Means of WarfareThough we have no records of ancient man’s i

Means of Warfare
Though we have no records of ancient man’s interest in flight
we definitely can go back to the great Leonardo Da Vinci and
sketches of a mechanical winged device and the Ornithopter. In
the ensuing years, man developed hot air balloons. First used
during the Napoleonic Wars, the US Army used them during the
Civil War, and the French government used them while the
Prussians laid siege to Paris in 1870. With such a graphic
demonstration of the new options they presented, the Briti sh,
French, Austrians and Germans developed Balloon Corps within
their military establishments. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
developed the first dirigible with a rigid frame—the zeppelin—
in 1900. All these are lighter than air inventions. Simultaneous
to their development, scientists and inventors examined the
possibilities for heavier than air flight. Sir George Cayley
studied the physics of flight and developed a practical glider.
Sir William Henson built on Cayley’s work and developed a
prototype for a steam-driven aircraft. Francis Wenham built the
first wind tunnel. Alphonse Penaud and Victor Tatin developed
monoplanes and Russian Alexander Mozhaiski flew a steam-
powered monoplane 98 feet.[1]However, all these models had
significant difficulties with the controls and were subject to the
vagaries of the atmosphere and terrain.
The Wrightflyer
It was the Wright brothers who finally developed mechanical
means of controlling pitch, role and yaw. Rather than looking at
a steam engine, they developed a light-weight internal
combustion engine for their plane. They succeeded in
conducting the first controlled flight of a powered engine at Kill
Devil Hills in North Carolina on December 17, 1903.[2] The

years between that first flight and the outbreak of the Great War
saw tremendous development of aircraft throughout Europe, and
most of the Armies kept close tabs on those developments,
many of them operating their own aircraft programs.
Aircraft were a part of the arsenals of all the belligerents in the
Great War, but they had very limited use. One of the most
important of their capabilities was intelligence gathering. Able
to fly above the battlefield, and behind enemy lines, pilots
could provide important information on enemy troop movements
and artillery placement to their headquarters. Occasionally they
dropped hand grenades on the enemy. Once they had developed
proper gun synchronization (to prevent the pilot from
destroying the propeller as he fired his machine gun) pilots of
the various belligerents engaged in “dog fights.” Flyers became
the new heroes of the 20th century, though regardless of the
“romance” of the airman, aircraft had little impact on the
outcome of World War I. Take a look at some of the early
planes and pilot training in this documentary from World War
I.
Kresha Kopik
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World War I Aircraft (WWI Documentary, 1953)
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your browser.</div></div>Use of Air Power in War
Hugh Trenchard and Giulio Douhet
However, during the inter-war years, military interest in aircraft
shifted from the tactical to strategic uses. Men such as Gulio
Douhet, Sir Hugh Trenchard and William Mitchell developed
the theory of what came to be known as Strategic Bombing.
(Mitchell also ended the belief that battleships were immune to
attack from the air as seen in the video below. They believed
that by bombing infrastructure, military installations, defense
plants and even some civilian targets, the population would
eventually find the assault unbearable, and force the
government to sue for peace.
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1921/1923 GENERAL MITCHELL BOMBS BATTLESHIPS
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Initially Germany seemed to be as successful in the air
as blitzkrieg was on the ground. The Luftwaffe wrecked havoc
on Poland and the Low Countries, and even on France. After the
fall of France, while Germany prepared for the invasion of
Britain that never was, the Luftwaffe began what came to be
known as the Battle of Britain. However, there were some
distinct differences with this campaign, most notably distance.
While flights to Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France
were relatively short hops, the flight to Britain was longer,
requiring aircraft capable of greater range and carrying more
fuel. Access to airfields in France made little difference since
they were not built to support German aircraft, and were subject
to bombing from Great Britain. Nonetheless, Hermann Goering,
a World War I ace himself and now head of the Luftwaffe,
believed there would be little problem subduing the British
Isles.
Spotter on a London rooftop with St. Paul's Cathedral in the
background
The British usually date the beginning of the Battle of Britain
as July 10, 1940, when German aircraft began to implement
orders to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF) as
part of a plan to force Britain to come to terms. They began by
targeting RAF installations, inflicting significant damage.
However, the British had the “home court advantage.” Many
fliers who were shot down survived and it was not unheard of

for a man to ditch in the Channel, be rescued and fly again that
afternoon. They also had the advantage of a well-developed (for
that era) system of radar which provided early warning for the
RAF. Fortuitously for Britain the Germans shifted their tactics
and began the Blitz--the strategic bombing of London and
fifteen other cities including Portsmouth, Birmingham,
Liverpool and Southampton. The question “Why did the
Germans shift their approach?” remains a topic of serious
discussion to this day.
How should the British respond to the Blitz? Other than costly
pinpricks such as Trondheim and Dieppe (a Canadian operation
as seen below), Britain could not conduct land operations in
Europe at that point. The Royal Navy maintained a blockade of
Germany but it had little impact on the Luftwaffe’s assault on
the British Isles. With such limited options, the British decided
to retaliate in kind, bombing ports, infrastructure and defense
plants in Germany. Despite the belief that “the bombers will
always get through,” casualties became unsustainable. One
solution was to bomb at night. While night bombing was much
harder to defend against, it made hitting the target, already a
very inexact proposition, almost impossible. Crews would often
drop their payloads where they thought they should and head
home, only to learn that they had missed the target by miles and
hit civilian areas.
piddflicks
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href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bU1u1pCvu4"
Even after the Battle of Britain ended, (we usually consider
October 1940 as marking the close of the campaign) the British
continued to bomb Germany, and with the formal entrance of
the United States into the war, the US Army Air Corps joined in
the efforts. Britain continued to bomb at night, while US air
crews operated in daylight. Fighter escort for the bombers also
began to expand as new aircraft, aided by drop-tanks which
expanded their fuel capacity, came on line. Take a look at some
of the designs here. They look primitive compared to the B-2 or
the Tupolev “White Swan” but they were state of the art at the
time.
Whatever the results of the Allied operations over Germany,
there was a secondary reason for the continuation of strategic
bombing. By the summer of 1941 Germany and the Soviet
Union were in an existential struggle in European Russia. The
Soviet Union became an ally of the United States and Great
Britain virtually overnight, and Stalin began demanding that the
Allies open a second front. But geography limited and the level
of preparedness limited the Western Allies’ actions. Lend Lease
supplies arrived from the US at Murmansk and Archangel (as
seen below), but a cross-channel invasion simply was not
possible at this point. It remained three years away. In the
interim, there was little the Allies could do but continue to
bomb Germany, forcing the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to divert
troops from the Eastern Front to defend the Motherland.
(Interestingly the Soviets had a relatively small air force which
didn’t play much of a role in their struggle against Germany at
all.) Do you think Allied bombing efforts made a difference on
the Eastern Front? The answer to that question could have an
impact on our ultimate evaluation of the importance of Strategic

Bombing.
CriticalPast
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Arctic convoy of British ships underway in the North Sea
carrying weapons to Russ...HD Stock Footage
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We also need to remember that air power played an important
role in the Pacific Theater. In fact the Japanese air assault on
Pearl Harbor triggered the US entrance into World War II. The
logistics of air operations in the Pacific were starkly different
from those in Europe because of the vast expanses of ocean
between bases and targets. This drove the development of the
aircraft carrier—in effect a movable island from which to
launch air strikes. Some argue that the development of the
aircraft carrier vastly diminished the importance of the
battleship, expected to be the decisive class of naval vessels
since the days of Mahan. What do you think of that argument?
In fact, if we look at the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway,
were fought exclusively by aircraft from carriers, and are often
said to mark the turning point in the Pacific war. This brief oral
history of the Coral Sea is quite impressive. Watch this video
for more information.

USEmbassyCanberra
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Battle of the Coral Sea Commemoration 2014
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Strategic Bombings
Curtis LeMay
Despite the importance of the carriers, we need to note that the
Allies, basically the US, did conduct strategic bombing over the
Japanese home islands, with aircraft based in China. They
achieved similar results as the early operations over Germany,
until Curtis LeMay transferred to the XXI Bomber Command in
the Marianas. The weather over Japan was such that the winds
often blew the payloads off course. LeMay’s solution was to
implement low-altitude bombing which resulted widespread
destruction. The use of incendiary bombs on cities where the
main construction material was wood led to firestorms such as
that which devastated wide sections of the capital, Tokyo.
Ultimately, it was the atomic bomb which marked the end of the
conflict, but that is for a later discussion.

Throughout this survey we’ve noted a consistent change and
improvement in technology. Drop tanks, radar, the Norden
bomb site, etc., increased the impact of the bombing campaign.
But it was quantity of aircraft almost as much as quality which
made the successful air war possible. Thanks to the ingenuity of
men like William Knudsen who adapted techniques used on
assembly lines for aircraft production, hundreds of thousands of
men and women worked at enormous plants such as Willow Run
in Michigan seen in this video, and the North American
Aviation plant in Kansas City turned out a continuing stream of
aircraft without which victory might not have been possible.
restoreyourford
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The Willow Run Story, B-24 Liberator Production WWII 1945
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There is no question that Strategic Bombing degraded
infrastructures and production capacity, diverted valuable

manpower and resources to protect targeted areas and
devastated large swaths of urban areas. Yet there is little
evidence that even the firebombing of Dresden, Coventry and
Tokyo even led to widespread calls among the population for an
end to the war or overthrow of the regime. The question
remains, did it have significant impact on the length of the war?
We need to examine the theory and implementation to see if
there was any validity to it at all.
References
[1] Philip Jarrett, ed. Pioneer Aircraft: Early Aviation before
1914. (London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 2002).
[2] James Tobin. To Conquer The Air: The Wright Brothers and
the Great Race for Flight. (New York: Simon & Schuster,
2004.)
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T ST A B L E O F C O N T E N
T S
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
List of maps
Preface to the new edition

Preface to the 9rst edition
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A World at Arms : A Global History
of World War II
by Gerhard L. Weinberg
P U B L I S H E RP U B L I S H E R
Cambridge University Press
D AT ED AT E
2005-03-28
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Please take a special emphasis on the question at the bottom.
For this Discussion, answer one of the instructor-provided

questions by 11:55pm, ET, Thursday and respond to 3 other
students' postings by 11:55pm, ET, Sunday. This is considered
to be a scholarly discussion. Unlike social media, it is good
practice to include some form of reference to the sources of
information because it strengthens the argument, but it is not
required. You are also welcome to reference resources other
than the course textbook.
In the course of this Discussion we're going to focus on
technological developments in World War II. We've already
touched on some new systems such as radar, but this discussion
should give is a much broader understanding of the rapid
changes in air power. Gone were the bi-planes of the Great
War. Now B-17s and 29s, Junkers, Heinkles and Lancasters flew
over Europe This opened the possibility of air campaigns such
as the Battle of Britain, and strategic bombing of Germany and
Japan by the Allies.
Discussion Question
This is a good time for us to discuss the relationship of
technology to strategy and to discuss the effectiveness of
bombing campaigns on the belligerents--both military and
civilians.

Means of WarfareThough we have no records of ancient man’s i

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Means of WarfareThough we have no records of ancient man’s i