B-29s head out from Guam on a mission against Japanese industrial targets. B-29s dropped 91 percent of all bombs falling on Japan during World War II.

The Strategic Bombing Survey authoritatively determined that the B-29 campaign played a decisive role in Japan’s surrender.

How Bombers By Phillip S. Meilinger Defeated Japan

56 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2011 merican war plans prior to World the closed nature of its society. In many As a result of these factors, in March War II anticipated a Europe-first cases, the air planners had to rely on old 1945 LeMay made a radical change. He strategy. After Pearl Harbor, maps, an occasional tourist report, and lowered the bombing altitude to below Ahowever, the public demanded prewar insurance data. 9,000 feet. Because he suspected weak action against Japan. As the Army and Building upon the lessons and experi- night defenses, he stripped the B-29s of Navy geared up for campaigns in the ences of the European theater, air planners guns, ammunition, and gunners, except Pacific, the US Army Air Forces (AAF) identified several key systems in Japan to for the tail gun. examined ways to hit Japan. B-17s and be targeted. Coke ovens, essential for steel In a stunning reversal of two decades B-24s did not have range to reach the production, were a key system singled out of air doctrine, LeMay jettisoned the Japanese home islands, so the AAF for attack. Other target systems included teachings of the Air Corps Tactical School needed a bomber with a range greater merchant shipping, oil refineries, the that emphasized high-altitude, daylight than 3,000 miles. transportation network, and munitions precision bombing and ignored most of The bomber would turn out to be the factories, especially aircraft and engine what he and other combat leaders had Boeing B-29 Superfortress. complexes. learned so painfully over Germany. He The first B-29s of XX Bomber Com- launched his B-29s at night in low-altitude mand, a subunit of Twentieth Air Force, A Radically Different Tactic area bombing attacks, using incendiaries were deployed to India in April 1944 US Strategic Bombing Survey ­(USS­BS) against Japanese cities. under the command of Brig. Gen. Kenneth analysts reinforced these targeting pri- This was risky, but it worked. The B. Wolfe. However, logistical problems orities after studying the effects of Allied Japanese were unprepared for firebomb- arose as all supplies had to come over bombing on Germany. ing, and the results were devastating to the Himalayas. While flying over “The The commander in the Marianas would the Japanese economy and its military Hump” was a terrific aerial feat, this have other ideas, however. capability. The combination of lower requirement added to the difficulties The first three months of the XXI altitude and reduced defensive armament of XX Bomber Command, and bomber Bomber Command’s operations based out allowed for doubling the airplane’s bomb operations proceeded slowly. of the Marianas were not impressive. By load to six tons. Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, the ever January 1945, XXI had dropped a mere In July 1945, Eighth Air Force, newly impatient AAF Chief, relieved Wolfe in 1,500 tons of bombs on Japan. Accuracy outfitted with B-29s, arrived in theater July 1944 and replaced him with Maj. Gen. was poor, and on half the missions only under the command of Lt. Gen. Jimmy Curtis E. LeMay. Although performance one out of 50 bombs fell within 1,000 Doolittle. The Eighth was just gearing up improved, the problem with the attacks feet of the target. Once again, Arnold in the Pacific when the war ended, but the on Japan was in the concept of striking ran out of patience. bombing already had reached a crescendo. from India. Attempting to operate a suc- LeMay was moved from India to B-29s dropped 14,000 tons in March (with cessful strategic bombing campaign over Guam to take command in January 385 aircraft available), and then 43,000 such vast distances in a remote theater 1945. He soon lowered bombing altitude tons in July (with nearly 900 aircraft on was simply unrealistic. by several thousand feet to improve hand). Planners anticipated this figure The tale is told in the tally: In the 49 range and decrease the effects of the jet would rise to an astonishing 115,000 tons combat missions flown by the XX Bomber stream at high altitude, which played in September with the combined might Command, over nearly 10 months, only havoc with accuracy. Intelligence was of the Eighth and Twentieth Air Forces 11,000 tons of bombs were dropped— still an imprecise science, but analysts in full operation. compared to 156,000 tons that would be determined the Japanese economy was But before that could happen, on Aug. dropped by XXI Bomber Command from organized into “cottage industries,” 6, 1945, a B-29 dropped an atomic bomb the Marianas. Operations from India were unlike the large factory complexes on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second halted in March 1945. prevalent in Europe. Half of all workers atomic bomb hit Nagasaki. After the On the upside, some bugs were worked in Tokyo were employed in factories of second bomb, the emperor broke a three- out of the new aircraft, the campaign less than 100 people. to-three tie at a Cabinet meeting and sued bolstered Chinese morale, and LeMay gained valuable Pacific and B-29 experi- ence. The Marianas bases were essential for the strategic air campaign against Japan, and it was from the islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian that the B-29s would strike major blows. Targeting has always been a key com- ponent of strategic air warfare. So even before the B-29s were deployed, there was a major effort to study the Japanese economy and select the most appropri- ate targets. Unfortunately, the intelligence appara- tus required to conduct such a study and provide competent targeting advice was limited and faulty. The AAF entered the B-29s sweep low over the Marianas as a US Navy construction battalion (Seabees) war deficient in this area, and Japan was builds a base. XXI Bomber Command would drop 156,000 tons of bombs operating a difficult intelligence challenge due to from the chain of tiny islands. AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2011 57 survey revealed that rationing started in and Kobe, more than half fled. One-third 1941, and by 1945, the food situation of the 8.5 million evacuees were factory was “critical.” But how long would a workers, evidenced by an absentee rate starvation blockade have lasted and how of 49 percent by the end of the war. many civilians would have died before This trend was spurred by LeMay, who the military leaders gave in? in July began dropping leaflets on Japa- During the war, the Japanese held nese cities, stating they would be bombed 558,000 prisoners of war and internees in in the next few days. One Japanese official prison camps. The mortality rate in these said these leaflet drops caused panic and camps was around 40 percent—10 times contributed to the evacuation of the cities. that of the German camps. And millions of Of those remaining, hundreds of thou- Asians under Japanese domination would sands of people were pressed into service have continued to suffer under occupation to fight fires, restore utilities, and clear until a blockade played itself out. rubble after bombing missions, which Similar to what was done in Europe, further hindered production and attempts the bombing survey conducted an analysis to disperse the armaments industry. of the Japanese economy and its destruc- Morale plummeted. Polls taken by Gen. Curtis LeMay radically changed bombing strategies from high-altitude, tion by the bombing campaign, with survey teams indicated that in June 1944, daylight raids to nighttime, low-altitude interviews, site visits, photographs, and only two percent of the Japanese popu- raids using incendiaries. tons of data collected. lation thought they would lose the war. The directors would publish 108 reports By December, it was 10 percent; in June for peace. What had finally pushed Japan for the Pacific, some controversial. 1945 it was 46 percent; and by August it into surrendering? had climbed to 68 percent. In his unprecedented radio address to Psychological Warfare As for reasons for surrender, more the nation on Aug. 15, the emperor justi- The statistics collected by the USSBS than 50 percent said it was due to air fied surrender by referring to a “most cruel teams were illuminating. The B-29s strikes and some 30 percent blamed it bomb” whose power was “incalculable.” dropped 91 percent of all bombs falling on military losses. USSBS members, who had deployed to on Japan, and 96 percent of all tonnage The Navy had played a supporting Japan under survey chief Franklin D’Olier fell in the last five months of the war. Air role in the defeat of Germany, but felt shortly after the surrender, interviewed attacks destroyed hundreds of factories it had enjoyed a dominant role in the Japanese leaders to find out what brought and thousands of “feeder industrial units.” Pacific. The Navy therefore insisted on about capitulation. The Japanese attempted to disperse into writing a series of reports detailing the The chief cabinet secretary, Hisatsune underground factories and caves to avert history of naval operations in the theater, Sakomizu, said, “The chance had come the attacks, but this effort only further including amphibious operations in the to end the war. It was not necessary to dissipated scarce resources. Japanese South Pacific and central Pacific areas. blame the military side, the manufacturing industrial production dropped between For the Navy, these operations were es- people, or anyone else—just the atomic November 1944 and July 1945. In the sential preludes to the bomber offensive bomb. It was a good excuse.” cities not bombed, production in June beginning in November 1944 from the Kantaro Suzuki, the premier, confirmed 1945 was at 94 percent of its wartime Marianas. Clearly, it was looking ahead this, but stated he needed the right cir- peak, but in bombed cities, production to peacetime, when the major issue of cumstances to overcome the intransigence fell to 27 percent of its acme. By July a separate Air Force would be decided. of the military leaders, and the atomic 1945 aluminum production was at nine As in Europe, there were synergies in strikes gave him that opportunity. percent, while oil refining and ingot steel the industrial collapse, and the Navy’s The atomic bomb drops continued production were at 15 percent of their unrestricted submarine warfare cam- to cause controversy, and the USSBS high points. paign was important in reducing the added to this debate by asserting that The survey concluded that “by July These leaflets were dropped on 35 Japan would have surrendered by Nov. 1 1945, Japan’s economic system had Japanese cities, including Hiroshima without the use of atomic bombs, without been shattered. Production of civilian and Nagasaki, on Aug. 1, 1945. On the an invasion, and without Russia enter- goods was below the level of subsistence. reverse side, written in Japanese, was a ing the war—implying the bombs were Munitions output had been curtailed to warning for civilians in these possible unnecessary. less than half the wartime target cities. But the survey’s prediction of a Japa- peak, a level that could not nese surrender by November was based support sustained mili- on the assumption that the crescendo of tary operations against bombing just noted would soon begin. our opposing forces. The With the arrival of Eighth Air Force on economic basis of Japa- Okinawa, the tonnage of bombs dropped nese resistance had been on Japan was scheduled to nearly triple destroyed.” beginning in September. The devastation Eight-and-a-half mil- to Japan would have been different, but lion people evacuated enormous nonetheless. Japanese cities. This was What if there had been no bombing at a quarter of the urban all and no invasion? Would the US Navy’s population, although in blockade have been more humane? The big cities such as Osaka 58 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2011 supply of raw materials to the home islands. B-29 air bases were won by the combined efforts of the Army, Navy, and AAF. The bombers then struck Japanese aircraft factories, but these factories were already low on aluminum supplies due to the blockade. However, even when aircraft were built, there were no engines to power them because bombing had destroyed the power plant factories. Even if engines had been available, there was no petroleum to fuel them because of the blockade. If there had been petroleum, oil refineries had been destroyed from the air—limiting gasoline production. The Navy’s strangulation blockade was greatly assisted by the B-29 campaign that mined inland waterways and plas- tered Japanese airfields where kamikaze pilots took off. The Japanese food situation was also precarious. As the war progressed, more and more farmers had to leave the land to fight or to work in the factories, thus causing food shortages. Submarines cut sea lines, and aerial mines sown by B-29s lowered imports. The bombing of factories cut fertilizer production, reducing crop yields. The need to rebuild bombed fac- tories pulled more farmers off the land, and by the end of the war, more than one million acres of arable land were aban- doned. There were many such examples that demonstrated a vicious and ever tightening downward spiral from which Japan could not recover. Japanese leaders were presented with multiple catastrophic B-29s fly over USS Missouri during the surrender ceremony aboard the battleship failures they could not handle; one or two in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945. If not for the bombers, Japan could have held out for of the above might be managed, but not months longer against the naval blockade. all of them. Overall, at least 330,000 Japanese civil- utterly hopeless to the Japanese and their thousands of interviews conducted, the ians were killed by the air attacks, about leaders. No doubt Japan could have gone painstaking measurements taken, are the same total as in Germany, although on for months—perhaps years—if the only simply too massive to refute. the losses occurred in much less time threats were the starvation blockade and More importantly, the USSBS provided and with only one-tenth the tonnage. In the slow but inexorable creep of Allied airmen in the immediate postwar years addition, about 2.5 million homes were armies toward the home islands. the unimpeachable evidence they needed destroyed in the air attacks, and more As Premier Suzuki phrased it, “Merely to carry on the fight for institutional inde- than 600,000 others were pulled down on the basis of the B-29s alone I was con- pendence. The survey’s reports, and espe- by the government to build firebreaks. vinced that Japan should sue for peace.” cially the concise and readily obtainable The air campaign was not, however, a More specifically, the psychological effect summary volumes, were widely circulated total success. The biggest strategic error of the atomic bombs created a climate and quoted in the years to follow. made by the planners, according to the within the Japanese leadership allowing There is still much to be gained from survey, was that B-29s should have struck the emperor to overrule his hard-line these documents. For airmen today, the railroads and inland waterways sooner. military advisors. hundreds of detailed surveys still provide Such attacks would have thoroughly The overwhelming authority of the a rich and deeply authoritative mother disrupted internal transportation, as well USSBS is unassailable. Nothing like lode of information regarding the ef- as significantly curtailed reinforcements it has ever been attempted after a war. fectiveness of the AAF’s World War II to the island of Kyushu—the site of the The mountain of evidence obtained, the bombing effort. n proposed invasion in November 1945. The B-29s played a decisive role in the Phillip S. Meilinger is a retired Air Force pilot with 30 years of service and a doctorate defeat of Japan. Aerial bombardment re- in military history from the University of Michigan. He is the author of eight books and inforced the naval blockade that disrupted more than 80 articles on military affairs. His latest book is Into the Sun: Novels of the the economy of the country as a whole, but US Air Force. His most recent article for Air Force Magazine, “The USSBS’ Eye on primarily it made ultimate victory seem Europe,” appeared in October. AIR FORCE Magazine / December 2011 59