Bombs Away Read Free

extraordinary arsenal of war with almost unlimited destructive power in a relatively short period of time.
    The United States strategically bombed the major urban centers and the most populated cities of Italy, Japan, and Germany throughout the war, and the B-17 was the major weapon system of that campaign. The long-range bomber and the strategic bombing campaigns turned out to be extremely costly operations during World War II in terms of people and resources, of course, but, more important, in terms of lasting moral capital. The B-17 “Flying Fortress” dropped astronomical amounts of conventional ordnance, primarily on the manufacturing and industrial infrastructure of the Axis countries, and yes, this long-range bomber also directly attacked the basic fabric of civilization of these nations. The B-17 likewise established much of the operational and psychological groundwork for the eventual explosion of nuclear weapons over Japan in 1945. Otherwise peaceful, democratic nations where the government’s actions have to be justified to the electorate, such as the United States, do not ordinarily begin the wholesale bombing of civilian populations without justification, precedents, and a moral foundation to build upon. In other words, the buildup to the eventual dropping of the atomic bomb required incremental action. The B-17 “Flying Fortress” helped establish the technological and moral foundation for the eventual destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a consequence of that action, the United States remains today the only country to have exploded a nuclear weapon in any war. In the beginning, Americans needed to feel at ease about sending their sons to fight in the bomber; then, they had to feel at ease about what those bombers did. It is the way democracy works in time of total war. When we look backward, the course of history seems inevitable, but actually it is not. If the U.S. electorate becomes restless about the way its government is prosecuting a war, it can make a dramatic change. It is rare, but it does happen. So while America might have been reluctant to enter the war in the beginning, in the end the United States proved more than willing to end the conflict at any price, primarily by demonstrating that it was willing and able to demolish the enemy’s homeland.
    On November 3, 1944, the U.S. secretary of war formed a commission to start compiling extensive reports, which eventually became The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey s, on the overall extent of the damage and the effectiveness of these bombing campaigns during World War II. The report from the European campaign provides stunning statistics of the destruction:
    In the attack by Allied air power, almost 2,700,000 tons of bombs were dropped, more than 1,440,000 bomber sorties and 2,680,000 fighter sorties were flown. The number of combat planes reached a peak of some 28,000 and at the maximum, 1,300,000 men were in combat commands. The number of men lost in air action was 79,265 Americans and 79,281 British. . . . More than 18,000 American and 22,000 British planes were lost or damaged beyond repair. ( U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey 1)
    As these figures indicate, the casualty rates for bomber flying missions were exceedingly high. The fact is that a bomber air-man had a better chance of becoming a combat casualty than did the grunt in the foxhole or any other type of World War II combatant. To put it simply, bomber duty was very dangerous—and very destructive:
    In Germany, 3,600,000 dwelling units, approximately 20% of the total, were destroyed or heavily damaged. Survey estimates show some 300,000 civilians killed and 780,000 wounded. The number made homeless aggregates 7,500,000. The principal German cities have been largely reduced to hollow walls and piles of rubble. German industry is bruised and temporarily paralyzed. These are the scars across the face of the enemy, the preface to the victory that followed. ( U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey