Strategic bombing during World War II

War is hell…..This is even more so with the technology build up in the post World War I period that brought new challenges to allied military leaders and a tremendous dichotomy in United States aviation warfare strategy of World War II. Both in Fire and Fury by Randall Hansen, and Herman Wolk’s Cataclysm: General Hap Arnold and the Defeat of Japan, follow key allied leaders and their bombing strategies. In Fire and Fury, Hansen asserts that the American daylight precision bombing was more humane and inline “of a perfect synthesis of American attributes: a belief in the importance of morality in politics, optimism, and a commitment to the technological pioneering.”(p. 40) The author presents the British air strategy, under the leadership of Air Marshal Harris, using area night-time bombing that had a tremendous toll directly on German civilians, the city centers, and residential areas. Hansen proclaims that area bombing not only failed to win the war, it probably prolonged it.(p. 281)…

“As you can tell, we sympathize with the freedom fighters. When the Nazis invaded Poland in ‘39, Belgium mobilized and Dom Bruno was assigned as chaplain to the 41st Artillery Regiment. In May of the following year, Nazi troops invaded Belgium. During the fighting, Dom Bruno sustained a leg injury and spent the next six months in prisoner-of-war camps at Wolfsburg and Doessel, in Germany. In the camps, he continued to provide religious and moral support to fellow prisoners. Upon his release from…

Grainne Kieran Strategic bombing since its inception, has evoked a powerful and emotional response and has become a subject of much debate. Throughout history there has been a tendency to regard airpower, specifically strategic bombing , as a revolutionary advance in warfare and a weapon that would push the boundary and create new principles and policies of war. While some scholars see this advance as a positive and advocate strategic bombing for it reduction of cost, manpower and causalities,…

Of all of the aims of strategic bombing throughout the course of World War II, many of them were never reached. Several of the most well-known attempts to bomb large cities are the London Blitz, the bombing of Dresden and Hamburg among other German cities, and the fire-bombing of Tokyo, as well as the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The preliminary aim of strategic bombing was to destroy infrastructure, however this failed due to the lack of accuracy of these bombs. Aims evolved…

American prisoner of war, was captured in Germany, and then was transferred to the city of Dresden. Throughout the novel, Billy Pilgrim suffers flashbacks of the horrors of war, specifically those associated with the bombing of Dresden. By narrating the novel through the voice of Billy, Vonnegut conveys his belief that war is absurd, exemplified by the causes and effects of the firebombing of Dresden. A war can have a number of causes that lead to horrific consequences such as the…

World War II was a time when humans waged war against each other in the hopes of winning dominion over one another. Whether it was evil, territory, people, or racial tendencies, the fabric of war covered the world in a bloody scarf of destruction. After the United States entered the war, it proposed a way to execute strategic pinpoint bombing on high value military targets. These raids become the source of reflection and controversy. Some concluded that the bombing of civilians was deplorable…

Mary Catherine Kalil Mrs. Trahan English II/ 3rd Period 3 November 2016 “World War I vs World War II” Between World War I and World War II there were many similarities such as terrible destruction, weapons, and the legacy they both left on the world, but there were also many differences such as technologies used during the wars. The outcomes of World War I and World War II changed the world in many ways. These two wars have highly impacted the world to this day. World War I took place in the…

technology, a strategic revolution often matches it. The industrial revolution and steam power completely swung the strategic advantage from the offensive to the defensive, evidenced through the Civil War. In the context of the Navy, one of the latest technological innovations is aviation; it was being integrated into the Navy before World War I, but wasn’t advanced enough to be of any major strategic use until World War II. For this reason, the strategic and tactical impact of aviation is most…

Ever since the evolution of mankind, the art of warfare has witnessed numerous changes. From early hand to hand fight, the art of warfare transitioned to become the battle of wits, nerves, technology and tactics. Wars were fought with the swords and spears till the invention of guns in 14th century. From the first use of guns in a battle till the Napoleonic era, warfare relied on manpower and line-and-column tactics to achieve firepower concentration. Focus of warfare shifted from manpower to…

During the Cold War era, American’s foreign policy was focused on the regression of communist expansion. The primary political objective was its containment. Presidents’ administrations were worried about communism spreading through the “domino” theory, the communism spreading and the zero sum game., Each loss of a country in Southeastern Asia would have a negative impact on America’s prestige. Since 1947, strategy had the the greatest impact on the employment of American airpower and…