War is one of the most tragic things in our world today. It is even sadder that usually it
More than any previous war, World War II involved the commitment of nations' entire human and economic resources, the blurring of the distinction between combatant and noncombatant, and the expansion of the battlefield to include all of the enemy's territory. The most important determinants of its outcome were industrial capacity and personnel. In the last stages of the war, two radically new weapons were introduced: the long-range rocket and the atomic bomb. In the main, however, the war was fought with the same or improved weapons of the types used in World War I. The greatest advances were in aircraft and tanks.
Brig General Jerome Hagen, USMC (ret). "War in the Pacific" Book II. Honolulu: Hawaii Pacific University, 2007. Book.
Air power started to become one of the most prominent aspects of the war directly after Hitler launched his invasion of Poland in September of 1939.
Kinzey, B. (1999). P-40 Warhawk in detail. Part 2: P-40D through XP-40Q.. Carrollton: Squadron/Signal Publications.
In the 1900's, transportation and weapons became important for the different wars that the United States were involved in. Planes were one of the most significant inventions in the 20th century. Being able to fly from place to place was a new lifestyle for America's military. In World War II, military planes were a huge part of the war, and without them, many things that happened, would not have happened. As America was getting involved with Japan, they needed a more powerful plane. That plane that they needed was known as the B-29 Superfortress. The B-29 had a greater impact on Japan than any other plane because of the amount of destroyed resources in Japan, the most destructive firebomb in history, and the dropping of the first atomic bomb.
The first World War expedited the evolution of aircraft technology, which continued through World War II. These developments revolutionized military strategy and contributed greatly to the final outcomes.
In the first world war, there was no such thing as a radar, or any form of scanning device, so that the war was only fought by eyes and ears. Whoever heard, or saw the ships first would have had more time to prepare. As far back as June 1932, there had been Post Office Reports about a plane interfering with radio signals, and re-rediating them. Then Sir Robert A. Waston-Watt, A British Electronics Genius, (the man who invented the stereo with only two speakers) came up the idea of RDF, Radio Direction Finding. With his staff A.F. Wilkins, he was able to submit a paper about a thing called radar as codename, in 1935. It was proved that the theory would work, but with a range of only 8 miles. Then and there started the radar research. By 1939, the Germans also had their own RDF installation, named the Freya. It proved quite effective in picking up British bombers, and they were able to pick up bombers ensemble at 114 kilometers. Although as early as September, Britain had radar stations all over the country,16 altogether to give air raid warnings, but those radar can only give air raid warnings, as it is designed to do. It can by no means radar scan the air and it is so bulky so that it cannot be made portable. The British ASV I (Air to Surface Vessel Mark I) portable radar, (quite bulky, still, even for a ship,) had an extremely short range, and was terribly inaccurate, because of the wavelength used, so it cannot detect small objects, only big . In experiment, the ASV III had used a magnetron oscillator valve, and it had a wavelength of nearly as short as 10 cm, and would have been very accurate for 1941, but the receiver was not as good as it should be, so it had a range of only 6 miles. The early British radar development was always handicapped by its range. In 1941, ASV II was put into mass production, 4000 sets was ordered. It had a range of 12-20 miles, still handicapped by its receiver. It was a lot more practical than ASV I, anyhow, as it was designed for mass production. It was not until 1942, when the U-boats were zooming about everywhere, an ultra breakthrough of ASV III/H2S boosted the British radar industry, a new receiver.
In the summer of 1940, World War II had been in progress for nearly a year. Adolf Hitler was victorious and planning an invasion of England to seal Europe’s fate. Everyone in the United States of America knew it. The Germans were too powerful. Hitler's Luftwaffe had too many planes, too many pilots and too many bombs and since Hitler was Europe's problem, the United States claimed to be a neutral country (Neutrality Act of 1939). Seven Americans, however, did not remain neutral and that’s what this book is about. They joined Britain's Royal Air Force to help save Britain in its darkest hour to fight off the skilled pilots of Germany's Luftwaffe in the blue skies over England, the English Channel, and North Europe. By October 1940, they had helped England succeed in one of the greatest air battles in the history of aviation, the Battle of Britain. This book helps to show the impact of the few Americans who joined the Battle of Britain to fight off an evil that the United States didn’t acknowledge at the time. The name of Kershaw’s book was inspired from the quote, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to sow few,” which was said by British Officer and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Johnson, David E. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1998. Print.
Fowle, Barry W., ed. Builders and Fighters: U. S. Army Engineers in World War II, Fort Belvoir, Virginia: Office of History, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, (1992).
Both the Britain and Germany made substantial scientific developments throughout the course of the war. Prior to the development of the Lancaster, the British Air Force lacked a long-range bomber, capable of carrying substantial bomb loads. Wattson Watt foresaw the need for an early detection system; he developed the 'Radiolocation' system, which alerted Britain to invading forces. The German Air Force developed an on board radar, called the 'Metric system', which was equipped to German night fighters.
It was the first radar to be used in any combat ever. It was originally used on overcast foggy days or any nighttime
Cameron, R. S. (2003). The army vision: The 4th AD in world war II. Military Review, 83(6), 59-68
Unikoski, Ari. “The War in the Air - Summary of the Air War”. First World War.com. 2009. http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/summary.htm