The Quest Haywood Hansell And American Strategic Bombing In World War Ii
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The quest Haywood Hansell and American strategic bombing in World War II by Charles Griffith Pdf
This book contains the following chapters concerning Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II: the problems of air power, (2) the early years: education and acts, (3) planning, (4) the frictions of war, (5) the global bomber force, (6) triumph, and (7) tragedy.
This biography of Maj Gen Haywood S. Hansell Jr. provides an in-depth look at the life and career of one of airpower's pioneer thinkers. General Hansell's professional life was devoted to the theory and practice of strategic airpower--the single most controversial military debate of the twentieth century. Hansell believed that wars could and should be won through precision bombing of military and industrial/commercial targets, a theory and practice that the United States Army Air Forces abandoned during World War II because of the dictates of existing technology, the demands of combat, and the fact that the passions of war swept away any moral concerns involving strategic bombing. Nevertheless, Hansell's main contribution to air doctrine was the concept that through selective targeting and an ability to place the bombs on those targets, airpower could win wars by crippling an enemy's ability to supply his forces and without causing wanton death and destruction. The author believes that the Persian Gulf War went a long way toward proving Hansell's theories to be correct.
The Quest. Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II. by Anonim Pdf
This book contains the following chapters concerning Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II: the problems of air power, (2) the early years: education and acts, (3) planning, (4) the frictions of war, (5) the global bomber force, (6) triumph, and (7) tragedy.
The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II by Air University Air University Press,Charles Griffith Pdf
This biography of Maj Gen Haywood S. Hansell Jr. provides an in-depth look at the life and career of one of airpower's pioneer thinkers. General Hansell's professional life was devoted to the theory and practice of strategic airpower--the single most controversial military debate of the twentieth century. Hansell believed that wars could and should be won through precision bombing of military and industrial / commercial targets, a theory and practice that the United States Army Air Forces abandoned during World War II because of the dictates of existing technology, the demands of combat, and the fact that the passions of war swept away any moral concerns involving strategic bombing. Nevertheless, Hansell's main contribution to air doctrine was the concept that through selective targeting and an ability to place the bombs on those targets, airpower could win wars by crippling an enemy's ability to supply his forces and without causing wanton death and destruction. The author believes that the Persian Gulf War went a long way toward proving Hansell's theories to be correct.
How Effective is Strategic Bombing? by Gian P. Gentile Pdf
In the wake of WWII, President Truman established the US Strategic Bombing Survey to determine how effectively strategic air power had been applied during the war. The final study has been used for decades as an objective primary source and a guiding text. Gentile (history, US Military Academy) re-examines this document to reveal how it reflected the American conceptual approach to strategic bombing. He exposes the survey as largely tautological, throwing into question many of the central tenets of American air power philosophy and strategy. He shows how recent problems with bomb damage assessment in the Balkans reinforce his conclusions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II by Stewart Halsey Ross Pdf
The United States relied heavily on bombing to defeat the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, and air raids were touted as “precision” bombing in American propaganda. But was precision possible over cloud-covered Europe or a darkened Japanese countryside? Could the vaunted Norden optical bombsight in fact “drop bombs into pickle barrels” as advertised? Were the American aircrews well trained and well protected? How good were their airplanes? What were the results of the costly raids? This work sets suppositions against facts surrounding the United States’ use of strategic bombing in World War II. Chapters cover the events leading up to World War II; the start of the war; the seers and the planners; the airplanes, bombs, bombsights, and aircrews; the planes Germany used to defend itself against American planes; the five cities (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki) that experienced the most destruction; and the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of the damage done by aerial bombing. The book also probes the government’s myth-building statements that supported America’s view of itself as a uniquely humanitarian nation, and analyzes the role played by interservice rivalry—“battleship admirals” against “bomber generals.”
No Quarter Given: The Change In Strategic Bombing Application In The Pacific Theater During World War II by Major John M. Curatola Pdf
European airpower theorists of the 1920’s and 30’s envisioned the deliberate bombing of civilians in order to affect an enemy nation’s wartime production capabilities and national morale. However, American proponents of airpower were more exacting in their approach to the use of the airplane. The US Army Air Corps developed the idea of precision bombing as a means to destroy an enemy’s ability to prosecute war through the targeting of only an enemy’s means of production and state infrastructure while avoiding civilian casualties. World War II provided the US Army Air Force (USAAF) the opportunity to prove the effectiveness of this theory. However, as the war progressed, the USAAF targeted not just centers of production, but political targets as well as civilian populations. Thus, USAAF bombing came to resemble the type of application that was initially proffered by European theorists. Large-scale bombing of cities and populations became the mode of operation for the USAAF in the Pacific. Despite its policies and doctrine, the USAAF deliberately bombed civilian populations in conjunction with the Japanese means of production. Why did this targeting change take place? How did the USAAF eventually come to conduct indiscriminate area bombing of civilians despite the perception that it was contrary to our national mores?
Determination And Effectiveness Of Wwii Strategic Bombing Strategy by Colonel T. Tracey Goetz Pdf
With the collapse of France in 1940, American (US) and British (UK) leadership became keenly aware that the continued security of their nations required the defeat of the Axis powers, particularly Germany. The Allies chose a strategy utilizing a combination of various military actions, most notably a combined bomber offensive (CBO). The CBO would be carried out through a combination of US daylight precision and UK night area bombing. The purpose of this paper is to show why the Allies chose this strategy and evaluate its success. To accomplish this task, the paper will first describe the events that brought about the conflict and the strategy. Crowl’s Questions are used as a framework to analyze the factors that influence strategy development and adoption and will illustrate why Allied leaders chose this path. This is followed by a detailed description of the campaign. The principles of war (mass, objective, offensive, maneuver, surprise, security, simplicity, unity of command, and economy of force) are accepted as proven methods for employing forces in combat and are used to evaluate the CBO’s effectiveness The paper closes with a summary of the findings and doctrinal implications. The paper will show the Allies adopted US daylight precision and UK night area bombing based on leadership’s belief that it could most effectively reduce Germany’s means of war and hasten its earliest possible defeat. The Allies successfully achieved this objective primarily through adherence to the principles of mass, objective, offensive, and maneuver.
Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II by Phil Haun Pdf
Following the cataclysmic losses suffered in World War I, air power theorists in Europe advocated for long-range bombers to overfly the trenches and strike deep into the enemy's heartland. The bombing of cities was seen as a means to collapse the enemy's will to resist and bring the war to a quick end. In the United States, airmen called for an independent air force, but with the nation's return to isolationism, there was little appetite for an offensive air power doctrine. By the 1930s, however, a cadre of officers at the US Army Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) had articulated an operational concept of high-altitude daylight precision bombing (HADPB) that would be the foundation for a uniquely American vision of strategic air attack. In Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II editor Phil Haun brings together nine ACTS lecture transcripts, which have been preserved in Air Force archives, exactly as delivered to the airmen destined to lead the US Army Air Forces in World War II. Presented is a distinctive American strategy of high-altitude daylight precision bombing as told through lectures given at the ACTS during the interwar period and how these airmen put the theory to the test. The book examines the Air Corps theory of HADPB as compared to the reality of combat in World War II by relying on recent, revisionist histories that have given scholars a deeper understanding of the impact of strategic bombing on Germany.
Burning Japan is an investigation of how and why the air force shifted its tactics against Japan from a precision bombing strategy to area attacks. When strategic bombing failed to yield the desired results in Europe and in initial efforts against Japan, the United States switched tactics, a shift that culminated in the area firebombing of nearly every major Japanese metropolis and the burning of sixty-six cities to the ground.
Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare by Tami Biddle Pdf
A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about "strategic" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained largely through cognitive error and bias. Tami Davis Biddle explains how air theorists, and those influenced by them, came to believe that strategic bombing would be an especially effective coercive tool and how they responded when their assumptions were challenged. Biddle analyzes how a particular interpretation of the World War I experience, together with airmen's organizational interests, shaped interwar debates about strategic bombing and preserved conceptions of its potentially revolutionary character. This flawed interpretation as well as a failure to anticipate implementation problems were revealed as World War II commenced. By then, the British and Americans had invested heavily in strategic bombing. They saw little choice but to try to solve the problems in real time and make long-range bombing as effective as possible. Combining narrative with analysis, this book presents the first-ever comparative history of British and American strategic bombing from its origins through 1945. In examining the ideas and rhetoric on which strategic bombing depended, it offers critical insights into the validity and robustness of those ideas--not only as they applied to World War II but as they apply to contemporary warfare.
The Enemy Objectives Unit In World War II: by Major Brian P. Ballew Pdf
In June of 1942, Eighth Air Force deployed to the UK and began preparation for a bombing campaign. However, during the initial planning efforts it became apparent the staff lacked the expertise needed to analyze and recommend bombing targets. Colonel Richard Hughes, the Chief Planner for American Air Forces in Europe, recognized this deficiency and requested a team to assist with target selection. The Enemy Objectives Unit (EOU), a team of civilian economists, began arriving in London in September 1942 to support the Eighth Air Force. While formally assigned to the US Embassy in London, for practical purposes the team worked for Colonel Hughes. Using their economic expertise, EOU members studied the German industrial complex to identify vulnerabilities and then recommend to planners and senior leaders those industries the US Strategic Air Forces in Europe should target. Taking an effects-based approach, the team sought to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of US airpower to produce the greatest effects on Germany’s war economy. The EOU’s target selection methodology required intelligence data on enemy targets, an awareness of United States Army Air Forces bombing capabilities, and most importantly an understanding of military and political aims. To ensure selected targets aligned with military and political aims, the EOU regularly collaborated with air planning staffs and senior leaders. Three case studies highlight the interaction and collaboration that occurred between the EOU and Army Air Forces planners and leaders: prioritizing targets for Operation POINTBLANK, development of an Oil Plan following “Big Week” in Feb. 1944, and the recommendation to strike bridges versus marshaling yards prior to Operation OVERLORD. Each of these case studies demonstrates that the integration and cooperation between the EOU and air force leaders and planning staffs ensured that targets selected for aerial bombardment supported political and military objectives.
Herman Knell was nineteen and living in Würtzburg in March of 1945 when hundreds of Allied planes arrived overhead, unleashing a torrent of bombs on the city. Würtzburg's tightly packed medieval housing exploded in a firestorm, killing six thousand people in one night and destroying 92 percent of the city's structures. Despite the fact that Würtzburg had no strategic value, the city emerged from World War II second only to Dresden in material destruction inflicted from the air. The experience led Knell to years of research on the history, development, and effects of the strategy of area bombing.To Destroy a City is the result of the author's long and unrelenting investigation. His analysis of this form of warfare, which reached its zenith during World War II, covers the history and the development of wide-area bombing since 1914, examines its wartime effectiveness and the consequences. But the extra dimension that Knell's book offers is his firsthand experience of the tension, fear, tentative defiance, and, finally, utter catastrophe of being on the receiving end of overwhelming air power. For Americans, who fortunately did not experience bombing during the war, this is essential reading.
