"The Big Goodbye"

The next few posts are all copies of the essays I wrote today for my US History 2 and World War 2 classes.

The goals, which America hoped to achieve through World War Two, were make the world safer for democracy and peace. This could only be obtained by an allied victory over the Axis powers. To secure victory, the American leaders came up with five command decisions to ensure an allied victory. These decisions included the strategic bombing campaign of Germany, the Mediterranean campaign, Germany first, unconditional surrender and finally the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The first decision to discuss is the Strategic Bombing Campaign of Germany. Douhet had stated that “the bomber would always get through”. It seemed that with the use of the long-range bomber, every city in Germany would now be a target for attack. Germany would have to be able to build enough fighter planes to defend each and every city, not knowing which city might be chosen for attack on any given day. However, the Germans had also been developing bombers of their own. It then became necessary for both sides to build planes to escort and protect the bombers against enemy attack. Improvements in radar made it easier to defend the cities, as now it could be predicted easier the course the bombers were on. Both military and civilian targets were chosen to attack, with the intention to hurt the economy both by destroying its military capabilities and by instilling fear in the civilian population.
At Casablanca, the U.S. and U.K. agreed on operation “point blank”. They focused on submarine construction docks, German aircraft industries, transportation, and oil plants. The Americans took the daytime to focus on precision bombing of “bottlenecks”, while the British took the nighttime to bomb “other targets”.
The destruction caused by the campaign was horrendous. In Hamburg, as well as several other cities, the bombing provoked a firestorm, which engulfed the city. Feeding off the oxygen, it created cyclone speed winds, and produced temperatures of 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. Over 30,000 were dead at Hamburg alone. The effectiveness of the campaign proved to be not as great as hoped. Instead of the bomber being able to fly at ease, bombing any target it chose it turned instead into trench warfare of sorts in the sky. The allies were picking the right targets to bomb, but not until it was almost too late. British bombers suffered a 65% casualty rate. The devotion money time and effort to the campaign delayed the cross channel invasion by almost two years. It failed to lower German morale, and the most glaring stat is that it took 9% of the American economy to destroy 9% of the German economy.
The second command decision will be Germany first. Rainbow 5 was the plan developed for a joint U.S., U.K. attack against Japan and Germany. The idea would be if both Japan and Germany declared war on us at the same time, we would focus on Germany first. We would abandon all of out defenses in the Philippines withdrawing to the Baton Peninsula and defending to the last. The rest of the pacific fleet would withdraw to Pearl Harbor where it would regroup, and prevent further Japanese aggression. Meanwhile, the rest of the navy, army and air force would join with Great Britain in taking on Germany. After all, if England fell to Germany, then they would have control of the British fleet. There would be slim chance of defeating both the German, British and Japanese fleets combined. Also, Germany was more powerful than Italy and Japan. You could defeat those two countries and Germany would still be fine, however with out Germany, they would be greatly weakened. The U.S. was very concerned with getting Russia into our concert of powers, trying to convince them it was in their best interests to do so. We felt a policy of attacking Germany first would be a good way of showing our trustworthiness. The fear was that Germany and Russia might strike a separate peace accord.
Problems with the Germany first plan were that it never happened. We first focused our forces in North Africa and then in Italy, before ever setting foot on mainland Europe. Germany first became British Empire first, as Churchill had us fighting where he thought was wise. This was in North Africa, namely Algeria and Morocco, which were controlled by Vichy France. So now Germany first had become Vichy France first. Finally we went after Italy, and Germany first had become Italy first.
This leads into the third decision, the Allied Mediterranean Campaign.
If Churchill wished to protect British interests in the Middle East, the quickest route of access to the region was through the Mediterranean. Therefore, we focused the better part of three years in the region taking North Africa and Italy. The problem was that it also delayed the cross channel invasion by two years. By the time we were prepared for D-Day, the Germans were much better prepared than they had been in ‘42 or even ‘43 for that matter. The only benefit of the campaign was the priceless experience that American troops received due to the fighting and operations.
The fourth decision was the idea of unconditional surrender. If Japan, Italy or Germany wished to give up, then they must do so utterly and completely. They would have no room for negotiation, or dictation of terms on their parts. They would disarm entirely and give up any means to arm themselves again. The leaders of the nations would be ousted and democracies would be set up in their place. Each nation would fall under the military jurisdiction of the allies. The problem with this is that all it did was cause the people of the nations to fight harder against the allies, willing to sacrifice all instead of being turned into possible “pasture” states.
The final command decision was the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We picked Hiroshima and Nagasaki for one reason. They were both cities not yet touched by the war. They might have lost sons of theirs in battle, but their had been no bombings in these cities for a very specific reason. They had been chosen for a very special demonstration of the full power of the United States. “You prefer another target, a military target? Then name the system!” This saved countless American and Japanese lives in the long run. Even after the 2nd bomb had been dropped, the Japanese military still would not agree to surrender. They threatened the emperor with his life when he attempted to. Finally one Admiral who was loyal to the emperor convinced the other to honor his decision. The accord struck with the Americans was that he would surrender, and we would allow him to stay in power until free elections would be held.
At wars end, the United States had come out on the side of the victors. We had made the western world at least a better place safe for democracy and peace. Despite our best efforts however we alienated Stalin, and the USSR emerged from the war almost as strong as we did. This set up the 45-year stare down between the two superpowers. For the most part the five command decisions achieved the overall goals they set. The act of carrying them out however seemed to be deeply flawed in implementation.

~Oz