World War, -- Aerial operations. Notes Includes bibliographical references and index. View online Borrow Buy Freely available Show 0 more links Other links Inhaltsverzeichnis at http: Set up My libraries How do I set up "My libraries"? These 3 locations in All: Open to the public ; University of Wollongong Library. Open to the public. These 2 locations in New South Wales: This single location in Victoria: Open to the public ; held Book; Illustrated English Show 0 more libraries None of your libraries hold this item.
Found at these bookshops Searching - please wait We were unable to find this edition in any bookshop we are able to search. These online bookshops told us they have this item: Tags What are tags? Public Private login e. One of the most effective demonstrations of air supremacy by the Western Allies over Europe occurred in early , when Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle , who took command of the US 8th Air Force in January , would only a few months later "release" the building force of P Mustangs from their intended mission to closely escort the 8th Air Force's heavy bombers, after getting help from British aviators in selecting the best available aircraft type s for the task.
This change in American fighter tactics began to have its most immediate effect with the loss of more and more of the Luftwaffe's Jagdflieger fighter pilot personnel, [27] and fewer bomber losses to the Luftwaffe as wore on. Air superiority depended on having the fastest, most maneuverable fighters, in sufficient quantity, based on well-supplied airfields, within range. The RAF demonstrated the importance of speed and maneuverability in the Battle of Britain , when its fast Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters easily riddled the clumsy Stukas as they were pulling out of dives.
The race to build the fastest fighter became one of the central themes of World War II. Once total air supremacy in a theatre was gained the second mission was interdiction of the flow of enemy supplies and reinforcements in a zone five to fifty miles behind the front. Whatever moved had to be exposed to air strikes, or else confined to moonless nights.
Radar was not good enough for nighttime tactical operations against ground targets. A large fraction of tactical air power focused on this mission. The third and lowest priority from the AAF viewpoint mission was " close air support " or direct assistance to ground units on the battlefront which consisted of bombing targets identified by ground forces, and strafing exposed infantry.
Bradley was horrified when 77 planes dropped their payloads short of the intended target:. The Germans were stunned senseless, with tanks overturned, telephone wires severed, commanders missing, and a third of their combat troops killed or wounded. The defence line broke; J. However, the sight of a senior colleague killed by error was unnerving, and after the completion of operation Cobra, Army generals were so reluctant to risk "friendly fire" casualties that they often passed over excellent attack opportunities that would be possible only with air support.
Infantrymen, on the other hand, were ecstatic about the effectiveness of close air support:. Some forces, especially the United States Marine Corps , emphasised the air-ground team. The airmen, in this approach, also are infantrymen who understand the needs and perspective of the ground forces.
There was much more joint air-ground training, and a given air unit might have a long-term relationship with a given ground unit, improving their mutual communications. In North-West Europe, the Allies used the "taxi-rank" or "Cab-rank" system for supporting the ground assault. When support was required it could be quickly summoned by a ground observer. While often too inaccurate against armoured vehicles, rockets had a psychological effect on troops and were effective against the supply-carrying trucks used to support German tanks.
The Luftwaffe was the first to use such weapons in their pioneering use of the unpowered Fritz X armor-piercing anti-ship ordnance on September 9, , against the Italian battleship Roma , with III. Missions were flown in both Western Europe in the summer and autumn of , and in the China-Burma-India theatre in early , with two separate B Liberator squadrons, one in each theatre, having some limited success with the device.
Navy's Bat unpowered anti-ship ordnance was based around the same half-ton HE bomb as the Azon, but with the same bomb contained within a much more aerodynamic airframe, and used a fully autonomous onboard radar guidance system to control its flightpath, rather than an external source of control for the Azon. Britain and the United States built large quantities of four-engined long-range heavy bombers; Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union did not. The decision was made in by the German general staff, the technical staff, and the aviation industry that there was a lack of sufficient labor, capital, and raw materials.
During the war Hitler was insistent on bombers having tactical capability, which at the time meant dive bombing, a maneuver then impossible for any heavy bomber. His aircraft had limited effect on Britain for a variety of reasons, but low payload was among them. Lacking a doctrine of strategic bombing, neither the RLM or the Luftwaffe ever ordered any suitable quantities of an appropriate heavy bomber from the German aviation industry, having only the Heinkel He A Greif available for such duties, a design plagued with many technical problems, including an unending series of engine fires , with just under 1, examples ever being built.
Axis and Soviet air operations during Operation Barbarossa - Wikipedia
Early in the war, the Luftwaffe had excellent tactical aviation, but when it faced Britain's integrated air defence system, the medium bombers actually designed, produced and deployed to combat — meant to include the Schnellbomber high-speed mediums, and their intended heavier warload successors, the Bomber B design competition competitors—did not have the numbers or bomb load to do major damage of the sort the RAF and USAAF inflicted on German cities.
Hitler believed that new high-technology "secret weapons" would give Germany a strategic bombing capability and turn the war around. The first of 9, V-1 flying bombs hit London in mid- June, , and together with 1, V-2 rockets caused 8, civilian deaths and 23, injuries. Although they did not seriously undercut British morale or munitions production, they bothered the British government a great deal—Germany now had its own unanswered weapons system. Every raid against a V-1 or V-2 launch site was one less raid against the Third Reich.
On the whole, however, the secret weapons were still another case of too little too late. The Luftwaffe ran the V-1 program, which used a jet engine, but it diverted scarce engineering talent and manufacturing capacity that were urgently needed to improve German radar, air defence, and jet fighters.
Axis and Soviet air operations during Operation Barbarossa
The German Army ran the V-2 program. The rockets were a technological triumph, and bothered the British leadership even more than the V-1s. But they were so inaccurate they rarely could hit militarily significant targets. Japan did not have a separate air force. Its aviation units were integrated into the Army and Navy, which were not well coordinated with each other. Japanese military aircraft production during World War II produced 76, warplanes, of which 30, were fighters and 15, were light bombers.
Japan launched a full-scale war in China in and soon controlled the major cities and the seacoast. In —41, well before Pearl Harbor, the United States decided on an aggressive air campaign against Japan using Chinese bases and American pilots wearing Chinese uniforms. Chennault called for strategic bombing against Japanese cities, using American bombers based in China. The plan was approved by Roosevelt and top policy makers in Washington, and equipment was on the way in December It proved to be futile.
American strategic bombing of Japan from Chinese bases began in , using Bs under the command of General Curtis Lemay , but the distances and the logistics made an effective campaign impossible. Washington tried to deter Japanese entry into the war by threatening the firebombing of Japanese cities using B strategic bombers based in the Philippines. Japanese naval air power proved unexpectedly powerful, sinking the American battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor in December , then raging widely across the Pacific and Indian oceans to defeat elements of the British, American, Dutch, and Australian forces.
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Land-based airpower, coordinated efficiently with land forces, enabled Japan to overrun Malaya, Singapore, [46] and the Philippines by spring The Doolittle Raid used 16 B bombers taking off from aircraft carriers [48] to bomb Tokyo in April Little physical damage was done, but the episode shocked and stunned the Japanese people and leadership. Meanwhile, Japanese aircraft had all but eliminated Allied air power in South-East Asia and began attacking Australia, with a major raid on Darwin , February A raid by a powerful Japanese Navy aircraft carrier force into the Indian Ocean resulted in the Battle of Ceylon and sinking of the only British carrier, HMS Hermes in the theatre as well as 2 cruisers and other ships effectively driving the British fleet out of the Indian Ocean and paving the way for Japanese conquest of Burma and a drive towards India.
The Japanese seemed unstoppable. However, the Doolittle Raid caused an uproar in the Japanese Army and Navy commands—they had both lost face in letting the Emperor be threatened. As a consequence, the Army relocated overseas fighter groups to Japan, groups needed elsewhere. Even more significantly, the Naval command believed it had to extend its eastern defence perimeter, and they focused on Midway as the next base.
By mid, the Japanese Combined Fleet found itself holding a vast area, even though it lacked the aircraft carriers, aircraft, and aircrew to defend it, and the freighters, tankers, and destroyers necessary to sustain it. Moreover, Fleet doctrine was incompetent to execute the proposed "barrier" defence. In the Battle of the Coral Sea , fought between May 4—8, off the coast of Australia, the opposing fleets never saw one another; it was an air exchange.
While the Americans had greater losses and arguably a tactical loss, they gained a strategic victory, as Japan cancelled a planned offensive. In the Battle of Midway , the Japanese split their fleet, sending much of their force and a feint toward Alaska. The Americans realized Alaska was not the main target, and desperately concentrated its resources to defend Midway. Japan had warplanes operating from four carriers; the U. In an extraordinarily close battle, the Japanese suddenly lost their four main aircraft carriers, and were forced to return home.
They never again launched a major offensive in the Pacific. The Japanese had built a major air base at on the island of Rabaul , but had difficulty keeping it supplied. American naval and Marine aviation made Rabaul a frequent bombing target. A Japanese airfield was spotted under construction at Guadalcanal. The Americans made an amphibious landing in August to seize it, sent in the Cactus Air Force and started to reverse the tide of Japanese conquests.
As a result, Japanese and Allied forces both occupied various parts of Guadalcanal. Over the following six months, both sides fed resources into an escalating battle of attrition on the island, at sea, and in the sky, with eventual victory going to the Americans in February It was a campaign the Japanese could ill afford. A majority of Japanese aircraft from the entire South Pacific area was drained into the Japanese defence of Guadalcanal.
After , the United States made a massive effort to build up its aviation forces in the Pacific, and began island-hopping to push its airfields closer and closer to Tokyo. Meanwhile, the Japanese were unable to upgrade their aircraft, and they fell further and further behind in numbers of aircraft carriers. The forward island bases were very hard to supply—often only submarines could get through—and the Japanese forces worked without replacements or rest, and often with inadequate food and medicine. Their morale and performance steadily declined.
Starvation became an issue in many bases. The American airmen were well fed and well supplied, but they were not rotated and faced increasingly severe stress that caused their performance to deteriorate. They flew far more often in the Southwest Pacific than in Europe, and although rest time in Australia was scheduled, there was no fixed number of missions that would produce transfer back to the states. Coupled with the monotonous, hot, sickly environment, the result was bad morale that jaded veterans quickly passed along to newcomers.
The men who had been at jungle airfields longest, the flight surgeons reported, were in the worst shape:. The flammability of Japan's large cities, and the concentration of munitions production there, made strategic bombing the preferred strategy of the Americans. The first efforts were made from bases in China. The Marianas especially the islands of Saipan and Tinian , captured in June , gave a close, secure base for the very-long-range B The "Superfortress" the B represented the highest achievement of traditional pre-jet aeronautics.
Its four 2, horsepower Wright R supercharged engines could lift four tons of bombs 3, miles at 33, feet high above Japanese flak or fighters. Computerized fire-control mechanisms made its 13 guns exceptionally lethal against fighters. However, the systematic raids that began in June , were unsatisfactory, because the AAF had learned too much in Europe; it overemphasised self-defence. Arnold, in personal charge of the campaign bypassing the theatre commanders brought in a new leader, General Curtis LeMay. In early , LeMay ordered a radical change in tactics: Much fuel was used to get to 30, feet; it could now be replaced with more bombs.
The Japanese radar, fighter, and anti-aircraft systems were so ineffective that they could not hit the bombers. Fires raged through the cities, and millions of civilians fled to the mountains. On June 5, 51, buildings in four miles of Kobe were burned out by Bs; Japanese opposition was fierce, as 11 Bs went down and were damaged. Osaka , where one-sixth of the Empire's munitions were made, was hit by 1, tons of incendiaries dropped by Bs.
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A firestorm burned out 8. The Japanese army, which was not based in the cities, was largely undamaged by the raids. The Army was short of food and gasoline, but, as Iwo Jima and Okinawa proved, it was capable of ferocious resistance. The Japanese also had a new tactic that it hoped would provide the bargaining power to get a satisfactory peace, the Kamikaze. In late , the Japanese invented an unexpected and highly effective new tactic, the Kamikaze suicide plane aimed like a guided missile at American ships. Kamikaze means divine winds. The attacks began in October and continued to the end of the war.
Most of the aircraft used in kamikaze attacks were converted obsolete fighters and dive-bombers. The quality of construction was very poor, and many crashed during training or before reaching targets. Experienced pilots were used to lead a mission because they could navigate; they were not Kamikazes, and they returned to base for another mission.
The Kamikaze pilots were inexperienced and had minimal training; however most were well educated and intensely committed to the Emperor. Kamikaze attacks were highly effective at the Battle of Okinawa in spring During the three-month battle, kamikaze sorties sank 38 US ships and damaged more, killing 4, sailors in the American 5th Fleet. Destroyers and destroyer escorts, doing radar picket duty, were hit hard, as the inexperienced pilots dived at the first American ship they spotted instead of waiting to get at the big carriers.
The Americans decided their best defense against Kamikazes was to knock them out on the ground, or else in the air long before they approached the fleet. The Navy called for more fighters and more warning. The carriers replaced a fourth of their light bombers with Marine fighters; back home the training of fighter pilots was stepped up.
More combat air patrols circling the big ships, more radar picket ships which themselves became prime targets , and more attacks on airbases and gasoline supplies eventually worked. Japan suspended Kamikaze attacks in May, , because it was now hoarding gasoline and hiding planes in preparation for new suicide attacks in case the Allied forces tried to invade their home islands.
The Kamikaze strategy allowed the use of untrained pilots and obsolete planes, and since evasive maneuvering was dropped and there was no return trip, the scarce gasoline reserves could be stretched further. Since pilots guided their airplane like a guided missile all the way to the target, the proportion of hits was much higher than in ordinary bombing, and would eventually see the introduction of a purpose-built, air-launched rocket-powered suicide aircraft design in small numbers to accomplish such missions against U. Japan's industry was manufacturing 1, new planes a month in Toward the end of the war, the Japanese press encouraged civilians to emulate the kamikaze pilots who willingly gave their lives to stop American naval forces.
Civilians were told that the reward for such behavior was enshrinement as a warrior-god and spiritual protection in the afterlife. Expecting increased resistance, including far more Kamikaze attacks once the main islands of Japan were invaded, the U. The air attacks on Japan had crippled her ability to wage war but the Japanese had not surrendered. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, she would face "prompt and utter destruction.
On August 6, , the " Little Boy " enriched uranium atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima , followed on August 9 by the detonation of the " Fat Man " plutonium core atomic bomb over Nagasaki. Both cities were destroyed with enormous loss of life and psychological shock. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan , stating:. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors?
This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers. The Luftwaffe gained significant combat experience in the Spanish Civil War , where it was used to provide close air support for infantry units. The success of the Luftwaffe's Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers in the blitzkriegs that shattered Poland in and France in , gave Berlin inordinate confidence in its air force.
Military professionals could not ignore the effectiveness of the Stuka, but also observed that France and Poland had minimal effective air defence. Outside Britain, the idea of an integrated air defence system had not emerged; most militaries had a conflict between the advocates of anti-aircraft artillery and fighter aircraft for defence, not recognizing that they could be complementary, when under a common system of command and control ; a system that had a common operational picture of the battle in progress.
Luftwaffe aircraft closely supported the advance of the Army mechanized units, most notably with dive bombers, but also with light observation aircraft, such as Fieseler Storch , that rapidly corrected the aim of artillery, and gave commanders a literal overview of the battle. Allied analysts noted that Poland lacked an effective air defence, and was trying to protect too large an area.
German air-ground coordination was also evident in the German campaign in the Low Countries and France. The continental air defences were not well organized. The Germans deployed among others the tri-motor Ju 52 transport for airborne troops in the attack on the Netherlands on 10 May The first large-scale air attack with paratroops in history subsequently occurred during the Battle for The Hague.
No fewer than Ju 52s were lost in that venture and in other parts of the country, due to varying circumstances, among which were accurate and effective Dutch anti-aircraft defences and German mistakes in using soggy airfields not able to support the heavy aircraft. These losses were never surpassed in any air battle in history. The lack of sufficient numbers of aircraft most probably heavily influenced the decision not to invade England following the Battle of Britain. Altogether, over 5, aircraft were lost over the Netherlands Allied and German , and over 20, crew lost their lives in these mishaps.
Most of these crew were buried locally, so that the Netherlands has some places where Allied and Nazi airmen are buried. This makes the country the densest burial place for air crew in all of Europe. While German aircraft inflicted heavy losses at the Battle of Dunkirk , and soldiers awaiting evacuation, while under attack, bitterly asked "Where was the Royal Air Force? Air superiority or supremacy was a prerequisite to Operation Sea Lion , the planned German invasion of Britain.
The warplanes on both sides were comparable. Germany had more planes, but they used much of their fuel getting to Britain , and so had more limited time for combat. The Luftwaffe used medium bombers guarded by fighters; they made sorties a day from bases in France, Belgium and Norway. The RAF had fighters, with more coming out of the factories every day. The Hurricane accounted for most of the British kills throughout the battle because it made up the majority of the RAF fighter force—however, its kill-loss ratio was inferior to that of its counterpart the Spitfire.
Of the three aircraft, the Hurricane was designed much earlier and was generally considered the least capable. Despite the high numbers of Hurricanes in the RAF at that time, the Spitfire became synonymous with the Battle of Britain and was somewhat of a symbol of resistance in the minds of the British public through the battle.
The Royal Air Force also had at its disposal a complex and integrated network of reporting stations and operations rooms incorporating the new innovation of Radar. Known as the Dowding system after Hugh Dowding , the commander of RAF fighter command during the battle and the man who ordered its implementation , it was the first integrated Air Defence System and is often credited with giving the RAF the ability to effectively counter German raids without the need for regular patrols by fighter aircraft, increasing the efficiency with which the RAF fighter force could operate.
As such, the Dowding system is also often credited with a significant role in the overall outcome of the battle, and comparisons with the air warfare that occurred over France in the spring and early summer of , in which there was no such system and in which the allied air forces were comprehensively defeated, seem to support this. At first the Germans focused on RAF airfields and radar stations. However, when the RAF bomber forces quite separate from the fighter forces attacked Berlin, Hitler swore revenge and diverted the Luftwaffe to attacks on London.
Using limited resources to attack civilians instead of airfields and radar proved a major mistake as the civilians being hit were far less critical than the airfields and radar stations that were now ignored. London was not a factory city and British aircraft production was not impeded; indeed it went up.
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The last German daylight raid came on September 30; the Luftwaffe realized it was taking unacceptable losses and broke off the attack; occasional blitz raids hit London and other cities from time. In all some 43, civilians were killed. The Luftwaffe lost 1, planes shot down on a grand total of which were written off, the British lost about the same number, but could repair of them. The British additionally lost aircraft of Bomber and Coastal command shot down during that same period and hundreds of planes destroyed on the ground, lost by accidents or also written off.
The British "victory" resulted from a better system that provided more concentration, better utilization of radar, and better ground control. Operation Barbarossa opened in June , with striking initial German successes. The purges of military leadership during the Great Terror heavily impacted command and control in all services. At the outbreak of the war VVS Soviet Airforce had just been purged of most of its top officers and was unready, Stalin in —41 vetoed efforts to prepare for a war with Germany, which he believed could not happen. By Soviet annual aircraft production outstripped that of the German Reich ; , aircraft were produced.
In the first few days of Operation Barbarossa in June , the Luftwaffe destroyed Soviet aircraft, most of them on the ground, at a loss of only 35 aircraft. The Soviets relied heavily on Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik ground assault aircraft—the single most-produced military aircraft design of all time with some 36, examples produced, and the Yakovlev Yak-1 fighter, the beginning of a family of fighters from Alexander S.
Yakovlev's design bureau in its many variants during the war years with just over 34, Yak-1, Yak-3, Yak-7 and Yak-9 aircraft produced in total; [80] each of which became the most produced aircraft series of all time in their respective classes, together accounting for about half the strength of the VVS for most of the Great Patriotic War.
The Yak-1 was a modern design and had more room for development, unlike the relatively mature design of the Messerschmitt Bf , itself dating from The Yak-9 brought the VVS to parity with the Luftwaffe, eventually allowing it to gain the upper hand over the Luftwaffe until in , when many Luftwaffe pilots were deliberately avoiding combat. Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Novikov led the VVS from to the end of the war, and was credited with introducing several new innovations and weapons systems.
For the last year of the war German military and civilians retreating towards Berlin were hounded by constant strafing and light bombing. The Luftwaffe operated from bases in Norway against the convoys to the Soviet Union. Long-range reconnaissance aircraft, circling the convoys out of their anti-aircraft artillery range, guided in attack aircraft, submarines, and surface ships.
Air operations were split — one force under US control and the other under British control. One of Eisenhower's corps commanders, General Lloyd Fredendall , used his planes as a "combat air patrol" that circled endlessly over his front lines ready to defend against Luftwaffe attackers. Like most infantrymen, Fredendall assumed that all assets should be used to assist the ground forces.
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More concerned with defence than attack, Fredendall was soon replaced by George Patton. Likewise the Luftwaffe made the mistake of dividing up its air assets, and failed to gain control of the air or to cut Allied supplies. The RAF had an excellent training program using bases in Canada , maintained very high aircrew morale, and inculcated a fighting spirit.
Senior officers monitored battles by radar, and directed planes by radio to where they were most needed. The RAF's success convinced Eisenhower that its system maximized the effectiveness of tactical air power. The point was that air power had to be consolidated at the highest level, and had to operate almost autonomously. Brigade, division and corps commanders lost control of air assets except for a few unarmed little "grasshoppers;" observation aircraft that reported the fall of artillery shells so the gunners could correct their aim.
With one airman in overall charge, air assets could be concentrated for maximum offensive capability, not frittered away in ineffective "penny packets. Split up among infantry in supporting roles tanks were wasted; concentrated in a powerful force they could dictate the terms of battle. The fundamental assumption of air power doctrine was that the air war was just as important as the ground war. Indeed, the main function of the sea and ground forces, insisted the air enthusiasts, was to seize forward air bases. Field Manual —20, issued in July , became the airman's bible for the rest of the war, and taught the doctrine of equality of air and land warfare.
The idea of combined arms operations air, land, sea strongly appealed to Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur. Eisenhower invaded only after he was certain of air supremacy , and he made the establishment of forward air bases his first priority. MacArthur's leaps reflected the same doctrine.
In each theatre the senior ground command post had an attached air command post. Requests from the front lines went all the way to the top, where the air commander decided whether to act, when and how. This slowed down response time—it might take 48 hours to arrange a strike—and involved rejecting numerous requests from the infantry for a little help here, or a little intervention there. German air reconnaissance against North Atlantic and Russian convoys increased, with CAM fighters still the main defence.
The Luftwaffe's first major attack on the convoys began on 25 April when the ship convoy PQJ6 was attacked. PQ17 to Murmansk started with 36 ships; only two made it through when the Admiralty, falsely thinking Germany was attacking with a battleship, ordered the convoy, and its escort, to scatter. There was no battleship, but the Luftwaffe sank one cruiser, one destroyer, two patrol boats 4, tons , and 22 merchant ships , tons. Nevertheless, most convoys did get through.
In some areas, such as the most intense part of the Battle of the Atlantic, the Germans enjoyed fleeting success. Grueling operations wasted the Luftwaffe away on the eastern front after In early the Allied strategic bombers were directed against U-boat pens, which were easy to reach and which represented a major strategic threat to Allied logistics. However, the pens were very solidly built—it took 7, flying hours to destroy one sub there, about the same effort that it took to destroy one-third of Cologne. Japan was also still recovering from Midway.
It kept producing planes but made few innovations and the quality of its new pilots deteriorated steadily. Gasoline shortages limited the training and usage of the air forces. Building on their lead in radar and their experience with the Battle of the Beams , RAF Bomber Command developed a variety of devices to enable precision strategic bombing.
Gee and Oboe were beam-riding blind bombing aids, while H2S was the first airborne ground-scanning radar system — enabling improved navigation to a target and bombing at night and through cloud if necessary. These could be used in conjunction with Pathfinder bombers to guarantee accurate strikes on targets in all weathers. The de Havilland Mosquito bomber was beginning to be delivered in late , combining a useful bomb load with speed to evade German fighters, it was used to harass German air defences as well as challenging strikes such as that on a Gestapo headquarters or prisons as in Operation Jericho.
The RAF also developed the use of " earthquake bombs " to attack huge structures thought to be invulnerable to conventional bombing.
The Axis Air Forces: Flying in Support of the German Luftwaffe
The use of developments such as these contributed greatly to the success of the air bombing strategy during the remainder of the war. In the Mediterranean, the Luftwaffe tried to stop the invasions of Sicily and Italy with tactical bombing. They failed because the Allied air forces systematically destroyed most of their air fields. The Germans ferociously opposed the Allied landing at Anzio in February, , but the Luftwaffe was outnumbered 5 to 1 and outclassed in equipment and skill that it inflicted little damage.
Italian air space belonged to the Allies, and the Luftwaffe's strategic capability was nil. The Luftwaffe threw everything it had against the Salerno beachhead , but was outgunned ten to one, and then lost the vital airfields at Foggia. Foggia became the major base of the 15th Air Force. Its 2, heavy bombers hit Germany from the south while the 4, heavies of the 8th Air Force used bases in Britain, along with 1, RAF heavies.
While bad weather in the north often cancelled raids, sunny Italian skies allowed for more action. After that the Luftwaffe had only one success in Italy, a raid on the American port at Bari , in December Only 30 out of bombers got through, but one hit an ammunition ship which was secretly carrying a stock of mustard gas for retaliatory use should the Germans initiate the use of gas. Clouds of American mustard gas caused over 2, Allied and civilian casualties.
In early , the Allies continued to bomb Germany, while carefully attacking targets in France that could interfere with the invasion, planned for June. In late the AAF suddenly realized the need to revise its basic doctrine: The B did not need escorts against Japan to the extent that the Bs and the Bs needed them over Germany. However, there were B losses due to Japanese fighter defences. This necessitated the invasion of Iwo Jima by U. Marines which became the forward base for P Mustangs which could then escort the Bs to Japan.
Jimmy Doolittle , who fully appreciated the new reality. They provided fighter escorts all the way into Germany and back, and cleverly used Bs as bait for Luftwaffe planes, which the escorts then shot down. In one " Big Week " in February, , American bombers protected by hundreds of fighters, flew 3, sorties dropping 10, tons of high explosives on the main German aircraft and ball-bearing factories.