World War 2 1939-1945 - www.1939to1945.com



Background to the Belligerents.




Germany	Great Britain	Italy	Japan	Russia	United States


GERMANY					^ Top of Page ^

The Versailles Treaty of June 1919 required from Germany the surrender of all her considerable residue of World War I aircraft and aero-engines, and expressly forbade her either to manufacture new military types or to subsidise the construction of aircraft of any kind. A certain amount of private enterprise construction of civil types was allowed to continue, but the size of these and of the industry to produce them was similarly limited by the Treaty. By continual agitation Germany secured, in the Paris Air Agreement of 1926, the withdrawal of all these limitations, and forthwith began to expand her civil aviation as a cloak for her para-military activities. The numerous small internal airlines were amalgamated to form the world’s biggest commercial operator, Deutsche Luft Hansa, and the resurrected Luftsportverband, ostensibly a private flying organisation, was used to attract from wealthy industrialists and war profiteers the money necessary to finance the D.L.H. (and hence the Luftwaffe) by setting up new airfields and paying for the training of pilots. The next step in the revival of German air power was the issue of specifications to leading manufacturers for civil airliners, fast ‘air taxis’ and ‘sporting’ single seaters. The facility with which these types could be converted respectively to troop transports, bombers and fighters was later to be so painfully obvious as to need no further elaboration. The ascension to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party in 1933 gave the ‘disguised’ German air force the opportunity it needed to come out in the open, and in March 1935 there followed official confirmation of the Luftwaffe’s existence with the appointment of the former Air Minister, Hermann Goering, as its Commander-in-Chief. At the end of 1935 the production of military aircraft had reached 300 a month, and it continued to increase at a steady rate thereafter. The Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936 afforded a heaven sent opportunity for the Luftwaffe to try out its newly acquired air strength under authentic battle conditions. The revolution was barely a month old before Hitler sent Junkers Ju 52/3m and Heinkel He 52 aircraft to General Franco’s assistance and in November the famous Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe was formed expressly for participation in the Spanish conflict. By the time it returned to Germany early in 1939, the Condor Legion had accumulated a great deal of useful experience with such important types as the Bf 109, He 111, Do 17 and Ju 87. In 1938 Hitler occupied Austria, expanding that country’s aircraft industry to augment production in Germany itself, and by September 1939 the total aircraft production for the Luftwaffe had reached the astonishing rate of 1,100 machines a month. First-line strength was 4,840, aircraft, including 1,750 bombers and 1,200 fighters, with nearly as many more in reserve – giving Hitler’s air force the strength and equipment he needed to fulfil his dominatory objectives. Without in any way belittling Allied aircraft, pilots or strategy, it can be fairly said that the Luftwaffe’s ultimate failure to achieve those ends was to a considerable extent self-incurred, Hitler himself playing no small part in the process. Germany’s fortunes in the air reached their peak about the middle of 1940, but thereafter began to decline at a rate which increased steadily as the war progressed. Experience gathered in Spain, while valuable in many ways, led the Luftwaffe to base its World War 2 tactics on the evidence of its rather easy success against the relatively inferior Spanish opposition. Misguidedly regarding air power as an auxiliary of the Army, Nazi policies had concentrated on short range, lightly armed day bombers which, while effective enough when used in conjunction with the ground forces, were far less successful when they were operated without such support. The reputations of several aircraft suffered as a result of this, the Ju 87 being a prize example. The blunder was extended by the continuation of daylight air attacks on the United Kingdom long after the Battle of Britain had clearly demonstrated the unwisdom of such a course; had the Luftwaffe changed over to night raids in the middle of 1940, when Britain’s night defences were practically non-existent, the course of the War might well have taken a very different turn. As it was, Germany went on to lose some 2,000 aircraft and 5,000 aircrew in daylight attacks before going over in any degree to night operations. The last, and perhaps the greatest, folly which marked down the Luftwaffe for ultimate defeat was Hitler’s inexplicable decision to invade Russia in 1941. By the middle of 1943 the first-line strength of the Luftwaffe was still in the region of 4,000 aircraft, but only by dint of cutting down the reserve to less than a quarter of its 1939 size. After the Battle of Britain lesson, the changing fortunes of the German airforce were reflected in the changing roles if its aircraft. Fighters were adapted to defence, even brand new designs like the Fw 190, and began vastly to outnumber bombers in the total establishment. Escort fighters and dive bombers faded from the scene, their places being filled by interceptors and night bombers such as the Fw 190 already mentioned, the Ju 88C and the Do 217. Following up their advantage, the Allies began in mid-1943 a full scale air attack against the industrial production centres of the Reich, an assault which was sustained until the Normandy invasion a year later and was probably one of the major turning points of the European War. Such was the devastating effect on German aircraft production that squadrons had to be recalled wholesale from other fronts, particularly Russia, to defend the homeland. After D-day, by dispersing factories and constructing new production centres underground, Germany managed to resuscitate its hard-hit aircraft industry, concentrating now almost exclusively on defensive fighter types such as the Fw 190D, Ta 152, He 219 and Do 335. Allied bombing attacks continued to take their toll, however, and it was largely because of their attentions that the last three last-named fighters did not reach the Luftwaffe earlier or in larger quantities. Development of the promising new range of jet-propelled machines was similarly affected by the Anglo-American bombing offensive, and impaired still further by the obstinacy and stupidity of Hitler himself. The Luftwaffe was finally and completely checked by lack of fuel, again thanks to Allied bombing, and in the closing weeks of the European War such fragments of the Luftwaffe as remained airworthy were mostly grounded, with empty tanks.


GREAT BRITAIN					^ Top of Page ^

After the armistice of 1918 the R.A.F. was the world’s most powerful air force. It had 3,300 first-line aircraft (22,000 altogether) and over 290,000 men. Such a size was, however, uneconomical for a peacetime force, and in the following year drastic reductions in machines and manpower were made. Thereafter the R.A.F. began to grow again, slowly, though it was not until the middle of the 1930s that any large-scale expansion was attempted. Up to 1936 the standard fighter was still the two-gun biplane, and the bomber force was made up of obsolescent biplanes and ponderous monoplanes with poor speeds, short ranges and modest bomb loads. The advent to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933 and the subsequent official confirmation of the existence of the Luftwaffe stirred those in authority to recognise the potential danger from this quarter, and in 1934 plans began to be mooted for a realistic expansion of our land and naval air forces; the arms race was on. The first-line aircraft strength of the R.A.F. in 1933 – two years before the Luftwaffe was ‘formed’ – was 850 aircraft; a series of re-equipment plans aimed ultimately to increase this figure to 3,550, with nearly another 6,000 aircraft in reserve. The ‘shadow factory’ movement was begun in 1936, with the resources of the British motor industry co-opted to supplement the production of the aircraft companies themselves. Not for another two years, however, was this production allowed to reach the limit of its capability; during this time it was still restricted by budgetary considerations. However, the types of aircraft which the enlarged industry was engaged in building were at least a marked improvement upon previous equipment. The obsolescent bombers of the early 1930s were already beginning to be replaced by a family of twin-engined monoplane types; in place of the two-gun biplanes came the first eight-gun monoplane fighters; and the foundations were laid for the first really heavy bombers, the four-engined Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters of the middle war years. The Fleet Air Arm, as had been its lot for almost the whole of its existence, lagged somewhat behind its land-based fellow service, and by the time the Second World War broke out could still put up no more modern a fighter than the Sea Gladiator. Specialised reconnaissance and torpedo bomber types, until as late in the war as 1943, were destined to be represented by such machines as the biplane Swordfish. However, the F.A.A. could draw some consolation from the seven new aircraft carriers which were ordered for it in 1938. When Great Britain entered World War 2 on 3 rd September 1939, the R.A.F. could boast a fighter strength - although still low by comparison with the Luftwaffe – of over 1,000 machines, of which more than half were the new eight-gun types, the Hurricane and the Spitfire. Bomber Command was equipped with approximately equal numbers of Blenheims, Whitleys, Wellingtons and Hampdens, together with a few squadrons of single-engined Battles. Coastal Command was relatively poorly off, for apart from its Ansons, some American Hudsons and a small number of Sunderland flying boats, the reconnaissance squadrons were still equipped with ageing Stranraer and London flying boats and the torpedo bombing force was made up of antiquated Vickers Vildebeests. At the outset – in fact on 2 nd September, the day before Britain declared war on Germany – the Advanced Air Striking Force was established in France with a force of ten Fairey Battle Squadrons, two of Blenheims and two of Gladiators. The air component of the British Expeditionary Force sent to the Continent comprised a further four Blenheim squadrons together with four of Hurricanes and five of Lysanders. Coastal Command, meanwhile, was charged with patrolling the North Sea, with Blenheims, and with the de-gaussing of mines by specially fitted Wellingtons. On the 17 th December 1939, the famous Empire Air Training Scheme was drawn up, to cope with the enormous task of training, quickly and thoroughly, the large number of aircrew who would soon be required to fly the rapidly increasing numbers of aircraft now being built. Canada was by far the largest participator in the Scheme, but was ably joined by Australia, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia. Eventually, though considerably later, the training of the Allied pilots was to take place in the United States as well. During these first few months of the war – the ‘Phoney War’ as it has now become known – little positive happened on either side, apart from the campaign on the ground in Europe. The main German offensive, launched in the spring of 1940, pushed Britain inexorably towards Dunkirk, and in the middle of June Italy joined the war on the Germany’s side. In those two months alone the R.A.F. lost nearly 1,000 aircraft, and those remaining at home to face the Luftwaffe were outnumbered by two to one. On 18 th June, Winston Churchill reported to the House of Commons: “What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.” Two months later he was proved right. Despite the fury of the fight and the heavy losses incurred, however, those two months were a valuable breathing space, in which Britain was able to get its second wind after Dunkirk and work out a redeployment of its forces for home defence. It is now a matter of history that during the ensuing seven weeks the skies above Southern England were thick with the vapour trails and gunsmoke of battling aeroplanes, from which the Luftwaffe emerged with 1,733 machines lost and the R.A.F. with 915 destroyed. With its back to the wall, outnumbered in both men and machines, the Royal Air Force had nevertheless proved to the world that the mighty German war machine was capable of being beaten. One of the men she had to thank for this, apart from the pilots themselves, was Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding. Had it not been for his stubborn resistance to all attempts to deplete Britain’s home fighter squadrons to prolong the conflict on the Continent, British resources to meet the aerial onslaught later that summer would have been even more slender. As early as 16 th May 1940, Dowding had told the Air Ministry that “if adequate fighter force is kept in this country, if the fleet remains in being, and if Home Forces are suitably organised to resist invasion, we should be able to carry on the war single-handed for some time, if not indefinitely. But, if the Home Defence Force is drained away in desperate attempts to remedy the situation in France, defeat in France will involve the final, complete and irremediable defeat of this country.” After the Battle of Britain, the German blitz on England by day and night increased, and many other theatres of war also began to make demands upon the British air force: the fight spread to the Middle East, and the enemy invaded Greece. But the year was not completed without its compensations for the Allied cause: the Mediterranean island fortress of Malta began slowly to recover after its summer siege, and in November the Fleet Air Arm brought off a notable coup when it attacked and severely crippled the Italian Fleet at Taranto. In 1941, the tide was beginning to turn. England was no longer completely on the defensive, and the Battle of Britain began to give way to the Battle of Germany. Bomber Command started to hit back at night – daylight raids with existing equipment having incurred severe losses during the early months of the war – against targets in France, Italy and Germany. Slowly the intensity of these attacks rose, and by the end of the year ‘Bomber’ Harris’s team were giving the enemy something to think about. This was not the only piece of food for Axis thought, for on the 7 th December 1941, Japan launched her murderous attack on the U.S. Fleet in Pearl Harbour and America, already sympathetic to the Allied cause, was precipitated into the war as a major participant. As the final result proved, the entry of the United States on the Allied side – despite the initial decimation of her vast naval strength – far outweighed the addition of Japan to the Axis powers, and Hitler himself in his more rational moments must have considered his new ally something of a mixed blessing. As 1942 progressed, the United States Army Air Force, already striking back in the Pacific, also began to reinforce Allied air strength in the European theatre. Its Boston’s and Ventura’s added to the Royal Air Force medium bomber strength against Germany, which itself was beginning to receive reinforcement in the shape of the de Havilland Mosquito. Although not to become regular practice for another year or so, the first of the famous thousand-bomber raids was launched, against Cologne, on the night of 30 th/31 st May 1942. From September 1942 the pattern was established of daylight attacks by the U.S. air forces, followed up by night raids from the R.A.F., which was now beginning to receive the first of its four-engined heavy bombers. One of the most useful, although accidental, results of the independent development of aircraft design in Great Britain and the United States during the proceeding years was that both countries had developed specialised designs for the particular strategic and tactical purposes which each country foresaw. Thus each possessed types which the other did not, and the subsequent interchange resulted in a more balanced array of individual types than could have been possible with any single air force. Another great advantage conferred by America’s entry into the war was the increase in strength of transport aircraft. Up to the beginning of 1942 the enemy possessed nearly all the transport aircraft available for military purposes. This position was now changed; an agreement was reached whereby America would supply all the transports needed by the Allies, leaving Britain’s smaller aircraft industry to concentrate on the production of fighters, bombers and trainers. At this time about one third of the total U.S. production of aircraft was given over to transport types. By 1943 the tide of war had definitely turned. The African campaign drew to its close, being followed by the invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland, and the audacity of Allied air attacks against German targets was typified by the brilliant attack in May by 617 Bomber Squadron against the Ruhr dams. By this time the Fleet Air Arm was also giving a splendid account of itself, having acquired considerable new carrier strength and adequate quantities of long range patrol aircraft. It was fighting its own particular battle, the Battle of the Atlantic, in the form of convoy protection, anti U-boat missions and harassing of enemy shipping in general. In March 1943, foreshadowing the forthcoming invasion of the European continent, R.A.F. Transport Command was formed as a replacement for the former Ferry Command; another hint of the coming Second Front was the formation of the Second Tactical Air Force in November. A new weapon was also introduced into the R.A.F. and F.A.A. armoury – the rocket projectile. Towards the end of 1943, and increasing through 1944, the war in both Europe and the Far East began to be carried back to the enemy. D-day, as every schoolboy now knows, was 6 th June 1944. Fifteen Transport Command squadrons of Dakota’s, Halifaxes, Stirlings and Albemarles, and British and American gliders, took part in the invasion of Normandy, covered by no less than 171 squadrons of Allied fighters and aided by diversions created elsewhere by Bomber Command and other squadrons. By now Bomber Command were carrying out day and night raids against Germany with complete impunity, and with the advance across Europe the ground attack aircraft, first used in any quantity in the Western Desert, now came really into its own. In the forefront of these attacks were machines like the Hawker Typhoon, which became famous for its train-busting and similar exploits both with cannon and with its under-wing barrage of rockets. Germany began a series of last-ditch efforts to stave off ultimate defeat, the first of which was the beginning of the V.1 flying bomb campaign against the United Kingdom. Large numbers of these got through the defences, but they were finally beaten by repeated bombing attacks on their launching sites and, in the air, by Fighter Command Tempests. The latter were joined in this task by Britain ’s first jet-propelled fighter, the Gloster Meteor, later to be transferred to Europe to counteract the German jet aircraft being pressed into service. Bigger and bigger bombs were being dropped on Germany, culminating in Barnes Wallis’s fantastic 22,000lb. ‘Grand Slam’, which could be carried only by specially, modified Lancasters . The end was in sight at last, and the war in Europe finally came to its inevitable conclusion on 8 th May 1945. Meanwhile, from the end of 1944, South East Asia Command had undergone a steady and impressive expansion. It now held the offensive and, despite the frantic (though relatively successful) suicide attacks of the Japanese air forces, was placing its attacks nearer and nearer to the Japanese mainland. On conclusion of the European war, Britain re-mustered its aerial strength and formed a ‘Tiger Force’ including some 20 bomber squadrons, to be sent to the Far East to hasten the end of the war there; but in August 1945, two small but potent pieces of hardware dropped from American B-29s on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rendered further preparation unnecessary.


ITALY					^ Top of Page ^

The Italian Air Arm, which fought on the side of the Allies in World War 1, was quickly run down after 1918, and the existence of a full-scale air force was not re-established until Mussolini set up the Regia Aeronautica early in 1923. In the next ten years the first-line strength of this body was raised to some 1,200 aircraft, and the pattern of aero-nautical activity in Italy during the early 1930s followed in many ways that of her future ally of World War 2: the setting up of various world air records, the invasion of smaller countries, the aid to General Franco’s forces in the Spanish revolution. When she entered the Second World War on the 10 th June 1940, Italy could justifiably be regarded, numerically at least, as a major air power. She had almost a thousand bombers, nearly as many fighters and over 750 reconnaissance, transport and other types in her first-line armoury. With reserves included, her total strength was nearly 5,000 aircraft, although less than half of these could be considered a serious operational force; the weakest link was the fighter force, which was composed largely of obsolescent biplanes and under-powered monoplanes. For a few months in 1940/41, Italian bombers flying from Belgian bases supported the Luftwaffe in day and night raids on the United Kingdom, but they were soon withdrawn to resume home-based operations in the Mediterranean theatre and to back up Rommel’s forces in North Africa. In 1942 and 1943, Italian fighter quality began to benefit considerably from the acquisition of Daimler-Benz liquid-cooled engines from Germany – the Macchi C.202 Folgore and Fiat G.55 Centauro in particular being extremely good machines – and the Piaggio P.108B long range heavy bomber entered service. The Italian aircraft industry, however, could not keep pace with the requirements (and losses) of the Regia Aeronautica, and several German types, notable the Bf 109 and 110, the Do 217, and the Ju 87, were supplied as reinforcements. On the 8 th September 1943, Marshal Badoglio surrendered to the Allies, and Regia Aeronautica squadrons in the southern half of the country were formed into the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force, fighting with a mixture of Italian, British and American aircraft on the side of the Allies.


JAPAN					^ Top of Page ^

Service aviation in Japan began in 1909, and by 1911 separate Army and Navy air arms were beginning to take shape. For the first few years, Army aviation progressed somewhat more rapidly than that of the Navy, but by the outbreak of World War 1 both units were still quite small and their participation in the war was extremely limited. Nevertheless they picked up a considerable amount of experience which they were able to put to good use in the years after the war. By 1917, the three major industrial concerns in the country – Mitsubishi, Nakajima and Kawasaki – had begun to take a close interest in aviation. The Mitsubishi enterprise, founded in 1884, had a network of trading posts throughout the Far East ; the 'Hudson’s Bay Company’ of the Pacific, they were the merchant bankers, industrialists and shipbuilders. The Nakajima Company was founded in 1914, and most of its early aircraft manufacturing experience consisted of building, under licence, the products of European and American designers, notably those of Fokker and Douglas. Kawasaki was also an important shipbuilding firm, one of whose earliest aeronautical ‘stars’ was the German Dr. Richard Vogt, later to become more widely known for his work on the aircraft side of Blohm und Voss at Hamburg. These three companies, guided by the advice of a French Air Mission sent to Japan at the behest of the Army in 1919, and a British one similarly requested by the Navy two years later, formed the backbone of Japan ’s young aircraft industry for the next ten to fifteen years. To begin with, they were mainly occupied in the purchase and licence construction of foreign designs, but Mitsubishi did turn one or two home-designed basic warplane types which were in service by 1922-23, and at the end of 1922 the Navy began to build its first aircraft carrier, the Hosho. By the end of the first post-war decade both Japanese air arms were fairly well established, though they were still small in size by world standards; and from September 1931 until February 1932 their men and equipment had the opportunity of testing themselves under battle conditions, during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. By the J.N.A.F. had edged ahead of the Army in development, but the aircraft designed by the companies at home has so far been disappointing, and continued reliance had to be placed on variants of foreign types, by now mostly British or German. More promising indigenous designs were, however, on the way, and the first of these began to emerge in the early 1930s. By the middle 1930s such machines as the Mitsubishi A5M fighter and G3M bomber, comparable with any of the foreign types so far employed, were entering service; and behind these was coming yet another generation of new and advanced aircraft, among them the famous A6M Zero fighter, which were to be encountered by the Allies upon the outbreak of World War 2. Meanwhile, in 1937 the campaign against China had re-opened, and in 1938/39 there were clashes with Russia over the borders of Manchuria and Mongolia. By 1941, Japan was possessed of Army and Naval air forces which were equipped with fairly modern machines and staffed by a large percentage of battle-experienced aircrew; and a further generation of replacement aircraft was well under way, backed by considerably larger production orders than the aircraft industry has ever known before. The undoubted quality of the Japanese air forces was one of the war’s major surprises. Due in part to wishful thinking, but largely to amazing ignorance by the Western nations of the true state of aeronautical affairs in the country, it was widely believed that Japanese air power did not need to be taken too seriously. These beliefs were rudely shattered by the Imperial Japanese Fleet’s attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbour. On 7 th December 1941, a task force comprising the aircraft carriers Soryu, Hiryu, Zuikaku, Shokaku, Kaga and Akagi, with seventeen other warships, sailed across the Pacific towards Hawaii . The six carriers unleashed a combined force of 353 aircraft – Aichi D3A1 dive bombers, Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bombers, and Mitsubishi A6M2s for escort and ground attack – against the American ships and shore installations, and so complete was the element of surprise that the raid was successfully completed for the loss of only 29 Japanese aircraft. Following the advantage gained by this decimation of U.S. naval strength, Formosa-based units launched attacks upon U.S. strong points in the Philippines within hours of the Pearl Harbour raid, and se the pattern for a series of similar assaults on island and mainland bases in the south-west Pacific. Inside six months, Japan was master of the area, but his was not achieved without fairly heavy losses of aircraft, losses with which the existing production machine was barely keeping pace. The Japanese air forces were thus unable to capitalise fully their territorial gains by building up a comparable aerial strength over the much vaster area now under their domination. Nor did they escape effective retaliation: an isolated but significant event, the famous Doolittle B-25 raid on Tokyo in April 1942, struck a sharp blow at Japanese pride and complacency, and the Midway battle, in the summer of the same year, cost the Japanese Navy four aircraft carriers and over three hundred aircraft. After these and other setbacks, the initiative in the Pacific passed gradually from the Japanese forces to those of the Allies as 1942 drew to its close, and the island bases were gradually won back as the Allied offensive steadily mounted through 1943. As a result of some reorganisation, following the reversals of the previous year, naval interest was now inclined more towards aircraft capable of operation from naval shore bases rather than from carriers at sea. The replacement aircraft which had been under study before the war were now beginning to make their appearance: the H8K flying-boat, the D4Y and B6N torpedo bombers, the Mitsubishi G4M long-range bomber, and improved models of the A6M Zero. The Army too was bringing into service such new types as the Ki.45 and Ki.84 fighters, and the Ki.49 and Ki.67 bombers. During the second half of 1944, the Japanese war machine suffered its biggest reversals of the war to date. The Navy lost more carriers and several hundred aircraft in the Marianas campaign and, after the Philippines battles, was so greatly diminished that what remained of its sea and air power no longer constituted a serious threat. Similar punishment was meanwhile being meted out to J.A.A.F. formations on the mainland, in India, Burma and China. Faced with its depletion of her strength, Japan resorted to a more extreme measure – the suicide attack – to try to halt the Allied advance. Although in keeping with Japanese religious beliefs and fighting traditions, this venture was, if viewed dispassionately, even more illogical and wasteful of resources than a normal air fighting campaign would have been. Yet for some time it was successful in achieving its desired object, thus giving the home industry a breathing space in which to endeavour to replace in some measure the heavy losses already incurred. The first suicide attack was made in the Philippines, on the 25 th October 1944, by a force of bombed-up Zero fighters, which succeeded in sinking one American carrier and damaging four others. Encouraged by this success, further suicide raids were made in the Philippines during the next three months, and a considerable variety of other aircraft types was adapted for similar missions – indeed, by the time that the war ended there was scarcely a single type which had not been used in this role. Quite apart from this adaptation of existing aircraft for Kamikaze missions, there also appeared at the end of 1944 a machine designed specifically for this role: the Yokosuka MXY-8 Ohka piloted flying bomb, carrying about a ton of high explosive in its nose, which was air-launched from a modified G4M ‘mother’ aeroplane. These and ‘conventional’ suicide aircraft were again used in substantial quantities at Okinawa and Iwo Jima in the early months of 1945, but even the weight of these attacks was insufficient to deter the massive U.S. invasion fleet. With the capture of the Marianas, America’s long range Superfortress bombers at last had advanced bases from which they could mount sustained and heavy bombing attacks against Japanese industrial and military targets at home, and the remaining Japanese air strength was driven back upon defence of the homeland. In a final effort to stave off defeat, existing aircraft types were modified to undertake high altitude or night interceptions, and production orders were hastily given to new and half developed types in an attempt to provide adequate defence strength. However, the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs demonstrated the futility of further resistance, and on the 15 th August 1945 Emperor Hirohito indicated to the Allies that Japan had, at last, admitted defeat.


RUSSIA					^ Top of Page ^

The beginnings of military aviation in Russia were much the same as those in other countries; 1910 saw the establishment of army and navy air schools, and two years later the first purchases were made of foreign types – British, French and American – upon which the Imperial Russian Flying Corps was founded. During Russia ’s participation in World War 1, these foreign aircraft fought alongside designs of purely Russian origin, outstanding among which was Igor Sikorsky’s four-motor bomber, the Ilya Mourometz, the first of its kind in the world. Following the Socialist Revolution of 1917, air affairs became somewhat disorganised for a time, but the basis for the future Red Air Force was formulated during 1918 – although the ‘Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Air Fleet', as it was known, could initially command only a rather motley collection of aircraft. By the middle 1920s, things were beginning to settle down more, and the Red Air Force had begun to re-stock with newer Russian and foreign designs in about equal proportions. The names of other Russian pioneer designers - Tupolev and Polikarpov amongst them - were beginning to make themselves known, and the performance of their new aeroplanes was convincingly demonstrated by record-breaking flights of one type or another. Throughout the remainder of the 1920s and the 1930s, and a succession of five-year plans, the Russian aircraft industry, formed of a series of design bureaux, continued to grow in stature, and the Red Air Force seized the opportunity of the Spanish Civil War to obtain actual battle experience for its aircraft and aircrew. Further experience was gained from the clashes with Japanese formations in the Siberian border disputes of 1938 / 39. From these campaigns it was realised that Soviet design thought was still lagging behind that of the other major aeronautical powers, and as a result several foreign designs were studied in an effort to make up lost ground. By the time of the German invasion of Russian in June 1941, a number of promising new designs were under way, most of them fighters and - since the Red Air Force had always been viewed primarily as a supporting body of the army - ground attack types. The front-line aircraft in service at that time, although numerically greater than those ranged against them by the Luftwaffe, were inferior technically, and this, coupled with the element of surprise in the German attack, led to their initial defeat by the enemy. Before the Russo-German war was a year old, however, the more modern replacements - the Yak-1, LaGG-3, MiG-1 and MiG-3 fighters, and the famous I1-2 Shturmovik close support aircraft - were getting through to the Red Air Force squadrons, and Lend-Lease supplies of American fighters and bombers, as well as similar types from Great Britain, began to reach the U.S.S.R. These included Airacobra, Kingcobra, Warhawk, Thunderbolt, Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, Havoc, Mitchell and Mosquito bombers, Douglas C-47 transports and Catalina maritime patrol aircraft. Between 1942 and 1944 the United States alone delivered to Russia almost 15,000 aircraft, of which approximately two-thirds were fighters; added to this total, the Russian aircraft industry itself turned out between thirty and forty thousand machines during the war period. By VE day, the front-line strength of the Red Air Force was in the region of 17,500 aircraft. Russian air superiority was finally obtained by a combination of superior Russian tactics, and dwindling Luftwaffe resources, due both to losses in Russia and to the reduction of remaining German squadrons to reinforce Luftwaffe units on other fronts.


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA					^ Top of Page ^

When the 'war to end wars' came to its end in November 1918, the United States of America, like every other armed nation, immediately began to make wholesale cuts in the size and strength of its military forces. As in other countries too, there continued against this background the inevitable tog-of-war between the Army and the Navy for outright control of the newly-born air arm; at the same time, leading personalities - notable among them the outspoken William H. ('Billy') Mitchell - campaigned vigorously for the establishment of an air force as a separate and independent body, but to no avail. Not until 18th September, 1947, did the United States Air Force drop the 'Army' from its title and become fully autonomous, although it had enjoyed a certain amount of self-direction for some seven years previously. As the events of World War 2 were to prove, however, the joint efforts of the two air arms worked well together towards final victory, for although Army aircraft administered the 'coup de grace' to Japan, they did so from bases won for them at great expense by the naval forces. In 1920, the Army Reorganisation Act set up an Air Service under jurisdiction of the U.S. Army, and in June of the following year a Bureaux of Aeronautics was established to advise the Navy on air affairs. Throughout the 1920s political, policy and economic fluctuations hampered the full implementation of various re-equipment programmes for both services, but although some wartime equipment remained at the end of the decade the Army Air Corps did by then have a substantial measure of new material in service. The Navy faired slightly better during this period. Conversion of the collier Jupiter as its first carrier, the Langley, was completed in 1922, eight battleships were adapted for the carriage of small 'spotter' aircraft, and by the end of the decade two more new carriers had been delivered, the Saratoga and the Lexington , which at that time were the largest of their kind in the world. By the middle of the 1930s, a number of advanced designs had appeared for both services. One of the most significant, later to play such an important part in the coming conflict, was the concept of the long range strategic heavy bomber, as typified by the Boeing B-17 and the Douglas XB-19. The Navy had two more carriers launched in 1936, and in January 1938 a 20 per cent increase in its expansion programme was authorised. Within a few more months this was to be increase still further. Thanks to these Army and Navy air force expansions, and to substantial orders from Great Britain and Europe , the American aircraft industry's order books at this time were in an extremely healthy state although, at the time of the outbreak of war in Europe, American home forces were still relatively poorly equipped. However, with the rapid drive across the Continent by Germany the go-ahead was given for a much quicker build-up of home strength, coupled with an enormous training scheme to produce the pilots to fly the increasing numbers of aircraft envisaged. The famous Lend-Lease act, passed in March 1941, involved the outpouring of many thousands more aircraft in support of the Allied cause, to which America had always been openly sympathetic. The U.S. Army Air Corps was again re-organised and raised in importance on 20th June 1940, and became known as the United States Army Air Force. By December 1941 the U.S.A.A.F. could boast a growing force of modern aircraft types, and the Navy possessed six aircraft carriers and over 5,000 aircraft of various descriptions, with a further eleven carriers on order. On the morning of 7th December 1941, a force of Japanese Navy bombers attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands, striking a crippling blow at America's Pacific sea power. Eight battleships were either destroyed or damaged, together with over a hundred aircraft, more than two thirds of the total in the area at the time. With opposition thus immensely reduced - and within six months of Pearl Harbour the carriers Langley and Lexington had also been sunk - the Japanese forces quickly overran the island bases in the south-west Pacific in preparation for their assaults on the mainland. Even so, they did not have things all their own way. They incurred an expensive setback in mid-1942 in their attempt to secure the island of Midway, losing four aircraft carriers and over 250 aircraft in the process; and earlier that year, in April, the Japanese homeland was on the receiving end of the famous Army / Navy raid by sixteen B-25 Mitchell land bombers which, lead by Lt. Col. J. H. Doolittle, successfully took off from the carrier Hornet, flew 700 miles to bomb Tokyo and then continued their journey to land at pre-arranged bases in China. Meanwhile, units of the U.S.A.A.F. were beginning to arrive in the European Theatre of Operations, forming the Eighth Air Force for attacks against German-held targets on the Continent. Part of the Eighth was later detached, in the autumn of 1942, to the Middle East to form the Twelfth Air Force in the North African campaign. The Naval Air Transport Service was formed during 1942 in support of Pacific operations, and eventually established a network of 40,000 miles. Production lines at home were by now turning out substantial quantities of excellent fighters and heavy and medium bombers, and by the end of the year the total number of aircraft in the U.S. service had increased threefold from Pearl Harbour, though the defence of the United States itself was, until then, somewhat neglected. To relieve this situation the Navy accepted, through necessity rather than choice, some assistance from the A.A.F. in the provision of long-range aircraft for maritime patrol, assistance that continued until late in 1943. It was during 1943 that the tide began to turn for America. Daylight bombing attacks by A.A.F Fortresses and Liberators against European targets were maintained. Losses continued to be heavy, but the increased armament of the bombers and an improved breed of escort fighters - the Lighting, the Thunderbolt and, particularly, the superb P-51 Mustang - also increased the attrition rate among enemy interceptors. The Navy began in 1943 to build up a strong anti-submarine force, and by the middle of the year its total strength was nearly thirty carriers and upwards of 16,500 aircraft. The 'island-hopping' campaign for the recovery of the Pacific air bases was going well, and the Atlantic sea forces were also extremely active against submarines on the convoy routes. One of the biggest assets to the Allied cause conferred by America 's entry into the war was the huge force of transport aircraft, which thus became available. Perhaps the most notable achievement of these aircraft - leaving aside such other valuable contributions as their tremendous support in operations like the D-day landings - was the long but invaluable airlift 'over the Hump' between India and China after the fall of Burma. Between the end of 1942 and the middle of 1945, Skytrains, Commandos, Skymasters and other aircraft transported thousands upon thousands of tons of vital food, equipment, medical and other supplies via this route. At the same time as the Normandy landings were taking place in Europe, one of the biggest battles of the Pacific war was also under way; the Battle of the Philippine Sea. This was the attempt to recapture the Marianas Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam, which were urgently wanted as bases for the new B-29 Superfortress bombers designed to attack the Japanese mainland. The A.A.F. introduced the B-29 in the spring of 1944, and the first bombing attack on Japan by this type was made on 15th June; in November Tokyo was attacked by a force of over a hundred B-29s, and attacks were steadily maintained. Meanwhile, however, the Navy was in for a surprise. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf, undertaken as a supporting move in the Marianas battle, they made severe inroads upon the fast-dwindling warship strength of the Japanese Navy, but the price was a heavy one, for it was at this stage that the Japanese Kamikaze (Divine Wind) suicide attacks began. Futile though these attacks may seem, in retrospect, as an attempt to alter the course of the war, they were remarkably successful while they lasted, and by VJ day they had accounted for nearly a quarter of all U.S. warships sunk during the whole of the war. Their efficacy was considerably diminished in the later stages, after a rapid increase in U.S.N. carrier-borne fighter strength. After 'mopping-up' around the south-west Pacific islands, the U.S. Navy turned its attention to the invasion of Iwo Jima and Okinawa as a prelude to strikes against the Japanese mainland. Those attacks already being made by the A.A.F's B-29s were, however, having the desired effect. Between VE and VJ days the saturation bombing of Japanese cities and installations with conventional high explosive and incendiary bombs was so great that the final outcome was never in doubt. In August 1945, however, it was dramatically advanced by the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the dropping of the Atomic bombs. Pearl Harbour had been avenged.

Home | Links | Contact | patobrien.co.uk | Acknowledgement