The Evolution of Strategic Bombing During WWII: The Decision to Firebomb Japan

Abstract

On the night of March 9, 1945, General Curtis LeMay ordered 334 B-29 Superfortresses to drop incendiary bombs on Tokyo. During this raid, 80-100,000 people were either burned alive or asphyxiated; the death toll was greater than any other bombing mission during WWII, to include the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. However, this was not the only incendiary attack against Japan. 67 cities were eventually firebombed. Although Tokyo suffered the greatest loss of life, the other cities still incurred significant damage. Only five of Japan's cities were not firebombed, and one, Nagasaki, was later hit by the atomic bomb. The public justification for such destruction was that Japanese war making industries were in the homes of the Japanese people. Therefore destroying huge swaths of Japanese civilians in relentless bombing raids was defensible. However, was this an extension of U.S. war planning? Or instead, was it the act of a defiant commander that needed to be justified after the fact? It is easy to point fingers at General Curtis LeMay, the man who was in command during these bombardments. Due to the autonomy of his command, he did order the first attack without the approval of the Chief of Staff of the Army Air Force: General Henry "Hap" Arnold. He also replaced a staunch proponent of daylight precision bombing, General Haywood "Possum" Hansell. Further, LeMay later famously stated coldly in an interview, "There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders." Despite this emotionless answer, I will demonstrate that these bombings were not the product of General LeMay alone; rather, they demonstrated an insecure U.S. Air Force whose idea about strategic warfare evolved during WWII to further their cause of becoming autonomous branch. LeMay simply continued down the path air power strategy had taken towards the end of the war. The development of U.S. Air Power was not a smooth continuous program from its development at the turn of the century. It was a confusing mess. Airplanes were considered new technology similar to that of the combustion engine. Therefore both the Army and the Navy began to utilize airplanes as part of their normal operations. Instead of trying to discover a separate place for Air Power, it would be used to complement existing strategy. This meant proponents of new aerial strategy had to prove themselves within the framework of the Army and the Navy. Air Power's struggle would continue after WWI and all the way through WWII and effect decisions made by proponents of strategic bombings, including those over Haywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay. The U.s. Had not prepared an air force prior to WWi. Despite ordering the manufacture of numerous planes during the war, few ever reached the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe. Instead, the U.S. primarily utilized French planes during the war. In the end, they would have only 740 airplanes (no US. attack planes arrived in time for service). The air force itself was placed under the Signal Corps of the Army. This was because air power was originally only used for reconnaissance to call in artillery strikes. The de facto commander of this small force, also a member of the Signal Corps, was none other than Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell: the patriarch of Air Power. Although the limited number of airplanes did not make a serious impact on the battlefield, Mitchell clearly saw their potential. During the war the Army wanted to utilize air power in support of all land warfare operations. Mitchell would translate this into three categories: pursuit, bombardment, and attack. Pursuit was the direct destruction of the enemy's air force; bombardment involved destroying ground targets away from the battlefield. At the end of the war Mitchell's small group had destroyed 781 Ferman aircraft and 73 balloons, with a loss of 289 airplanes and 235 men. These numbers were hardly impressive, and did not position the air force as a invaluable strategic asset.