Reports of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey

One source counts 321 reports of the USSBS. The count is a little elastic -- some reports are slim pamphlets but others are multi-volume tomes, and this Web site lists 324 separate reports (plus one completed draft report not published for internal political reasons). In any event, it is a massive output, totaling some 33,000 pages.

There are two separate series, those of the original USSBS in Europe and those of the Pacific USSBS.

Many incomplete lists of reports were issued and continue to be seen. The listing here follows that of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in its listing of the contents of its USSBS reports microfilms. The one exception is inclusion of one report which was withdrawn after completion due to interservice friction, the Naval Analysis Division's useful The Air Effort Against Japan. (NARA counts this among the papers of the USSBS.)

A Guide to the Reports of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, edited by Gordon Daniels, provides a (nearly) comprehensive compilation of tables of contents of each report. On this Web site, some of the entries in the reports lists link to descriptions of the contents of the reports in question.

Technically, only seven of the 320+ actually are reports of the USSBS per se. All of the others are essentially staff reports which do not bear the weight of the Survey's imprimatur. Most of those issued later in the process are imprinted with cautions to this effect. While this has little effect on their utility as historical documents, scholars will want to exercise due care in ascribing any conclusions or recommendations to the Survey as a body.

As noted in the history section of this site, there was relatively little classic strategic bombing in the Pacific. Thus it may come as a surprise to find that the Pacific Military and Naval Analysis Divisions published between them a total of 31 reports. Few had anything to do with strategic bombing, per se. Instead, most are devoted to tactical air operations, often providing information about these operations available nowhere else.