housed them).
Allied Bombing Statistics 1939-45
RAF Bombing Sorties & Losses 1939-45
Night Sorties: 297,663 Losses: 7,449 Day Sorties: 66,851 Losses: 876
RAF & USAAF Bomb Tonnages on Germany 1939-45
Year RAF Bomber Command US 8th Air Force
1939 31 tons - 1940 13,033 tons - 1941 31,504 tons - 1942 45,561 tons 1,561 tons 1943 157,457 tons 44,165 tons 1944 525,518 tons 389,119 tons 1945 191,540 tons 188,573 tons
Ref: War In The Air 1939-1945 by Richard Humble - Purnell - 1975
Asia
Japanese bombing
The Japanese strategic bombing were mostly done against Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan and Chonging, with around 5 000 raids from February 1938 to August 1943 only in the later case. The bombing of Nanjing and Canton, which began on 22 and 23 September 1937, called for forth widespread protests culminating in a resolution by the Far Eastern Advisory Comittee 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 completly second place. The main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians...» [12]
There were also air raids on Philippines and northern Australia (Air raids on Darwin, February 19, 1942). The Imperial Japanese Navy used tactical bombing against enemy airfields and military positions, as at Pearl Harbor. The Imperial Japanese Army also attacked enemy ships and military installations.
United States strategic bombing of Japan
The United States strategic bombing of Japan took place between 1942 and 1945.
Conventional bombing
The first U.S. raid on the Japanese main island was the Doolittle Raid of April 18, 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 raids were military pin-pricks but a significant propaganda victory. Launched prematurely, none of the attacking aircraft reached the designated post mission airfields, either crashing or ditching (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, which had an operational range of 1500 miles (2,400 km); almost 90% of the bombs dropped on the home islands of Japan were delivered by this type of bomber (147,000 tons). The first raid by B-29s on Japan from China was on June 15, 1944. The planes took off from Chengdu, over 1500 miles away. This first raid was also not particularly damaging to Japan. Only forty-seven of the sixty-eight B–29s airborne hit the target area; 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. The first raid from the east was on November 24, 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% of the bombs hit designated targets.
The initial raids were carried out by the Twentieth Air Force operating out of mainland China in Operation Matterhorn under XX Bomber Command. Initially the Twentieth Air Force was under the command of Hap Arnold, and later Curtis LeMay. This was never a satisfactory arrangement because not only were the Chinese airbases difficult to supply via the Hump from India, 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, 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 now able to carry their full bomb loads.
Unlike all other forces in theater, the Bomber Commands did not report to the commanders of the theaters but directly the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In March 1945 they were placed under the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific which was commanded by General 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, as 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 of 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 February 3, 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.
Much of the armor and defensive weaponry of the bombers was removed to allow increased bomb loads; Japanese air defense in terms of night-fighters and anti-aircraft guns was so feeble it was hardly a risk. The first raid of this type on Tokyo was on the night of February 23–24 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city. Following on that success 334 B-29s raided on the night of March 9–10, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed and over 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the fire storm. The destruction and damage was at its worst in the city sections east of the Imperial Palace. It was the most destructive conventional raid in all of history. The city was made primarily of wood and paper, and Japanese firefighting methods were not up to the challenge. The fires burned out of control, boiling canal water and causing entire blocks of buildings to spontaneously combust from the heat. 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."[13]
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 centers in the following weeks and months.
Leaflets were dropped over cities before they were bombed, warning the people and urging them to escape the city. Though many, 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.
Nuclear bombing
- Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
References
- Alan J. Levine, The Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945 (1992)
- [British] Air Ministry. The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force. New York: St. Martin's, 1983. official RAF history
- Thomas Coffey. Decision over Schweinfurt. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
- Thomas Coffey. Hap. New York: Viking Press, 1982. biography of Hap Arnold AAF
- Wesley F. Craven and Cate James Lea. The Army Air Forces in World War II. 8 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948- 1958. official AAF history
- Arthur Harris. Bomber Offensive. London: Collins, 1947, memoir
- Max Hastings. Bomber Command. New York: Dial, 1979.
- Lee Kennett . A History of Strategic Bombing. New York: Scribner's, 1982.
- Martin Middlebrook and Everitt Chris. eds. The Bomber Command War Diaries. London: Penguin, 1990.
- Alfred Mierzejewski. The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
- Alan Milward. The German Economy at War. London: University of London Press, 1965
- Stewart Halsey Ross, 2003. Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II. The Myths and the Facts.. Jefferson, North Carolina/London: McFarland & Co, Inc.
- R. J. Overy, The Air War New York: Stein and Day, 1980.
- Dudley Saward. Bomber Harris. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985.
- United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report(Pacific War) July 1, 1946
- United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Summary Report(European War) September 30, 1945
- United States Strategic Bombing Survey. The Defeat of the German Air Force. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947; The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Transportation. 1947; The Effects of Strategic Bombing on the German War Economy. 1945.
- Anthony Verrier. The Bomber Offensive. New York: Macmillan, 1968.
- Charless Webster and Frankland Noble. The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany. 4 vols. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1961. official British history
- Russell Weigley . Eisenhower's Lieutenants. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
Further reading
- Coffey, Thomas M. (1987). Iron Eagle : The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay. Random House Value Publishing. ISBN 0-517-55188-8.
- Crane, Conrad C. (1994). The cigar that brought the fire wind: Curtis LeMay and the strategic bombing of Japan. JGSDF-U.S. Army Military History Exchange. ASIN B0006PGEIQ.
- Grayling, A. C. (2006). Among the Dead Cities. New York: Walker Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 0-8027-1471-4.
- Greer, Ron (2005). Fire from the Sky: A Diary Over Japan. Jacksonville, Arkansas, U.S.A.: Greer Publishing. ISBN 0-9768712-0-3.
- Guillian, Robert (1982). I Saw Tokyo Burning: An Eyewitness Narrative from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Jove Pubns. ISBN 0-86721-223-3.
- Lemay, Curtis E. (1988). Superfortress: The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power. McGraw-Hill Companies. ISBN 0-07-037164-4.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - McGowen, Tom (2001). Air Raid!:The Bombing Campaign. Brookfield, Connecticut, U.S.A.: Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 0-7613-1810-0.
- 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. ASIN B0006WCQ86.
- Harry Garretsen, Marc Schramm, Steven BrakmanThe 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
- Facilis descensus averni est: The Allied Bombing of Germany and the Issue of German Suffering — Detailed article about the bombing of Germany in WWII
- European Air War Timeline
- The Blitz: Sorting the Myth from the Reality, BBC History
- Liverpool Blitz Experience 24 hours in a city under fire in the Blitz.
- Coventry Blitz Over 1200 died in Coventry
Footnotes
- ^ Frederick Taylor Dresden Tuesday 13 February 1945 Chapter "Call Me Meier" pages 105-111
- ^ Draft Convention for the Protection of Civilian Populations Against New Engines of War. Amsterdam, 1938, verified 26 February, 2005
- ^ Matthew White Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls: United Kingdom lists the following totals and sources:
- 60,000, (bombing): John Keegan The Second World War (1989);
- 60,000: Boris Urlanis, Wars and Population (1971)
- 60,595: Harper Collins Atlas of the Second World War
- 60,600: John Ellis, World War II : a statistical survey (Facts on File, 1993) "killed and missing"
- 92,673, (incl. 30,248 merchant mariners and 60,595 killed by bombing): Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, 1992 printing. "Killed, died of wounds, or in prison .... exclud[ing] those who died of natural causes or were suicides."
- 92,673: Norman Davies,Europe A History (1998) same as Britannica's war dead in most cases
- 92,673: Michael Clodfelter Warfare and Armed Conflict: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1618-1991;
- 100,000: William Eckhardt, a 3-page table of his war statistics printed in World Military and Social Expenditures 1987-88 (12th ed., 1987) by Ruth Leger Sivard. "Deaths", including "massacres, political violence, and famines associated with the conflicts."
- ^ German Deaths by aerial bombardment (It is not clear if these totals includes Austrians, of whom about 24,000 were killed (see Austrian Press & Information Service, Washington, D.C) and other territories in the Third Reich but not in modern Germany)
- 600,000 about 80,000 were children in Hamburg, Juli 1943 in Der Spiegel © SPIEGEL ONLINE 2003 (in German)
- Matthew White Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls lists the following totals and sources:
- more than 305,000: (1945 Strategic Bombing Survey);
- 400,000: Hammond Atlas of the 20th Century (1996)
- 410,000: R. J. Rummel, 100% democidal;
- 499,750: Michael Clodfelter Warfare and Armed Conflict: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1618-1991;
- 593,000: John Keegan The Second World War (1989);
- 593,000: J. A. S. Grenville citing "official Germany" in A History of the World in the Twentieth Century (1994)
- 600,000: Paul Johnson Modern Times (1983)
- ^ Matthew White Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls: Allies bombing of Japan lists the following totals and sources
- 330,000: 1945 US Strategic Bombing Survey;
- 363,000: (not including post-war radiation sickness); John Keegan The Second World War (1989);
- 374,000: R. J. Rummel, inclding 337,000 democidal;
- 435,000: Paul Johnson Modern Times (1983)
- 500,000: (Harper Collins Atlas of the Second World War)
- ^ Saward, "Bomber" Harris; Hastings, Bomber Command.
- ^ Brian Grafton Bomber Command on the website Military History Online
- ^ Nelson, Hank. A different war: Australians in Bomber Command a paper presented at the 2003 History Conference - Air War Europe
- ^ Deighton, Bomber.
- ^ US Strategic Bombing Survey: Statistical Appendix to Overall report (European War) (Feb 1947) table 1
- ^ Norman Longmate, The Bombers:The RAF Offensive against Germany 1939-1945, pp.309-312
- ^ The Illustrated London News, Marching to War 1933-1939, Doubleday, 1989, p.135
- ^ Spector, Ronald (1985). "Eagle Against the Sun." New York: Vintage Books. p. 503.
