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Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land.Template:RTemplate:RTemplate:R<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in the same way that a carpet covers a floor. Carpet bombing is usually achieved by dropping many unguided bombs.
Carpet bombing of cities, towns, villages, or other areas containing a concentration of protected civilians has been considered a war crime since 1977,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> through Article 51 of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.<ref name=Britannica>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The term obliteration bombing is sometimes used to describe especially intensified bombing with the intention of destroying a city or a large part of the city. The term area bombing refers to indiscriminate bombing of an area and also encompasses cases of carpet bombing, including obliteration bombing. It was used in that sense especially during World War II and the Korean War.<ref name=p />
Early historyEdit
One of the first attempts at carpet bombing was at the Battle of El Mazuco during the Spanish Civil War in 1937,<ref>Juan Antonio de Blas, "El Mazuco (La defensa imposible)" (pp369–383), in La guerra civil en Asturias, Ediciones Júcar, Gijón 1986.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> against widely-dispersed infantry on rocky slopes, and the attacking Condor Legion learned that carpet bombing was not very effective in such terrain.
In March 1938, the Bombing of Barcelona saw Italian and German airstrikes killing up to 1,300 people and wounding 2,000. It is considered the first carpet bombing of a city,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Failed verification and set a precedent for several such bombings in World War II.
The Japanese bombing of China's wartime capital Chongqing from 18 February 1938 to 23 August 1943 caused 23,600 deaths and over 30,000 wounded.Template:Cn
During World War IIEdit
Pre-war expectationEdit
In the inter-war years, a growing expectation developed that, on the outbreak of war, cities would be rapidly destroyed by bombing raids. The use of poison gas was expected and a high level of devastation was anticipated from high explosive bombs. This originated, in part, from the views of military experts such as Douhet, and was taken up by politicians and journalists, with, for example, Stanley Baldwin coining the phrase "The bomber will always get through". The targeting of the civilian population would, some theories suggested, cause a breakdown in morale that would lead to civil unrest that would compel a government to surrender. The combatant powers could, according to Baldwin, be in a competition to break the morale of the other side's civilian population first.Template:Sfn
There were two results from this. Firstly, civil defence programs were set up, with gas masks being issued, plans for air raid shelters were set up and organisations to manage civilians before a raid and deal with damage and casualties after one were put in place. Secondly, agreements were sought to make the targeting of civilians illegal under international law. At the time that Douhet and others were publishing their ideas, no air force had planned their capabilities with the intent of making a "knockout blow" against civilian targets.Template:Sfn The Hague Rules of Air Warfare were developed in 1922/23 to prevent deliberately attacking civilians, yet it was not ratified by any country.Template:Sfn At the start of World War II, the Royal Air Force had an initial instruction to abide by the Hague Rules for as long as the enemy did.Template:Sfn This restraint was followed by both Britain and Germany until 11 May 1940, when, with Winston Churchill now in the role of Prime Minister and the war in France going badly, the RAF attacked industrial and transport infrastructure targets in Mönchengladbach. This raid caused civilian casualties.Template:Sfn
Bombing by GermanyEdit
In the European theatre, the first city to suffer heavily from aerial bombardment was Warsaw, on 25 September 1939 following the start of the German invasion of Poland.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Continuing this trend in warfare, the Rotterdam Blitz was an aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by 90 bombers of the German air force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands. The objective was to support the German assault on the city, break Dutch resistance, and force the Dutch to surrender. Despite a ceasefire, the bombing destroyed almost the entire historic city centre, killing nearly nine hundred civilians and leaving 30,000 people homeless. The destructive success of the bombing led the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL, the Luftwaffe high command) to threaten to destroy the city of Utrecht if the Dutch Government did not surrender. The Dutch capitulated early the next morning.Template:Sfn
As the war progressed, the Battle of Britain developed from a fight for air supremacy into the strategic and aerial bombing of London, Liverpool, Coventry and other British cities.
Bombing by the Western AlliesEdit
Template:Quotebox At the beginning of war, RAF Bomber Command lacked both the navigation systems for finding a target and the numbers of bombers that were needed to make attacks of any scale in Germany.
As heavy bombers were brought into service and technology and tactics were improved, the selection of targets was changed. The intention of avoiding civilian casualties as collateral damage disappeared. Instead, the civilian population which worked in war-related industriesTemplate:Sndand their housingTemplate:Sndbecame the target.
Some of this change came from a wish to retaliate for the German attack on Coventry.Template:Efn It was also based on what was learnt from being the target in the Blitz. It had been found that factory buildings were more resistant to critical damage than the homes of their workers. Absenteeism of the workforce rose significantly if their housing was uninhabitable, so affecting industrial production. Whilst morale was still discussed, the meaning of the word changed from its pre-war usage. Now a reduction in morale was intended to reduce industrial production that supported the war effort.Template:Sfn The area bombing directive was issued to RAF Bomber Command in 1942
The Eighth Air Force of the USAAF arrived in Britain over the summer of 1942. Despite Roosevelt's pleas to Hitler to avoid bombing civilians prior to the US joining the war, he was a supporter of bombing Germany. Both Churchill and Roosevelt were in the position that Stalin was pressing for the Western Allies to open a new front in EuropeTemplate:Sndsomething which they were not ready to do. Therefore a bombing campaign - the Combined Bomber Offensive - following the Casablanca directive to the Allied air forces was all they could offer to support the Soviet Union.
Operation Gomorrah, carried out by Bomber Command against Hamburg, targeted a city with both high susceptibility to fire and a large number of factories making products for the German war effort. The raid caused substantial damage to the city, especially the housing of industrial workers. A carefully developed mix of high explosive bombs and incendiaries was used. High explosives broke windows and made fire-fighting dangerous, whilst the incendiaries set the buildings on fire. This methodology was used for further attacks on urban areas (though not with such major effect) throughout the war, with Dresden being one of the final targets.Template:Sfn
Carpet bombing was also used as close air support (as "flying artillery") for ground operations. The massive bombing was concentrated in a narrow and shallow area of the front (a few kilometers by a few hundred meters deep), closely coordinated with the advance of friendly troops. The first successful use of the technique was on 6 May 1943, at the end of the Tunisia Campaign. Carried out under Sir Arthur Tedder, it was hailed by the press as Tedder's bomb-carpet (or Tedder's carpet). The bombing was concentrated in a four by three-mile area, preparing the way for the First Army.<ref name=Richards>Template:Cite book</ref> This tactic was later used in many cases in the Normandy Campaign; for example, in the Battle for Caen.<ref name=Levine>Template:Cite book</ref>
Pacific WarEdit
In the Pacific War, carpet bombing was used extensively against Japanese cities such as Tokyo.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="ieer">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On the night of 9–10 March 1945, 334 B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers were directed to attack the most heavily populated civilian sectors of Tokyo.<ref name=Selden>Template:Cite book</ref> In just one night, over 100,000 people burned to death from a heavy bombardment of incendiary bombs,<ref name=Selden /> comparable to the wartime number of U.S. casualties in the entire Pacific theater.<ref name=Selden /> Another 100,000 to one million Japanese were left homeless.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> These attacks were followed by similar ones against Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya, as well as other sectors of Tokyo, where over 9,373 tons<ref name=Selden /> of incendiary bombs were dropped on civilian and military targets. By the time of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, light and medium bombers were being directed to bomb targets of convenience, as most urban areas had already been destroyed. In the 9-month long bombing campaign, over 300,000 Japanese civilians died and 400,000 were wounded.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
During the final months of the war in the Philippines, the United States military used carpet bombing against the Japanese forces in Manila and Baguio, reducing much of the cities to rubble.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Manila became the second-most-destroyed city of World War II.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Korean WarEdit
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From June 1950, air forces of the United Nations Command began an extensive bombing campaign against North Korea that lasted until the end of the Korean War in July 1953. The American strategic bombing campaign destroyed 85% of North Korea's buildings and 95% of its power generation.<ref>Harden, Blaine (2017). King of Spies: The Dark Reign of America's Spymaster in Korea. New York, p. 9.</ref> Conventional weapons such as explosives, incendiary bombs, and napalm destroyed nearly all of the Korea's cities and towns.<ref name="Robinson 119-120">Template:Cite book</ref>
Between June and October 1950, USAF Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-29 bombers carried out massive aerial attacks on transport centers and industrial hubs in North Korea. Having soon established air supremacy by the destruction of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force in the air and on the ground, FEAF bombers encountered no resistance and "the sky over North Korea was their safe front yard."<ref name="Kim2012">Template:Cite journal</ref> On 3 November, Douglas MacArthur agreed for the first time to a firebombing campaign, agreeing to General George E. Stratemeyer's request to burn Kanggye and several other towns. That evening, MacArthur's chief of staff told Stratemeyer that the firebombing of Sinuiju had also been approved. Stratemeyer sent orders to the Fifth Air Force and Bomber Command to
"destroy every means of communications and every installation, factory, city, and village".<ref name="ConwayLanz">Template:Cite journal</ref>
On 5 November, 22 B-29s attacked Kanggye, destroying 75% of the city.<ref name="Kim2012"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the failure of the Chinese Fifth Phase Offensive and the UN May–June 1951 counteroffensive, from July 1951, while the ground war became static when the UN and the PVA/KPA fought but exchanged little territory, large-scale bombing of North Korea continued.
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North Korea suffered heavy damage from U.S. bombing. Major General William F. Dean, the highest-ranking U.S. POW from the war, reported that the majority of North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wasteland.<ref>William F Dean (1954) General Dean's Story, (as told to William L Worden), Viking Press, pp. 272–73.</ref> North Korean factories, schools, hospitals, and government offices were forced to move underground, and air defenses were "non-existent".<ref name="japanfocus.org">Template:Cite journal</ref> North Korea ranks as among the most heavily bombed countries in history,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Fisher">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the U.S. dropped a total of 635,000 tons of bombs (including 32,557 tons of napalm) on Korea, more than during the entire Pacific War.<ref name="japanfocus.org" /> By the end of the war, eighteen of the twenty-two major cities in North Korea had been at least half obliterated according to damage assessments by the U.S. Air Force.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Vietnam WarEdit
During the Vietnam War, with the escalating situation in Southeast Asia, twenty-eight B-52Fs were fitted with external racks for twenty-four 750-pound (340 kg) bombs under project South Bay in June 1964; an additional forty-six aircraft received similar modifications under project Sun Bath.<ref name=var_2_p103>Lake International Air Power Review Summer 2003, p. 103.</ref> In March 1965, the United States commenced Operation Rolling Thunder. The first combat mission, Operation Arc Light, was flown by B-52Fs on 18 June 1965, when 30 bombers of the 9th and 441st Bombardment Squadrons struck a communist stronghold near the Bến Cát District in South Vietnam. The first wave of bombers arrived too early at a designated rendezvous point, and while maneuvering to maintain station, two B-52s collided, which resulted in the loss of both bombers and eight crewmen. The remaining bombers, minus one more that turned back for mechanical problems, continued toward the target.<ref>Anderson, William. "Guam Jets Bomb S. Viet." Template:Webarchive Chicago Tribune, 18 June 1965.</ref> Twenty-seven Stratofortresses dropped on a one-mile by two-mile target box from between Template:Convert, a little more than 50% of the bombs falling within the target zone.Template:Sfn The force returned to Andersen AFB except for one bomber with electrical problems that recovered to Clark AFB, the mission having lasted 13 hours. Post-strike assessment by teams of South Vietnamese troops with American advisors found evidence that the VC had departed the area before the raid, and it was suspected that infiltration of the south's forces may have tipped off the north because of the ARVN troops involved in the post-strike inspection.Template:Sfn
Beginning in late 1965, a number of B-52Ds underwent Big Belly modifications to increase bomb capacity for carpet bombings.Template:Sfn While the external payload remained at twenty-four 500-pound (227 kg) or 750-pound (340 kg) bombs, the internal capacity increased from twenty-seven to eighty-four 500-pound bombs or from twenty-seven to forty-two 750-pound bombs.Template:Sfn The modification created enough capacity for a total of 60,000 pounds (27,215 kg) in one hundred and eight bombs. Thus modified, B-52Ds could carry 22,000 pounds (9,980 kg) more than B-52Fs.Template:Sfn Designed to replace B-52Fs, modified B-52Ds entered combat in April 1966 flying from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. Each bombing mission lasted 10 to 12 hours with an aerial refueling by KC-135 Stratotankers.Template:Sfn In spring 1967, the aircraft began flying from U Tapao Airfield in Thailand giving the aircraft the advantage of not requiring in-flight refueling.Template:Sfn
The zenith of B-52 attacks in Vietnam was Operation Linebacker II (sometimes referred to as the Christmas Bombing) which consisted of waves of B-52s (mostly D models, but some Gs without jamming equipment and with a smaller bomb load). Over 12 days, B-52s flew 729 sortiesTemplate:Sfn and dropped 15,237 tons of bombs on Hanoi, Haiphong, and other targets.Template:Sfnm Originally 42 B-52s were committed to the war; however, numbers were frequently twice this figure.Template:Sfn
See alsoEdit
- Aerial bombardment and international law
- Aerial bombing of cities
- Area bombardment
- Bombing of Warsaw in World War II
- Churchill's advocacy of chemical strike against German cities
- Civilian casualties of strategic bombing
- Giulio Douhet, an early theorist of bombing
- Roerich Pact
- Strategic bombing
- Tactical bombing
- Terror bombing
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
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External linksEdit
- "Bombs Over Cambodia" from The Walrus