Strategic Bombing In Ww2

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Warfare throughout World War Two was catastrophic. Many innocent civilians were killed, as well as soldiers lost. Dictators sought to overtake European countries, competing with each other for power, seeking total rule. Some, wishing to reinvent a new ‘Holy Roman Empire’. The U.S and its’ ally Britain hoped to use strategic bombing to give themselves more time to gather resources for an invasion, this strategic bombing of industrial centers was justified to help end the advance of both Germany and Japan. Throughout World War Two, the United States used strategic bombing as a tactic to work towards shutting down not only Germany, but Japan. This allowed for a means to slow down both countries advance, and give the United States as well as
“At the start of World War II, all nations’ air forces had a policy of attacking military targets only. That changed, however, once the German Luftwaffe began conducting air raids on British cities, including London, during the summer of 1940.” (www.britannica.com) strategic bombing was not a first resort of ally forces, but a resort brought about by the unconventional attack by the Germans air raids resulting in the loss of innocent civilians. This act, not only a war crime, was intentionally used by the Germans to demoralize innocent, formerly unsuspecting civilians. Approximately sixty thousand British civilians were killed. This was only one of the major events that created the tipping point for the United States to join the war and utilize the total war tactic, the second event was the bombing of Pearl Harbour on December seventh, 1941. This was an attempted scare tactic from Japan, whom hoped to push the U.S to stay out of the war, but unluckily for them had the complete opposite effect. This attacks on both the United States and Great Britain were not to be tolerated by either countries, both hoping to place Germany and Japan in an economic
Due to a lack of air raid shelters, as well as a shortage of trained firefighters to help with the damages done by the bombings, the air raids successfully inflicted a severe damage to urban areas, allowing the United States to suffer few casualties. “The Allied bombing campaign was one of the main factors which influenced the Japanese government's decision to surrender in mid-August 1945.” (www.britannica.com) These strategic bombing tactics allowed for the allies to gain an advantage over axis powers, and ultimately created a situation in which they had little to no choice to surrender. This proved strategic bombing to be useful, not only causing the moral of troops to be disintegrated, but stalled military operations. Leading to the eventual victory of allied

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