FROM GUERNICA TO DRESDEN: AIRPOWER IN EUROPE

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 FROM GUERNICA TO DRESDEN: AIRPOWER IN EUROPE

"Of the Germans...you've sown the wind, you shall now reap the whirlwind"

Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris "Bomber Harris" 


Airpower came of age during World War II. The beginnings of armed aircraft in World War I added a new dimension for both aggressors and defenders. During the 1920s and 1930s aircraft routinely demonstrated their capability with high visibility exercises that either destroyed land targets or capital ships. Eventually, larger and more modern aircraft were designed and produced and they came into their maturity by the late 1930’s.

On 26 April, 1937 on market day in the Spanish city of Guernica, aircraft of the Luftwaffe’s “Condor Legion” dropped over 100,000 tons of munitions rendering the town a burned out ruin. “It was one of the first crimes against humanity to grip the global imagination.”[1]

This was both a foreshadowing of the radically changed aircraft from World War I and its potential, as well as a demonstration of the growing strength of the Nazi 3rd Reich under Adolf Hitler.

In 1940 the world understood that warfare had changed radically. Sea power and land power would become inextricably linked with air power. The land and the sea would need the skies above either for conquest or in defense. The Battle of Britain (1940) saw the Royal Air Force employ aircraft in the defense of her cities and ports. The Royal Navy could not defend the English Channel with the air cover that the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force would provide. And the German Army could not possibly conduct an amphibious ‘river crossing’ (as they saw the channel) with the Luftwaffe controlling the skies above. It was the Royal Air Force in Hawker Hurricanes, Supermarine Spitfires, and ‘Chain Home Radar’ that denied the Germans the ability to set foot on English shores.


Airpower had undergone tremendous and revolutionary changes between 1918 and 1939 as World War broke out. Aircraft were larger, faster, and could carry and deliver more munitions over both military and civil targets. Air Forces were faced with the strategic problem of dealing blows against a nation’s ability to wage war. Beyond the delivery of munitions in support of ground troops at the tactical level, the deliberate targeting of war-making capability was now possible with the advent of large and long-range bombers.

“The most deadly weapon of the entire war was the huge American B-29 bomber.”[2] The B-29, of which over 4,000[3] were built, were specifically used in the strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands. The B-29 formations flew incredibly long ranges, over 5,000 miles for a routine round-trip mission. And they targeted both military, military-industrial, and civil targets. Owing to the high winds and cross turbulence above 20,000 feet, the B-29 striking forces flew between 8,000 and 10,000 feet when they firebombed Tokyo. Critics have made comparisons between Guernica in 1937 and the Allied efforts to bomb both Japanese and German cities such as Dresden and Tokyo.

The B-29, was ultimately, the platform that delivered the two atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

In Europe, RAF Lancaster’s, Stirling’s and Halifax’s were soon joined by B-17s, B-24s and a host of medium bombers such as the B-25 and B-26. The European Theater of Operations (ETO) afforded Allied aircraft easy access to targets across the continent and inside Germany. The RAF, owing to difficulties during initial operations against Germany in 1940-41, pursued night bombing techniques once the Americans joined the war effort fully in 1942. The United States Army Air Force (USAAF) pursued, almost obstinately, daylight ‘precision bombing’ with the ever-growing fleet of B-17s and B-24s.

The initial RAF bombing campaign was hardly worth the effort. The RAF had less than 400 multi engine bombers and the targeting and delivery method was less ideal. Anti-aircraft forced the bombing streams to higher altitudes that only increased their difficulties. As such, the RAF, and soon, the USAAF, had to reconsider what objectives they were trying to hit and ultimately, the effects. Destruction of actual material? Imposition of economic hardship?

“The cities of Germany would be levelled, her Air Force obliged to defend its home, and German industry incapacitated in the process.”[4] Thus, under Air Marshal Arthur Harris, the RAF Bomber Command in 1942, adopted “area bombing techniques” and specifically targeted industrial German cities. The ramifications of this approach would be argued for and against well past World War II.

The Americans, relying on their ‘Norden Bombsight’ (which was not shared with the RAF) believed that they could indeed pursue ‘precision strikes’ against German industry. The approaches made by both the RAF in ‘area bombing’ and the USAAFs ‘precision bombing’ destroyed infrastructure, industrial factories, roads, bridges, housing and more. But, what it did not destroy was a people’s continued support for a war many wanted to end. The bombing campaign did not take into consideration the “resilience of well-organised societies to withstand bombing without suffering either moral or economic collapse.”[5]

In the Pacific, long ranges associated with strategic bombing against the Japanese home islands necessitated a bomber with much more range and thus, after a billion dollars or more in program cost, saw the B-29 introduced. With the lessons of Europe and the nuances of the Pacific (climatological and meteorological differences) General Curtis LeMay took charge of the bombing campaign. Changes included lower altitude attacks with new potent weapons: napalm. The campaign determined ‘precision strikes’ were not having the desired effects. Changes also included bombing the associated housing complexes adjacent to industry, as these were typically made of wood. And they attacked at lower altitudes carrying incendiary bombs. The devastation rivaled the devastation of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic weapons effects.

 


[1] Tharoor, Ishaan “Eighty years later, the Nazi war crime in Guernica still matters”, London, The Independent, Thursday 27 April 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/nazi-war-crime-guernica-80-anniversary-bombing-spain-picasso-hitler-franco-a7704916.html accessed on 27 August 2018

[2] Hanson, Victor Davis The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict was Fought and Won, New York, Basic Books: 2017, p.109

[3] Ibid. p.109

[4] Weinberg, Gerhard L., A World at Arms, A Global History of WWII, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, p.419

[5] Lane, Allen, ”A Costly, Brutal Failure” Strategic Bombing 1939-45, London, The Economist, Book Review, ” The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945. By Richard Overy, September, 2013, https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2013/09/21/a-costly-brutal-failure accessed on 27 August 2018





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