A Concise History of the US Air Force - Air Force Historical Studies ...

its own skies, the attrition of enemy air forces, and the destruction of
enemy oil supplies and transportation networks. The strategic bombing
campaign forced Germany to divert 40 percent of its industry to aerial
defense, 2 million of its workers to manufacturing supplies and equip-
ment for air defense, 2 million of its soldiers to manning ground defens-
es, and 2.5 million of its laborers to cleaning up the damage. Victory in
the air was “complete,” and air power had helped “turn the tide over-
whelmingly in favor of Allied ground forces.”
Despite Europe’s priority in Allied planning, America’s first stra-
tegic bombing effort of the war began against Japan, when sixteen B-25
Mitchell bombers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy
Doolittle and launched from the USS Hornet attacked targets on the
Japanese home island of Honshu in mid-April 1942. Although militarily
insignificant, the Doolittle raid embarrassed and infuriated Japanese mil-
itary leaders and raised Allied morale. It was an omen of what Japan
could expect from America’s air power.
All the while, the Pacific war was more than just half-a-world
away. In Europe the United States had powerful allies to consult and sup-
port at every turn. Except for the British Empire’s forces in India, Burma,
and Australia, the war against Japan was an American show. Europe had
Eisenhower to unite British and American armies, navies, and air forces.
In the Pacific, the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy competed in the drive
toward the Japanese homeland. In General Douglas MacArthur ’s
Southwest Pacific Area, the U.S. Army fought from Australia through
New Guinea to Leyte and Luzon in the Philippines. In Admiral Chester
Nimitz’s Pacific Ocean Areas, the U.S. Navy moved among the islands
from the Solomons and Gilberts through the Marshalls, Carolines, and
Marianas to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Combined with a lesser American
effort to support China’s war against Japan, the distances involved
insured a major role for the USAAF.
In the Army’s initial fighting on Papua New Guinea, thick jun-
gles, rugged terrain, and inadequate forces restricted the help the US AAF
could provide for MacArthur’s hard-pressed command. By December
I942 the Fifth Air Force under Major General George Kenney had suffi-
cient numbers of P-38s to seize air superiority over the island, allowing
its B-17, B-24, B-25, and A-20 bombers to cut the flow of Japanese
reinforcements and supplies. Kenney proved the master tactical innova-
tor, developing skip bombing to sink enemy ships and arming his medi-
um bombers with extra nose-mounted machine guns and even 75-mm
cannon to improve their firepower. Kenney took a “seamless” approach
to air power that had, in Carl Spaatz’s words, “no line of cleavage
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