V.

World War II

World War II began in 1939 with the invasion of Poland, the bombing of its major cities, and the immediate destruction of the Polish air force by the German Luftwaffe (air force). In 1940 the defeat of Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France was effected partly through air support. The Battle of Britain, from July to September 1940, concluded with the RAF Fighter Command beating off the Luftwaffe. Strategic bombing efforts to destroy British factories, cities, and civilian morale had failed. The entry of the United States into the war began with the Japanese carrier-borne aircraft attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. These surprise attacks quickly destroyed most American land-based combat aircraft in the Pacific.

In the European theatre of operations, British air-defence systems were greatly aided by the development of radar to guide interception, as well as by the inability of German fighter planes to escort their bombers because of low fuel capacity. The development of night-fighter systems by the Germans did not begin until after British night bombers began large-scale raids on Germany, such as the 1,000-plane raid over Cologne in May 1942. The Lancaster bomber had a bomb capacity of 10,000 kg (22,000 lb) by the end of the war. At the same time, American bombers were carrying out early daylight attacks on specific industrial and military targets. This Combined Bomber Offensive included the costly Ploesti mission of August 1, 1943 (planes launched from Africa to bomb Romanian oil fields) and the Regensburg-Schweinfurt mission of August 17 (the first large-scale American attack on Germany, launched from bases in England).

In 1944, long-range P-47 and P-51 escort fighters became available and made it possible for bombers to reach sites deep within Germany in relative safety. The Allies then gained air superiority by destroying German aircraft and aircraft-production facilities. On D-Day (June 6, 1944), Allied air superiority permitted only a few sorties by the Luftwaffe against land invasion forces.

German developments, however, indicated the future of air warfare. Their V-1, or “buzz bomb”, a pilotless jet-propelled plane carrying 907 kg (2,000 lb) of explosives, was directed mainly against civilian targets in England in June 1944. The V-2, a true guided missile capable of carrying 748 kg (1,650 lb) of explosives some 320 km (200 mi), was first launched in September 1944. These attacks came too late to affect the final outcome of the war, as did the failure of the Germans to use the Me 262 as a jet fighter until late 1944.

In the early days of the war, the China-Burma-India theatre was the site of the efforts of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the Flying Tigers. After the Japanese conquest of Burma, supply flights from India to China over the “Hump” (the Himalaya) were as important as combat efforts. Bases in China later served in launching bombing operations against Japan.

In the Pacific theatre, the Battle of Midway in June 1942 marked a victory for American carrier-based naval air power. The battles for the Gilbert, Marshall, and Mariana islands eventually provided bases for bomber attacks on Japan. The Japanese had not developed strong air defences at home, and the use of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, beginning in 1944, caught them unprepared to detect bombers or to coordinate army and navy efforts. On March 9, 1945, a massive incendiary raid destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in Tokyo, and on August 6, a B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The use of air power resulted in the defeat of Japan without an invasion and indicated to some that, in a future general war, ultimate defeat or victory could be determined by air battles. Some 20 years later, in 1967, this was demonstrated in the Six-Day War between forces from several Arab nations and Israel, decided in the first three hours when the Arab forces lost 452 aircraft.