Reviews

Japan 1944-45: Lemay's B-29 Strategic Bombing Campaign by Mark Lardas

markk's review

informative medium-paced

4.0

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki typically is credited with bringing an end to the Second World War in the Pacific. Though their use is familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of history, less well known is the destructive bombing campaign that precede their use. From the summer of 1944 until the day the Japanese emperor announced his country’s surrender. American bombers waged a devastating bombing campaign against the Home Islands. By its end, entire cities were in ruin, and the industrial base Japan needed to sustain their war effort was almost totally destroyed. 

Because of this, advocates of strategic bombing have pointed to the campaign as evidence that air power alone can win wars. Though Mark Lardas stops short of joining their ranks, his brief study of the campaign underscores many of the points in its favor, such as the destruction of Japan’s industrial base and the severe problems with food production and distribution caused by the B-29 attacks. That he situates these judgments in an evenhanded and astute assessment of both the raids and the response to it adds to the credence of these conclusions, making for a favorable study of the campaign that nonetheless offers a highly credible evaluation of its prospects on its own terms. 

Lardas begins this by offering a comparative assessment of the capabilities of the two sides. For the Americans, his focus is on the B-29 Superfortress, the heavy bomber that was indispensable to their plans. Originating in a prewar requirement for a next-generation bomber, the B-29 was the only plane with the range and payload required to attack Japan from the prospective bases in the Pacific and Asia. Even then, it was not until the summer of 1944 that the “island-hopping” campaign had captured islands close enough to Japan to make such a campaign possible, while efforts to launch attacks from China proved burdensome to stage and produced minimal results. When raids began from the Marianas in late 1944, these proved equally disappointing to advocates of precision bombing, as the high altitudes at which the B-29s flew made hitting the target a matter of luck. 

This changed when General Curtis LeMay took over operations. An aggressive leader, he rejected his predecessor’s exclusive commitment to high-altitude precision bombing in favor of using incendiary bombs dropped from lower altitudes. This proved devastatingly effective, with between 80,000-150,000 Japanese killed in the initial attack on Tokyo on March 10, 1945 and over a quarter of a million buildings destroyed. Similar success was enjoyed in attacks on the other major metropolitan areas, so much so that LeMay was forced to switch back to using regular bombs because his men had exhausted the available stockpiles. LeMay's flexibility was reflected as well in his acceptance of the United States Navy’s request to use the B-29s to drop aerial mines off of Japan's coast, a decision which strategic bombing advocates abhorred but which crippled Japanese maritime trade. 

LeMay’s operations were aided by the ineffectiveness of the Japanese response, the coverage of which is one of the most valuable aspects of Lardas's book. Despite having plenty of fighters and an adequate early warning system, Japan’s defenses were undercut by unnecessary duplication and a lack of coordination between the army and navy, both of whom shared in the aerial defense of the Home Islands. Even worse was the inadequate civil defense and firefighting preparations, which were soon overwhelmed by the ferocity of the Americans’ attack. By the summer of 1945, the Japanese had largely given up on attempting to intercept the growing numbers of B-29s raining bombs onto their country, as they sought to husband their resources for the anticipated American invasion that they anticipated would happen soon. 

That invasion was forestalled by the decision to surrender. And while Lardas acknowledges sensibly that we can never say for certain whether conventional bombing alone could have achieved the same result, he notes that the campaign had already crippled Japan’s efforts to defend against one. This is a judgment that Lardas bases on his reading of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey reports and other primary sources produced immediately after the war. Though his heavy reliance on them leaves him vulnerable to their bias in favor of demonstrating the campaign’s effectiveness, it also provides a level of analysis that elevates his own book to the forefront of studies about the conflict. For anyone seeking to learn about the United States Army Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign against Japan, this is a good place to begin.