Aiming to Break Will: America's World War II Bombing of German Morale and its Ramifications

Abstract

Current US Air Force doctrine emphasizes attacking an enemy's ‘will to resist’ without defining ‘will’. Much of the Air Force's focus on will stems from prewar bombing doctrine and America's initial effort to break an enemy's morale with bombs – the aerial assault on Nazi Germany. That bombing revealed that a nation-state's will to resist actually consists of three distinctive elements – the will of its populace, government leaders, and the armed forces – which together form a collective desire to fight. The bombing also showed that the resilience of the individual components depends on the strength of the bonds that connect them and the war aims pursued by all belligerents. It further illustrated that the individual element most likely to break from air attack is the will of the armed forces.

Key Words:

• Airpower
• Bombing
• Morale

Notes

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.

¹Carl von Clausewitz, On War[1832] (ed. and trans.) Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton UP 1976), 77.

²Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air[1921] (New York: Coward-McCann 1942; reprint ed., Washington DC: Office of Air Force History 1983), 22.

³Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Doctrine of the United States Air Force, March 1992, Vol. II, 151.

⁴Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Basic Doctrine, 17 Nov. 2003, 40.

⁵Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.2, Strategic Attack, 12 June 2007, 2.

⁶Ibid., 4, 25.

⁷Ibid., 32.

⁸Ibid., 4.

⁹Clausewitz, On War, 89.

¹⁰USAF Col. John Warden, whose bombing notions provided substantial impetus for the Desert Storm air campaign in 1991, spurred the Air Force's emphasis on ‘leadership targeting’.

¹¹Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton UP 2002), 54. Biddle notes that Gorell adopted the British Sept. 1917 plan devised by Royal Naval Air Service Major Lord Tiverton ‘virtually verbatim’ as the body of the paper, and attached to it his own introduction and conclusion. See also George K. Williams, ‘“The Shank of the Drill”: Americans and Strategical Aviation in the Great War’, Journal of Strategic Studies 19/3 (Sept. 1996), 381–431.

¹²‘Gorrell: Strategical Bombardment, 28 November 1917’, in Maurer Maurer (ed.), The US Air Service in World War I, 4 vols. (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office 1979), II: 150.

¹³Ibid.

¹⁴Ibid.

¹⁵Quoted in Isaac D. Levine, Mitchell: Pioneer of Air Power (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce 1943), 148.

¹⁶Quoted in ibid., 147.

¹⁷William Mitchell, Winged Defense (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1925; reprint ed. New York: Dover Publications 1988), 16.

¹⁸William Mitchell, Skyways (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott 1930), 222–3.

¹⁹Major Muir S. Fairchild, text of ACTS lecture, ‘National Economic Structure’, 5 April 1938, 3–5. Air Force Historical Research Agency (hereafter referred to as AFHRA), Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, file number 248.2019A-10 (emphasis in original).

²⁰Ibid., 5.

²¹Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II, 7 vols. (Univ. of Chicago Press 1948–1958; reprint ed., Washington DC: Office of Air Force History 1983), I: 50–2. See also Donald Wilson, ‘Origin of a Theory for Air Strategy’, Aerospace Historian 18 (March 1971), 19–25, and Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1987), 49–58. Wilson, who served as Chief of the ‘Air Force’ section (1931–34), and Director of the Department of Air Tactics and Strategy (1936–40) at the Air Corps Tactical School, was highly influential in the development of the industrial web theory.

²²Fairchild, ‘National Economic Structure’, 5–6.

²³Text of ACTS Lecture, ‘The Primary Objective of Air Forces’, 13 April 1936, p. 5. AFHRA file number 248.2017A-10. The ACTS text, ‘Air Force Objectives’, for the 1934–35 ‘Air Force’ course stated: ‘The psychological effect caused by idleness is probably more important in its influence upon morale than any other single factor.’ See HRA file number 248.101-1, 4.

²⁴Memorandum, Lt. Col. Eaker to Brig. Gen. Arnold, 25 Aug. 1939; Correspondence File, 1939; Box 3, Ira C. Eaker Papers, Library of Congress, Washington DC. The memo also appears in Miscellaneous Correspondence File, 1939; Box 3, Henry H. Arnold Papers, Library of Congress. The article, perhaps because of the onset of war in Europe, did not appear in print.

²⁵‘AWPD-1: Munitions Requirements of the Army Air Forces’, 12 Aug. 1941, Tab No. 1, 2, AFHRA file number 145.82-1.

²⁶Ibid., 7.

²⁷Haywood S. Hansell, Jr, The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler (Atlanta: Higgins-McArthur/Longino & Porter 1972), 75. See also Sherry, Rise of American Air Power, 165–6.

²⁸Charles W. McArthur, Operations Analysis in the US Army Eighth Air Force in World War II (Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society 1990), 109.

²⁹Ibid., 294.

³⁰See ‘The Team: D. R. Navigator, H2X Navigator, Bombardier, Pilot’, in Reports, 1942–1945 File, Box 5, Haywood S. Hansell Papers, US Air Force Academy Library Special Collections, US Air Force Academy, Colorado, which outlines radar bombing procedures and provides photographs of targets depicted on H2X radar scopes. H2X was the most accurate form of radar bombing (‘Oboe’ and ‘Gee’ were the other types most frequently used), and could identify only urban areas having distinctive terrain features such as seacoasts or rivers. The precise location of an individual factory or rail yard via H2X was impossible.

³¹Letter, Arnold to Mr Harry L. Hopkins, 25 March 1943; Strategy and Command File, Box 39, Arnold Papers.

³²Memorandum from Arnold to General Marshall, 26 Oct. 1943; Bombing File (#36), Box 41, Arnold Papers.

³³Letter, Eaker to Col. Barney Giles, 13 Dec. 1943; Giles File, Box 17, Eaker Papers.

³⁴United States Strategic Bombing Survey (hereafter referred to as USSBS), A Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Hamburg, Jan. 1947, 8, 10.

³⁵Geoffrey Perret, Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II (New York: Random House 1993), 210.

³⁶Memorandum by the Chief of Air Staff, ‘Air Attack on German Civilian Morale’, 1 Aug. 1944; Operational Plans –‘Thunderclap’ File, Box 153, Carl A. Spaatz Papers, Library of Congress.

³⁷‘Operation Thunderclap (Attack on German Morale)’, 20 Aug. 1944; Operation Thunderclap File, Annex I, Box 153, Spaatz Papers.

³⁸Memorandum from Spaatz to Eisenhower, Subject: ‘Thunderclap’, 24 Aug. 1944; Operational Plans –‘Thunderclap’ File, Box 153, Spaatz Papers.

³⁹Letter, Kuter to Maj. Gen. Frederick Anderson, 15 Aug. 1944; Memorandum for Gen. Arnold from Kuter, 9 Aug. 1944; both in Operational Plans—‘Thunderclap’ File, Box 153, Spaatz Papers. See also Conrad C. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and Civilians (Lawrence: Kansas UP 1993), 102–3.

⁴⁰Memorandum for Maj. Gen. Anderson from Col. Charles Williamson, Subject: ‘Attack on German Civilian Morale’, 12 Sept. 1944; Operational Plans –‘Thunderclap’ File, Box 153, Spaatz Papers.

⁴¹Memorandum from Lt. Newell to Col. Sutterlin, Subject: ‘Plan for Systematically Attacking Morale within Germany’, 19 Sept. 1944; Operational Plans –‘Thunderclap’ File, Box 153, Spaatz Papers.

⁴²Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge (New York: William Morrow 1985), 618.

⁴³‘Operation Thunderclap (Attack on German Morale)’, 20 Aug. 1944.

⁴⁴Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. III, 725.

⁴⁵Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II (New York: OUP 1985), 103.

⁴⁶Nor was it significantly larger than the American raid against Berlin on 21 June 1944. On that date, 928 bombers dropped more than 2,000 tons of bombs on targets in the Berlin area in a massive daylight raid supported by 23 groups of escort fighters; 1,371 tons fell on the city center. See Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol.III, 284–5; Richard G. Davis, ‘Operation “Thunderclap”: The US Army Air Forces and the Bombing of Berlin’, Journal of Strategic Studies 14/1 (March 1991), 92.

⁴⁷Davis, ‘Operation “Thunderclap”', 106. Only 250 tons of this total were incendiaries; the remaining bombs were high explosives.

⁴⁸Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol.III, 725–6. Richard Davis questions this total, citing research in Berlin city and Federal Republic archives that indicates tolls of 2,895 dead, 729 injured, and 120,000 made homeless. Davis believes that accurate bombing combined with the meager number of incendiaries used on the mission may have produced fewer casualties than those claimed by Craven and Cate. See Davis, ‘Operation “Thunderclap”’, 106.

⁴⁹Tami Davis Biddle, ‘Dresden 1945: Reality, History, and Memory’, Journal of Military History 72 (April 2008), 423–4; see also Mark Clodfelter, ‘Culmination: Dresden, 1945’, Aerospace Historian 26 (Fall 1979), 134–47.

⁵⁰Letter, Spaatz to Arnold, 5 Feb. 1945; Personal Diary (Feb. 1945) File, Box 20, Spaatz Papers.

⁵¹Message, Doolittle to Spaatz, 1 Feb. 1945; Box 23, Spaatz Papers. Spaatz had his response to Doolittle typed at the bottom of the message.

⁵²Letter, Eaker to Spaatz, marked ‘General Spaatz’ Eyes Only’, 1 Jan. 1945; Personal Diary (Jan. 1945) File, Box 20, Spaatz Papers.

⁵³Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. III, 733–5.

⁵⁴USSBS, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, Vol. I, May 1947, 28.

⁵⁵Ibid., 31. Max Seydewitz, a former member of the Reichstag, notes in Civil Life in Wartime Germany: The Story of the Home Front (New York: Viking Press 1945), 311: ‘Those who had lost their families, their homes, their all, were generally too disheartened to respond to consolation. They became indifferent and so utterly apathetic as not even to hate the fliers who had destroyed their homes.’

⁵⁶USSBS, A Detailed Study of the Effects of Area Bombing on Hamburg, Jan. 1947, 6, 22, 34.

⁵⁷Ibid., 6.

⁵⁸Albert Speer interview for documentary film, Whirlwind, part of the ‘World at War’ series produced by Independent Television (ITV) in Britain.

⁵⁹Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Avon Books 1970), 370.

⁶⁰Martin Middlebrook, The Berlin Raids (New York: Viking 1988; reprint ed. London: Penguin Books 1990), 325.

⁶¹USSBS, Over-all Report (European War), 30 Sept. 1945, 7.

⁶²USSBS, Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, Vol. I, 65. Included in the 15 percent is absenteeism attributed to sickness and leave as well as to such direct effects of air attack as air raid alarms and bomb damage repair.

⁶³Irving L. Janus, Air War and Emotional Stress (New York: McGraw-Hill 1951; reprint ed., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1976), 121–2.

⁶⁴USSBS, Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale (Vol. I), 13. Other reasons given for declining morale were: personal losses, 13 percent; internal events (dissension, 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot, etc.), 7 percent. See also Seydewitz, 311.

⁶⁵Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1996), 302–11.

⁶⁶Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Harper and Row 1971), 207–32; Detler J. K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life, trans. by Richard Deveson (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1987), 67–80; Jackson L. Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall 1992), 130–2.

⁶⁷Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany, 194, 268–9; Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany, 223–35.

⁶⁸Anne Armstrong asserts in Unconditional Surrender: The Impact of the Casablanca Policy on World War II (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP 1961), 254, that ‘had the German generals been able to act to end the war and had the Allies been willing to negotiate, the war might have ended earlier, nine months to two years earlier depending on the degree of compromise’.

⁶⁹Johannes Steinhoff, Peter Pechel, and Dennis Showalter (eds.), Voices from the Third Reich: An Oral History (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway 1989), 387.

⁷⁰Hans Rumpf, The Bombing of Germany, trans. Edward Fitzgerald (London: Frederick Muller 1963), 205.

⁷¹Edward Crankshaw, Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny (New York: Viking Press 1956), 16, 91; Jacques Delarue, The Gestapo: A History of Horror (New York: William Morrow 1964), 182–4.

⁷²USSBS, Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, Vol. I, 96.

⁷³Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany, 198.

⁷⁴USSBS, Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale, Vol. I, 103.

⁷⁵Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 370.

⁷⁶Joseph Goebbels, Final Entries 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1978), 113.

⁷⁷Alfred C. Mierzejewski, ‘When Did Albert Speer Give Up?’, Historical Journal 31 (Spring 1988), 396.

⁷⁸Goebbels, Final Entries 1945, 113.

⁸¹Raymond G. O'Connor, Diplomacy for Victory: FDR and Unconditional Surrender (New York: W.W. Norton 1971), 88.

⁷⁹Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge: CUP 1994), 455, 475.

⁸⁰Ibid., 481.

⁸²See Walter S. Dunn, Heroes or Traitors: The German Replacement Army, the July Plot, and Adolf Hitler (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 2003).

⁸³Max Hastings, ‘What if They had Killed Hitler?’Daily Mail, 8 Sept. 2007.

⁸⁴Bullock, Hitler, 231–2; Steinhoff et al., Voices from the Third Reich, 395; Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany, 253.

⁸⁵Pape, Bombing to Win, 254–313.

⁸⁶Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. III, 232; Thomas Alexander Hughes, Over Lord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II[hereafter Quesada](New York: Free Press 1995), 216.

⁸⁷Quoted in Hughes, Quesada, 213.

⁸⁸Quoted in Richard P. Hallion, Strike from the Sky: A History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1911–1945 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 1989), 213.

⁸⁹Quoted in Hughes, Quesada, 213. See also Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. III, 236. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the German commander in the West, called Operation ‘Cobra’‘the most effective, as well as the most impressive, tactical use of air power in his experience’.

⁹⁰Hughes, Quesada, 214–15.

⁹¹Quoted in ibid.

⁹²Ibid., 220. See also Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. III, 235.

⁹³Quoted in Hughes, Quesada, 223.

⁹⁴Perret, Winged Victory, 318.

⁹⁵Quoted in Martin Blumenson, Liberation (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books 1978), 115.

⁹⁶The Soviet Air Force devoted a meager 5 percent of sorties to long-range operations, and most of those were accomplished for propaganda purposes. See R.J. Overy, The Air War 1939–1945 (London: Macmillan Papermac 1987), 58.

⁹⁷Von Hardesty, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941–1945 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 1982, 1991), 169.

⁹⁸Ibid. See also Hallion, Strike from the Sky, 258, and The Soviet General Staff Study, The Battle for Kursk 1943, ed. and trans. David M. Glantz and Harold S. Orenstein (London: Frank Cass 1999), 254. At Kursk, the Soviets held a numerical advantage in the air that they used with devastating effect. During the fierce battles of 7–8 July, they maintained a daily sortie rate of 1,100–1,500 aircraft, while the German sortie rate of 829 on the 7th had fallen to 652 by the 8th. The Germans could gain only temporary local air superiority at certain points, and that dominance was fleeting. See David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, The Battle of Kursk (Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas 1999), 137.

⁹⁹Earl F. Ziemke, The Soviet Juggernaut (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books 1980), 131.

¹⁰⁰Ibid., 132–4; Hardesty, Red Phoenix, 194.

¹⁰¹Hardesty, Red Phoenix, 194.

¹⁰²Ziemke, Soviet Juggernaut, 135.

¹⁰³Ibid., 137.

¹⁰⁴Perret, Winged Victory, 199–201; Christopher F. Shores, Pictorial History of the Mediterranean Air War, Vol. II: RAF 1943–45 (London: Ian Allan 1973), 14. The island surrendered on 11 June 1943.

¹⁰⁵ Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office 1993), 93–4.

¹⁰⁶For analysis of the air campaign against Japan, see Sherry, Rise of American Air Power; E. Bartlett Kerr, Flames over Tokyo: The US Army Air Force's Incendiary Campaign against Japan 1944–1945 (New York: Donald I. Fine 1991); Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: US Bombers over Japan during World War II (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 1996); William W. Ralph, ‘Improvised Destruction: Arnold, LeMay, and the Firebombing of Japan’, War in History 13 (Oct. 2006), 495–522; and Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2007), 281–318, 504–40. For the impact of racism on the Pacific War, see John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books 1986).

¹⁰⁷Teletype message, COMAF 20 to COMGENBOMCOM 21, 14 March 1945, Subject: Osaka Coverage; Folder: Mission No. 42 Osaka PEACHBOWL 1, 13 March 1945; Box 45 – HQ 20th Air Force XXI Bomber Command Mission Reports, 1944–45; Record Group (hereafter referred to as RG) 18, National Archives, Washington, DC.

¹⁰⁸Ibid.

¹⁰⁹See Message, War Dept. to CG US Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam to War Dept., 8 Aug. 1945, eyes only for Spaatz from Marshall; and Message, Headquarters, US Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam to War Dept, 9 Aug. 1945, eyes only for Gen. Marshall; both contained in Folder: War Dept. Special Staff Public Relations Division Gen Records, Top-Secret Correspondence, 1944–46, File II: 1945; Records of the War Dept. Gen and Special Staffs, Box 3; RG 165, National Archives.

¹¹⁰USSBS, Summary Report (Pacific War), 1 July 1946, 107, in The United States Strategic Bombing Surveys (European War) (Pacific War) repr. Air UP, Maxwell Air Force Base, ALA, Oct. 1987.

¹¹¹Air Force Manual 1-2, United States Air Force Basic Doctrine, 1 April 1955, 10.

¹¹²Air Force Manual 1-8, Strategic Air Operations, 1 May 1954, 6.

¹¹³Ibid., 2.

¹¹⁴Ibid., 4.

¹¹⁵North Vietnamese General Tran Van Tra, commander of communist forces in the southern half of South Vietnam in 1972, later recalled: ‘Our cadres and men were fatigued, we had not had time to make up for our losses, all units were in disarray, there was a lack of manpower, and there were shortages of food and ammunition. … The troops were no longer capable of fighting.’ Quoted in Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (New York: Pantheon Books 1985), 444–5. President Richard Nixon's 1972 diplomatic efforts, which severed substantial material support to North Vietnam from China and the Soviet Union, provided additional impetus for Northern leaders to reach an agreement. On the effectiveness of Nixon's ‘Linebacker II’ air campaign against North Vietnam, see Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press 1989), 177–209; Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The U.S. Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press 2000), 255–82; and Marshall L. Michel III, The 11 Days of Christmas: America's Last Vietnam Battle (San Francisco: Encounter Books 2002).

¹¹⁶Several works explore the role that a potential ground invasion by NATO forces had on Milosevic's decision to end the conflict. See Stephen Hosmer, The Conflict Over Kosovo: Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2001); Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo (Washington, DC: Brookings 2001); Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO's Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 2001); William M. Arkin, ‘Operation Allied Force: The Most Precise Application of Air Power in History’, in Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen (eds), War over Kosovo (New York: Columbia UP 2001), 1–37; and Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, ‘Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate’, International Security 24 (Spring 2000), 5–38.