Thursday, February 28, 2008
Strategic Bombing
The whole purpose of the island hopping campaign was to gain airfields that would be in closer striking distance of our bombers to attack Japan. This along with attempting to win the war as soon as possible made strategic bombing the primary tool to break Japan's will. My question is: How effective was the bombing efforts at the time? I know that the technology of the time was crude when compared with todays military, but how often would these bombs actually hit their targets?
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From early readings and what I have seen on the History Channel, strategic bombing only helped to shorten the war by a few months if that. The reason was because the bombs were so inaccurate. It would take 100s of bombers to destroy one building and in the process they would end up destroying half the countryside. I know after Germany and Japan surrendered the US found out that the Axis powers were still able to produce war material beyond what we thought possible, and in some cases even in greater numbers than at the beginning of the war. Some experts after the war believe that the benefits from strategic bombing did not out weigh the cost in WWII.
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