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US bombing campaign in WWII Just read a book, The Bomber Mafia', about the US bombing campaigns in Germany and Japan. The Bomber Mafia was small group of USAAC officers who believed that it was possible to fight a less destructive war by striking enemy chokepoints such as ball bearing factories and oil refineries. The British were devotees of area bombing. What I learned was: - The Norden bombsite wasn't all that effective in practice. A good bombardier could 'put a bomb into a pickle barrel' under ideal conditions wit h no opposition attacking the aircraft. Never happened in practice. On one of the Shweinfurt raids the B17's dropped 2,000 bombs and one was on target. After Curtis Lemay took over the bombing of Japan he destroyed 57 cities using napalm. He thought that dropping the A bombs on Japan was useless since he thought had already brought Japan to heel. His bombers killed more people when they fire bombed Tokyo than were killed at Hiroshima or Nagasaki. |
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