The ability of the American air forces to wage war independently and to carry the battle to the enemy's heartland has played a critical role in American air doctrine and military strategy since the 1930s. Generals LeMay, Johnson, Burchinal, and Catton explain their roles in flying and commanding bombing missions and campaigns during World War II, in creating the atomic force in the immediate postwar years, and in building the Strategic Air Command in the 1950s. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War are also discussed.

A major revision of our understanding of long-range bombing, this book examines how Anglo-American ideas about "strategic" bombing were formed and implemented. It argues that ideas about bombing civilian targets rested on--and gained validity from--widespread but substantially erroneous assumptions about the nature of modern industrial societies and their vulnerability to aerial bombardment. These assumptions were derived from the social and political context of the day and were maintained largely through cognitive error and bias. Tami Davis Biddle explains how air theorists, and those influenced by them, came to believe that strategic bombing would be an especially effective coercive tool and how they responded when their assumptions were challenged. Biddle analyzes how a particular interpretation of the World War I experience, together with airmen's organizational interests, shaped interwar debates about strategic bombing and preserved conceptions of its potentially revolutionary character. This flawed interpretation as well as a failure to anticipate implementation problems were revealed as World War II commenced. By then, the British and Americans had invested heavily in strategic bombing. They saw little choice but to try to solve the problems in real time and make long-range bombing as effective as possible. Combining narrative with analysis, this book presents the first-ever comparative history of British and American strategic bombing from its origins through 1945. In examining the ideas and rhetoric on which strategic bombing depended, it offers critical insights into the validity and robustness of those ideas--not only as they applied to World War II but as they apply to contemporary warfare.

In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

An Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton. In June, 1984 some thirty-five of the retired four-star generals of the USAF gathered in Washington D.C. Form that group, several agreed to participate in a group oral interview on the history of strategic air warfare. Strategic Air Warfare is part of a continuing series of historical volumes produced by the Office of Air Force History in direct support of Project Warrior. Since its beginnings, Project Warrior has captured the imagination of Air Force people around the world and reawakened a keener appreciation of its fundamental purpose as a service - to deter war, but to be prepared to fight and wind should deterrence fail.

This book seeks to recount the air experience and development before World War II, to describe the objectives, plans and effects of strategic air warfare in Europe and in the Pacific, and to offer criticism, opinion, and lessons of that great conflict. MAJOR GENERAL HAYWOOD S. HANSELL, JR., USAF (Retired), is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology (1924), he entered the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1928. Trained as a fighter pilot, he flew in the Air Corps Aerobatic and Demonstration Team (1932) led by Captain Claire Chennault. In the mid-1930s Hansell specialized in strategic bombardment, teaching tactics and doctrine at the Air Corps Tactical School from 1935 to 1938. Just prior to World War II, he went to Army Air Forces Headquarters where he helped draft the fundamental war requirements plan for the service. In 1942 he became Commanding General, Third Bombardment Wing (B-26s), Eighth Air Force, in the European Theater. Subsequently General Hansell commanded the First Bombardment Division (B-17s), Eighth Air Force, and in 1944-45 the XXI Bomber Command (B-29s), Twentieth Air Force, in the Pacific. The latter command was one of only two long-range B-29 commands conducting strategic air warfare against Japan. In 1946 he retired, suffering from a physical disability. During the Korean War (1950-53), the Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force recalled him to active duty, assigning him as Chief, Military Assistance Program Headquarters, USAF, and subsequently as Air Member Review Board, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group, reporting to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Research and Development and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After four years as a senior program manager and advisor, General Hansell retired again. He is the author of The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (1972) and Strategic Air War Against Japan (1980).