[197] The Spanish Civil War also convinced Soviet war planners that the air force was most effective when used in close cooperation with ground forces. Ernst Heinkel and Milch vehemently disagreed with this, but the requirement was not rescinded until September 1942 by Goering himself. Its data are up-to-date. Many British bombers in 1942 were still using the Course Setting Bomb Sight from World War I, and even those with Britain's Mark XIV bomb sight could not target an individual building. Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts, (2004). Galbraith was a director of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. Or, rather, might have been had not Japan surrendered on 15 August. [44][45], The British Government's policy was formulated on 31 August 1939: if Germany initiated unrestricted air action, the RAF "should attack objectives vital to Germany's war effort, and in particular her oil resources". One U.S. general explained: “If we had another one ready, today would be a good day to drop it. [196] The port city of Le Havre had been destroyed by 132 bombings during the war (5,000 dead) until September 1944. Documents highlighted during commemorations to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, which forced the end of World War II, show the determination of the United States to make Japan surrender unconditionally. [95] At the last minute, the Netherlands decided to submit and sent a plenipotentiary and other negotiators across to German lines. The largest bombs dropped on Britain were almost 4,000lb (1,800kg) devices nicknamed Satans. Polish Air Force bases across Poland were also subjected to Luftwaffe bombing from 1 September 1939. Factories were no longer targets.[161]. US Strategic Bombing Survey: Statistical Appendix to Overall report (European War) (Feb 1947) table 1. August: 2,548 tons of HE bombs, 165 tons of incendiaries. Warning leaflets were also dropped on cities not in fact targeted, to create uncertainty and absenteeism. The Bomber B designs meant to achieve top level speeds of at least 600 km/h (370 mph). [40] Due to these reasons, the Allies at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials never criminalized aerial bombardment of non-combatant targets and Axis leaders who ordered a similar type of practice were not prosecuted. Chief of the British Air Staff MRAF Sir Charles Portal was put in charge of the "strategic direction" of both British and American bomber operations. 3 (Apr. [citation needed] The Germans had threatened to bomb Utrecht in the same fashion, and the Netherlands surrendered. Little activity followed. This, the BBSU noted, was because official estimates of German war production were "more than 100 percent in excess of the true figures". In June, attacks were made on Dortmund, Mannheim, Frankfurt and Bochum. On 1 April 1945, U.S. troops invaded the island of Okinawa and fought there fiercely against not only enemy soldiers, but also enemy civilians. [192] France's Atlantic ports were important bases for both German surface ships and submarines, while French industry was an important contributor to the German war effort.[193]. Essays discuss nuclear war, George Orwell, tourism, chivalry, nudism, the Indy 500 race, Yugoslavia, modernism, and modern American manners [60], Preparations were made for a concentrated attack (Operation Wasserkante) by all bomber forces against targets in Warsaw. Amsterdam was first bombed in WWII, on the 11th of May. The Blitz was underway. Secondary targets included Braunschweig, Lübeck, Rostock, Bremen, Kiel, Hanover, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Stuttgart, and Schweinfurt. When the war began on 1 September 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the neutral United States, issued an appeal to the major belligerents (Britain, France, Germany, and Poland) to confine their air raids to military targets, and "under no circumstances undertake bombardment from the air of civilian populations in unfortified cities"[42] The British and French agreed to abide by the request, with the British reply undertaking to "confine bombardment to strictly military objectives upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all their opponents". Minelaying is to be scaled down in favour of these attacks. However, some argued that strategic bombing of non-military targets could significantly reduce enemy industrial capacity and production[33][34] and in the opinion of interwar-period proponents of the strategy, the surrender of Japan vindicated strategic bombing. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death. Some 30,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on the UK during the Blitz - an intense German bombing campaign targeting British industry and morale which killed more than 40,000 people. "[170] At the beginning of the combined strategic bombing offensive on 4 March 1943, 669 RAF and 303 USAAF heavy bombers were available. The effect of strategic bombing was highly debated[by whom?] The bomb killed roughly 90,000–166,000 people; half of these died quickly while the other half suffered lingering deaths. On 22 September, Wolfram von Richthofen messaged, "Urgently request exploitation of last opportunity for large-scale experiment as devastation terror raid ... Every effort will be made to eradicate Warsaw completely". Following on that success, as Operation Meetinghouse, 334 B-29s raided on the night of 9–10 March, of which 282 Superforts reached their targets, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. The Bomber B program went nowhere, as the intended designs required pairs of combat-reliable aviation engines of at least 1,500 kW (2,000 PS) apiece,[citation needed] something that the German aviation engine industry had serious problems in developing. [38] Most nations had refused to ratify such laws or agreements because of the vague or impractical wording in treaties such as the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare. [23] In September 1940 the Luftwaffe began targeting British cities in the Blitz. Two further thousand-bomber raids were conducted over Essen and Bremen, but neither so utterly shook both sides as the scale of the destruction at Cologne and Hamburg. "[2] The Luftwaffe destroyed numerous Soviet cities through bombing, including Minsk, Sevastopol, and Stalingrad. One of the books I've been recently reading included this line: When we killed a Viet Cong soldier, another would soon . The first raid from the Mariana was on 24 November 1944, when 88 aircraft bombed Tokyo. In July 1945, they were placed under the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, which was commanded by General Carl Spaatz. Initially the commanding officer of the Twentieth Air Force was Hap Arnold, and later Curtis LeMay.
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how many bombs were dropped in ww2