Air Campaign 009 - Japan 1944-45. LeMay’s B-29 Strategic Bombing Сampaign (2019) COMP.pdf

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C A M P A I G N
A I R
JAPAN 1944–45
LeMay’s B-29 strategic
bombing campaign
MARK LARDAS
|
I L LU S T R AT E D B Y PAU L W R I G H T
A I R C A M PA I G N
JAPAN 1944–45
LeMay’s B-29 strategic bombing campaign
MARK LARDAS |
I LLU STR ATE D BY PAUL WRIGHT
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER'S CAPABILITIES
DEFENDER'S CAPABILITIES
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
THE CAMPAIGN
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
FURTHER READING
INDEX
4
9
12
23
32
39
84
93
95
4
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Germany intimidated
neighbors by threating to
fill the skies of enemy
nations with swarms of
Nazi bombers. Despite
belief that “the bomber
would always get
through,” when war came
bombers proved
vulnerable. (AC)
The bomber will always get through. So claimed Stanley Baldwin, then Lord President of
the Council of Great Britain (and soon to be Prime Minister), in November 1932. It was a
principle developed 11 years earlier by Italian General Giulio Douhet in his book
Il dominio
dell’aria
(The
Command of the Air).
He predicted that armies and navies were obsolete.
Aircraft could overfly them and attack and destroy a nation’s vital centers – governmental
centers, industry, and transportation networks. Victory would follow the enemies’ collapse
once these vitals were destroyed.
Douhet’s doctrine was soon adopted by air power visionaries around the world. Over the
two decades following publication of Douhet’s books, air-power advocates in many nations
insisted wars could be won through air power alone – through strategic bombing.
Yet between 1921 and 1944 no nation could claim to have achieved Douhet’s goal of
victory through strategic air power. Nazi Germany claimed it used air power to win the
Spanish Civil War and gain victory in the opening days of World War II. Yet Guernica and
Rotterdam proved to be less examples of strategic bombing than aerial terrorism linked to
ground campaigns. The Luftwaffe’s attempts to batter Britain into submission during the
Battle of Britain in 1940 and the Blitz of 1940–41 ended in failure. The bomber did not
always get through. Nor did civilian morale collapse, as Douhet had predicted’.
Britain’s Royal Air Force went even further in its attempt to defeat Germany through
strategic bombardment. Britain built thousands of heavy bombers, committing them to a
years-long night bombing campaign against the German heartland. Despite 1,000-plane
raids and firestorm-generating incendiary raids, by 1944 it was apparent this campaign had
failed to force German surrender, even with United States cooperation through daylight
bombardment.
No nation was more invested in strategic bombardment than the United States, however.
It first flew the B-17, its first monoplane, metal, four-engine bomber, in 1935, four years
before the RAF flew its counterpart, the Short Stirling. The B-17 was the United States’
first operational heavy bomber when World War II started. It was soon joined by the B-24
5
Liberator. Over the course of the war a combined total of over 30,000 of these two heavy
bombers were built.
Great Britain and Germany pinned their strategic bombing campaigns on area
bombardment – the destruction of whole cities. US air-power advocates believed the solution
lay in precision bombardment. Highly accurate targeting would place bombs on high-value
enemy targets. Knock these out and the enemy would collapse. Better still, bombs would
land only on targets of military value. Civilians (except those working in facilities associated
with the military, such as aircraft factories) would be spared.
It was a classic American solution: high-tech, delivering a knockout blow which avoided
the mass slaughter of trench warfare, and which punished only the guilty – the evildoers
actually prosecuting the war. As in a Western, only the bad guys got hurt.
In theory it should work, but reality demonstrated differently, especially in Europe against
Germany. Unescorted daylight bombers proved incapable of “getting through” against
Nazi air defenses without taking unacceptable losses. Weather frequently obscured targets
(preventing accurate bombing), when it did not simply prevent aircraft from flying. There
were factories which could have crippled Germany had they been knocked out. (Only
two facilities produced tetraethyl-lead, critical to producing high-octane fuel.) US mission
planners were either unaware of these choke points or (as with ball bearings) production
could be dispersed, preventing knockout precision bombing.
The United States Army Air Corps (which became the Army Air Force in June 1941)
remained fully invested in the doctrine of precision daylight strategic bombing even as
the failures of strategic bombardment in Europe became apparent. In 1940 it requested
development of a new super-bomber; a next generation very heavy bomber which could fly
transcontinental distances at unprecedented altitudes and speeds, carrying a bomb load far
beyond that which could be carried by either the B-17 or B-24.
Four companies submitted designs. Two aircraft were developed: the Boeing B-29 and
the Consolidated B-32. Both had a combat range of 3,200 miles (50 percent greater
than the B-24’s), and a cruise speed of 290mph (the maximum speed of a B-24). Both
could carry in excess of 20,000lb of bombs internally. Both had four 2,200hp 18-cylinder
radial engines.
The B-32 was evolutionary. It was a larger, faster version of the B-24, optimized for
operations between 10,000 and 20,000ft.
An early-model B-17 in
pre-war colors. The B-17
Flying Fortress was the
first four-engine
monoplane metal bomber
fielded by any nation’s air
force. (AC)

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