Hitting Home The Air Offensive Against Japan Illustrated Edition

The story of the strategic bombardment of Japan's home islands, from the modest but dramatic Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April 1942,through the effort to bomb from bases in China, to the raids from the Marianas in the Pacific, and finally, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Photos.

Includes 20 illustrations The strategic bombardment of Japan during World War II remains one of the most controversial subjects of military history because it involved the first and only use of atomic weapons in war. It also raised the question of whether strategic bombing alone can win wars, a question that dominated U.S. Air Force thinking for a generation. Without question, the strategic bombing of Japan contributed very heavily to the Japanese decision to surrender. The United States and her allies did not have to invade the home islands, an invasion that would have cost many thousands of lives on both sides. This pamphlet traces the development of the bombing of the Japanese home islands, from the modest but dramatic Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April 1942, through the effort to bomb from bases in China that were supplied by airlift over the Himalayas, to the huge 500-plane raids from the Marianas in the Pacific. The campaign changed from precision daylight bombing to night incendiary bombing of Japanese cities and ultimately to the use of atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The story covers the debut of the spectacular B-29 aircraft—in many ways the most awesome weapon of World War II— and its use not only as a bomber but also as a mine-layer. Hitting Home is the sequel to High Road to Tokyo Bay, a pamphlet by the same author that concentrated on Army Air Forces’ tactical operations in Asia and the Pacific areas during World War II. Taken together, they provide an overview of U.S. Army Air Forces’ operations, tactical and strategic, against Japan. The U.S. air offensive against Japan is the central story of the Pacific war—a drama of human courage and sacrifice and of a unique partnership among modern air, sea, and land forces.

The air campaign that incinerated Japan's cities was the first and only time that independent air power has won a war. As the United States pushed Imperial Japan back towards Tokyo Bay, the US Army Air Force deployed the first of a new bomber to the theater. The B-29 Superfortress was complex, troubled, and hugely advanced. It was the most expensive weapons system of the war, and formidably capable. But at the time, no strategic bombing campaign had ever brought about a nation's surrender. Not only that, but Japan was half a world away, and the US had no airfields even within the extraordinary range of the B-29. This analysis explains why the B-29s struggled at first, and how General LeMay devised radical and devastating tactics that began to systematically incinerate Japanese cities and industries and eliminate its maritime trade with aerial mining. It explains how and why this campaign was so uniquely successful, and how gaps in Japan's defences contributed to the B-29s' success.

One of the most heroic World War II air raids by US forces was the one that killed Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Combined Japanese Fleet and the man who planned the Pearl Harbor and Midway attacks in 1941 and 1942. The raid occurred on April 18, 1943, exactly one year after the famous Doolittle raid on Japan, but it accomplished more by eliminating Japan's most important admiral and leading strategist. This account stresses the crucial teamwork and planning, by codebreakers, strategic leaders, and pilots of the US Marine Corps, the US Navy, and the Army Air Corps, which achieved an almost miraculous interception. Those issues outweigh in significance the great controversy that emerged over the question of which of the pilots actually shot down the Yamamoto aircraft.