American Strategic Bombing

The U. S. Air Force of today is the direct descendant of what was (under various titles) the air arm of the U. S. Army up to 1947. The Army Air Service (as it was then called) had been a tiny and primitive aerial reconnaissance force at the time the U. S. entered World War I in April, 1917. With much help from America's British, French, and (to a much lesser extent) Italian allies, the Air Service acquired a substantial fleet of reasonably modern airplanes and became a significant air force by contemporary standards by mid-1918. Neither it nor any of the other air forces involved played more than a supporting role in the war. But American airmen, quite ably led by Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell, emerged from the victory over Germany with a strong conviction that the future of war lay very largely in the air.

The conviction was so profound that it motivated them to press strongly for an independent air force, with the Army and Navy reduced to supporting roles. This led to sharp conflict with their brothers in arms of the Army's ground forces as well as with the Navy. Ground forces officers saw the aircraft as an increasingly valuable support to ground operations, but not as the sole or even primary dominant force in military operations. Navy officers similarly looked to aircraft (both airplanes and airships) as increasingly important to naval surface operations -- perhaps even a key factor -- but not an independent arbiter of war at sea as Mitchell and other air officers and supporters argued. This led to a bitter struggle for control of air assets as well as for shares of meager interwar defense budgets.

Officers of the Army Air Corps (as it became in 1926) developed a distinctive theory of air power. By the mid 1930s it had become the accepted view among the Air Corps leadership that:

• In the future, air power would be the deciding factor in war.
• The airplane would be the primary offensive weapon in all conflicts.
• Precise high-altitude strategic bombing by daylight would quickly paralyze an industrialized enemy and knock him out of the war without excessive losses.

It was a daring and novel concept, a considerable departure from any previous experience of war. There had been some limited bombing attacks in World War I, but nothing approaching the precision destruction of key industrial targets envisioned by the Air Corps leaders. The theory was attractive to many people as a "scientific" and relatively bloodless way to victory, but it was simply a theory, and there was remarkably little attempt to subject it to objective and rigorous test and analysis, nor to build up a clear and precise basis for planning.

In any event, these views began to be taken more seriously by political leaders as the aviation technological revolution of the 1930s brought great improvements in bomber performance -- and especially because it seemed at first almost impossible to build fighters able to intercept and effectively challenge high-flying giant bombers. Then the Nazis began their forced-draft rearmament campaign, with especial emphasis on the air force under Hitler's friend and deputy, Hermann Goering. Strident propaganda, intended to overawe and paralyze Germany's prey, portrayed the Luftwaffe as vast and invincible.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, increasingly concerned about the Nazi threat, by 1939 put his support behind air power, calling for a huge expansion of the Air Corps and American aircraft production. But the struggles were not over for the Air Corps leaders -- they wanted a great strengthening of their service for the war they expected to come to America, while the President insisted that much of the new production go overseas to allies whose use of it, he and the public hoped, would ensure defeat of the Nazis without a toll in American blood.

In 1941, with increasing threats of Japanese aggression in Asia, American leaders entertained hopes that Japan could be deterred by threats of strategic bombing. Heavy bombers were few but what forces America had were rushed to the Philippines late in 1941. Most of these were caught on the ground, however, when the Japanese attacked American bases in the Philippines on 8 December 1941, despite the fact that this occurred many hours following the Pearl Harbor attacks.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent German declaration of war against the U. S. in December, 1941, voided any remaining doubts about the urgency of building up U. S. forces of all kinds, and especially air forces.