Strategic bombing during World War II

For a list of notable strategic bombings in the European Theater of World War II, see List of air operations during the Battle of Europe.
Main article: Air warfare of World War II
Strategic bombing during World War II
Part of World War II

A B-24 on a bomb run over the Astra Romana refinery in Ploiești, Romania, during Operation Tidal Wave[1]
Location
European Theatre of World War II
Pacific Theatre of World War II
Belligerents
Allied Powers
 United States
 United Kingdom
 Canada
 Australia
 New Zealand
 Soviet Union
 France
 Poland
 Czechoslovakia
 China		 Axis powers
 Germany
 Japan
 Italy
 Hungary
 Romania
 Bulgaria
 Finland
Commanders and leaders
United States Henry Arnold
United States Carl Spaatz
United States Curtis LeMay
United Kingdom Charles Portal
United Kingdom Richard Peirse
United Kingdom Arthur Harris
United Kingdom Arthur Tedder
Canada Clifford McEwen
Australia George Jones
Soviet Union Alexander Novikov
Soviet Union Sergei Khudyakov
Soviet Union Alexander Golovanov		 Nazi Germany Hermann Göring
Nazi Germany Albert Kesselring
Nazi Germany Wolfram von Richthofen
Nazi Germany Hugo Sperrle
Empire of Japan Naruhiko Higashikuni
Empire of Japan Hajime Sugiyama
Empire of Japan Masakazu Kawabe
Empire of Japan Chūichi Nagumo
Fascist Italy Francesco Pricolo
Fascist Italy Rino Corso Fougier
Fascist Italy Ettore Muti
Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946) Kálmán Ternegg
Kingdom of Romania Gheorghe Jienescu [ro]
Finland Jarl Lundqvist
Casualties and losses
Total: 749,940–1,305,029 dead
  • 248,664 military dead

Britain:

  • 60,000 civilians killed[2]
  • 160,000 airmen (all Allies, Europe)[3][4]

China:

France:

  • 67,000 civilians killed from US-UK bombing[8]
  • Half of the 2,500 French crewmen of the British RAF bomber command perished [9]

Netherlands:

  • 1250-1350 killed (army and civilians) between 10–15 May 1940[10][11]
  • 10,000 Dutch civilians killed by air bombings from Allied Forces alone after 15 May 1940[11]

Poland:

  • 50,000 civilians in the 1939 campaign (including artillery bombardment and ground fighting).[12] 2,500 - 7,000 civilians killed by bombing in Warsaw in 1939.[13]
  • 2416 airmen of bombing squadrons (Polish Airforce in the West)[14]

Soviet Union:

  • 51,526 - 500,000 Soviet civilians[a][16]
  • 2,700 airmen (Japan)[17]

United States:

  • 79,265 airmen/personnel (Europe)[18]
  • Over 3,033 airmen (Japan)[19]

Yugoslavia:

Total: 790,509–1,693,374+ dead

Germany:

  • 353,000–635,000 civilians killed, including foreign workers[2][20][b]
  • Very heavy damage to infrastructure

Japan:

  • 330,000–500,000 civilians killed[22]
  • 20,000 soldiers killed
    (in Hiroshima)
  • Very heavy damage to industry

Italy:

  • 60,000–100,000 civilians killed[23]
  • 5,000 soldiers killed[23]
  • Heavy damage to industry

Hungary:

  • 19,135–30,000 killed and 25,000 wounded[24][25]
  • Heavy damage to industry[26]

Romania:

  • 7,693 civilians killed and 7,809 wounded[27]
  • Destruction and heavy damage to infrastructure and oil refineries[28]

Bulgaria:

  • 1,374 dead and 1,743 injured[29]
    12,564 buildings damaged, of which 2,670 completely destroyed[29]

Thailand:

  • At least 2,000 dead.[30]

World War II (1939–1945) involved sustained strategic bombing of railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory. Strategic bombing as a military strategy is distinct both from close air support of ground forces and from tactical air power.[31] During World War II, many military strategists of air power believed that air forces could win major victories by attacking industrial and political infrastructure, rather than purely military targets.[32] Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians, and some campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in order to terrorize them and disrupt their usual activities. International law at the outset of World War II did not specifically forbid the aerial bombardment of cities – despite the prior occurrence of such bombing during World War I (1914–1918), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

Strategic bombing during World War II in Europe began on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) began bombing Polish cities and the civilian population in an aerial bombardment campaign.[33] As the war continued to expand, bombing by both the Axis and the Allies increased significantly. The Royal Air Force, in retaliation for Luftwaffe attacks on the UK which started on 16 October 1939, began bombing military targets in Germany, commencing with the Luftwaffe seaplane air base at Hörnum on the 19–20 March 1940.[34] In September 1940 the Luftwaffe began targeting British civilians in the Blitz.[35] After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Luftwaffe attacked Soviet cities and infrastructure. From February 1942 onward, the British bombing campaign against Germany became even less restricted and increasingly targeted industrial sites and civilian areas.[36][page needed][37] When the United States began flying bombing missions against Germany, it reinforced British efforts. The Allies attacked oil installations, and controversial firebombings took place against Hamburg (1943), Dresden (1945), and other German cities.[38]

In the Pacific War, the Japanese frequently bombed civilian populations as early as 1937–1938, such as in Shanghai and Chongqing. US air raids on Japan escalated from October 1944,[39] culminating in widespread firebombing, and later in August 1945 with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The effectiveness of the strategic bombing campaigns is controversial.[40][41][42][43] Although they did not produce decisive military victories in themselves, some argue that strategic bombing of non-military targets significantly reduced enemy industrial capacity and production,[44][45][46]: 792, 802  and was vindicated by the surrender of Japan.[47] Estimates of the death toll from strategic bombing range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Millions of civilians were made homeless, and many major cities were destroyed, especially in Europe and Asia.

  1. ^ Duga, James; Stewart, Carroll (2002). Ploesti. Brassey's. ISBN 978-1-57488-510-1.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference White was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Crook, Paul (2003). "Chapter 10 "The case against Area Bombing"". In Peter Hore (ed.). Patrick Blackett: Sailor, Scientist, and Socialist. Routledge. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-7146-5317-4.
  4. ^ André Corvisier (1994). A Dictionary of Military History and the Art of War, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 0-631-16848-6. "Germany, air battle (1942–45)" by P. Facon and Stephen J. Harris p. 312
  5. ^ Jennifer M. Lind (2010). "Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics". Cornell University Press. p.28. ISBN 0-8014-7628-3
  6. ^ R.J. Rummel (31 August 2007). China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. Transaction Publishers.
  7. ^ 徐 (Xú), 2016, pp. 1-13.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference France was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "Memorial to French Bomber Crews".
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference voorouder was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference niod was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933 to 1945." Reproduced with permission in A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust.
  13. ^ Richard Overy, The Bombing War. Europe 1939-1945, Penguin Books, PDF edition, p. 79: "The claims that between 20,000 and 40,000 died is certainly an exaggeration, for fatalities on this scale would have required a firestorm on the scale of Hamburg in 1943 or Dresden in 1945, and of that there is no evidence, nor was the German Air Force at that stage capable of creating one. Current estimates suggest around 7,000 dead, on the assumption that casualty rates per ton of bombs might have equalled the Dresden raid, but a casualty rate equivalent to the Blitz on London would mean around 2,500 deaths on the basis of the limited tonnage dropped."
  14. ^ "Dywizjony bombowe w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych na Zachodzie".
  15. ^ Overy The Bombing War. Europe 1939-1945, Penguin Books, PDF edition, p. 228
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hawley was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Kerr (1991), p. 276
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference ussbsurvey was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Kerr, E. Bartlett (1991). Flames over Tokyo : the U.S. Army Air Force's incendiary campaign against Japan, 1944-1945. Internet Archive. New York : D.I. Fine. p. 276. ISBN 978-1-55611-301-7.
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Germany was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ The Bombing War. Europe 1939-1945, Penguin Books, PDF edition, pp. 458-459)
  22. ^ Matthew White Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls: Allies bombing of Japan lists the following totals and sources
    • 330,000: 1945 US Strategic Bombing Survey;
    • 363,000: (not including post-war radiation sickness); John Keegan The Second World War (1989);
    • 374,000: R. J. Rummel, including 337,000 democidal;
    • 435,000: Paul Johnson Modern Times (1983)
    • 500,000: (Harper Collins Atlas of the Second World War)
  23. ^ a b Marco Gioannini, Giulio Massobrio, Bombardate l'Italia. Storia della guerra di distruzione aerea 1940–1945, p. 491
  24. ^ Pataky, Rozsos & Sárhidai 1993, p. 235.
  25. ^ Ungváry 2004, p. 476.
  26. ^ Pataky, Rozsos & Sárhidai 1993, pp. 229–232.
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference Axworthy was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  28. ^ Zaloga, Steven J. (2019). Ploesti 1943: The great raid on Hitler's Romanian oil refineries. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. p. 90. ISBN 9781472831965.
  29. ^ a b Kiradzhiev, Svetlin (2006). Sofia 125 Years Capital 1879–2004 Chronicle (in Bulgarian). Sofia: IK Gutenberg. p. 196. ISBN 954-617-011-9.
  30. ^ E. Bruce Reynolds, "Aftermath of Alliance: The Wartime Legacy in Thai-Japanese Relations", Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, v21, n1, March 1990, pp. 66–87.
  31. ^ R.J. Overy, The Air War. 1939–1945 (1980) pp. 8–14
  32. ^ Tami Davis Biddle, "British and American Approaches to Strategic Bombing: Their Origins and Implementation in the World War II Combined Bomber Offensive", Journal of Strategic Studies (1995) 18#1 pp 91–144
  33. ^ Levine 1992, p. 21
  34. ^ "The first bombing raid on Germany by the RAF in World War II". Archived from the original on 9 May 2021. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  35. ^ Cite error: The named reference Murray 1983, p. 52 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  36. ^ Hastings 1979
  37. ^ Garrett 1993[page needed]
  38. ^ Boog 2001, p. 408.
  39. ^ Pimlott, John. B-29 Superfortress (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1980), p.40.
  40. ^ "United States Strategic Bombing Survey, established by the Secretary of War on 3 November 1944, pursuant to a directive from the late President Roosevelt, 30 September 1945". Anesi.com. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  41. ^ J.K. Galbraith, "The Affluent Society", chapter 12 "The Illusion of National Security", first published 1958. Galbraith was a director of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.
  42. ^ Williamson Murray, Allan Reed Millett, "A War To Be Won: fighting the Second World War", p. 319
  43. ^ Demystifying the German "armament miracle" during World War II. New insights from the annual audits of German aircraft producers (PDF)
  44. ^ Cite error: The named reference Buckley 1998, p. 165 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  45. ^ Cite error: The named reference Murray 1983, p. 253 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  46. ^ Cite error: The named reference crca51 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  47. ^ Buckley 1998, p. 197.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).