One of the largest, longest, and most violent and destructive campaigns of Wold War II hardly gets noticed. The British and American air war against Germany pitted 1.5 million Allied troops and 69,000 aircraft against 2.2 million German troops (plus 2 million civilians repairing the damage) and 61,000 Nazi aircraft. While these air attacks against Germany began in 1939, they didn’t really get going big time until 1943, when the “Strategic Bombing Offensive” got going. The four- engine strategic bombers dropped 1.5 million tons of bombs, while all other combat aircraft (single- and two-engine) dropped another 1.1 million tons.

There were actually two bombing campaigns going on against German factories, cities, transportation, and armed forces. The British had a peak of 718,628 pilots and ground crew who dropped 1.2 million tons of bombs, mostly at night. The Americans had a peak of 619,020 troops supporting the dropping of 1.5 million tons of bombs, mostly in daylight: this was about 75 percent of total bomb tonnage dropped by U.S. Army Air Force worldwide in the entire war. Losses were heavy, as , 159,000 airmen became casualties (about evenly split between British Commonwealth and American). Aircraft losses were enormous, with 21,914 bombers lost (11,965 British) and 18,465 fighters (10,045 British). The bombers flew 1.5 million sorties and had a loss rate of 15 per 1,000 sorties. The fighters flew 2.7 million sorties, for a loss rate of 7 per 1,000 sorties. It was actually worse than it appears for the bombers, as many that survived their missions would still be shot up and have dead and wounded crew on board. Most of these missions were flown out of Great Britain. Half the bomb tonnage was dropped on Germany, with another 22 percent landing on France. Aircraft based in Italy accounted for most of the bombs delivered to Italy (14 percent), Austria, Hungary, the Balkans (7 percent), and sundry other locations (the remaining 7 percent).

The major reason the bombing campaign does not get much attention in history books is because the action was widely spread out, generally took place in enemy territory, and in many cases, had no appreciable effect on the conduct of the war. While the air power advocates preached that the bombing campaign would be decisive, this was not the case. But the bombing did make a major contribution to Allied victory and hurt the Germans quite a bit. The big problem the bomber generals had from the start was what to bomb. There were so many targets, and it took a little trial and error before they found out which targets would cause the most grief for the Germans. Overall, however, these were the target “systems” hit throughout the war and the percentage of the bombs that fell on them:

INDUSTRIAL AREAS: 36.4 percent, factories, for the most part (about two thirds). Nearly 24 percent of this went specifically after oil, chemical, and rubber targets. Some 4 percent was devoted to aircraft factories.

TRANSPORTATION: 36.3 percent, mainly railroads, especially marshaling and repair yards, bridges, tunnels, and locomotives; also bridges and tunnels for roads. About 12 percent of this (4.2 percent of all bombs) was for naval and water transportation (canal traffic).

MILITARY TARGETS: 11.1 percent, units themselves, as well as their equipment and any structures they were using.

AIRFIELDS and air force installations: 6.9 percent. V-1 (“buzz bombs”) and V-2 (from which the Scud missile was derived) launching sites: 0.2 percent.

ALL OTHER TARGETS: 6.3 percent.

When the bombing campaign got started in 1943, it was thought that hitting key factories would deprive German industry of vital components (such as ball bearings) that would render many other factories useless. It didn’t work out that way, as the Germans were able to shift production faster than the bombers could trace and bomb the new plants. In early 1944 it was decided to attack transportation. Partially, this was in support of the upcoming D-Day invasion of France. In the course of the year the Allies discovered that hitting transportation had widespread effects. Not only were German combat units unable to move quickly to the front, but factories were unable to ship finished goods and components. The earlier bombing had forced the Germans to disperse a lot of their industrial machinery and assembly operations to smaller (and often hidden or underground) locations. This made them more dependent on the railroads. The Allies thought the railroads were too extensive to be knocked out. This was true, up to a point. But by concentrating on shooting up locomotives (fighter pilots loved this) and bombing rail yards (where the scarce locomotives were repaired) the rail system was severely hurt. The loss of the Romanian oil fields in August 1944, combined with the difficulty in shipping fuel by rail, put a severe crimp in German mobility. This was something that the Allied ground troops noticed only gradually. But the German ground troops were slowed down, and overall, this made it easier for Allied troops, increased German casualties, and shortened the war.

Another side effect of the bombing campaign was the decline of the Luftwaffe (which, to the U.S. Army Air Force, was the principal objective of the bombing). Allied troops had less and less to fear from air attack as the war went on. This was because a larger percentage of Luftwaffe aircraft had to be reassigned to air defense over Germany. The percentage grew steadily as the war went on. Losses against bomber formations were higher than those against ground units. The bombers were more heavily armed and, increasingly, had fighter escorts. By late 1944, it was rare for Allied troops to suffer air attacks by the Germans. The strategic bombing campaign was largely responsible for this. The Germans, however, did still get their licks in from time to time. Toward the end of the war, some Allied troops had the unnerving experience of being strafed by German jet aircraft. The German Me-262 was the first jet fighter bomber to enter wide service. It was often used for ground attack missions. It was so fast, and the firepower of its four automatic cannons so devastating, that the troops under fire usually had no time to fire back.

There were other subtle effects of the bombing. The British did most of their bombing at night (they didn’t believe daylight bombing would work). Almost all American bombing was in day light. Because bombing accuracy at night was low, the British hit large areas (like cities) rather than specific targets (like factories). Thus a German industrial area was hit during the day and then, quite often, again at night. This left the Germans without sleep and quite anxious and contributed to lower worker productivity. The loss of homes and loved ones and the expectation of being injured also had an effect on worker enthusiasm. But production went on anyway.

The biggest failure of the bombing campaign was to effectively explain just what its accomplishments were. This was understandable during the war, when even the bomber generals didn’t know exactly what effect their efforts were having. In contrast, ground and naval campaigns move to different physical locations and occupy enemy territory. After a land or naval battle, you can immediately get a pretty good count of what was lost on both sides. Air campaigns lack these features, and as a result are still not accurately appreciated by the public, the other branches of the armed forces, or even many historians.

Percentage of All Allied Bombs Dropped

1940 = 0.8

1941 = 2.0

1942 = 3.0

1943 = 12.8

1944 = 57.9

1945 = 23.5

Percentage of Luftwaffe Aircraft Used Only Against Allied Bombers

June 1940 = 0

June 1941 = 7

June 1942 = 17

June 1943 = 21

June 1944 = 39

January 1945 = 50