The Air Force's effect in World War II

The Air Force's effect in World War II

The 1940 Air Force Basic Aerospace Doctrine Manual defines Air Force doctrine as what we have learned about aerospace power and its application since the dawn of powered flight (Kershaw, 2001). It states that doctrine is a broad conceptual basis for our understanding of war, human nature, and aerospace power. Finally, it declares that doctrine is the starting point for solving contemporary problems. 1940's manual, which appeared in late 1941, reaffirmed these points, and the growing emphasis in the USAF on combat in space. In the starting it states, air and space doctrine is a statement of officially sanctioned beliefs and war fighting principles that describe and guide the proper use of air and space forces in military operations. It emphasizes that air and space doctrine is an accumulation of knowledge gained primarily from the study and analysis of experience which may include actual combat or contingency operations as well as equipment tests or exercises. Last it declares that it must be emphasised that doctrine development is never complete. As I conclude that although doctrine may not fulfil all of the requirements of a formal academic definition of theory, it fulfils most of the same functions and in that sense forms a 'poor man's' theory of air power.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Air Corps and AAF sought status as an independent service by arguing that they were a decisive force in winning World War II. In the post-war era, the independent USAF became the strategic umbrella under which all other national defence policies sheltered (Murray & Millett, 2001). In Korea and Vietnam, the USAF believed it could have been a core component of victory by being a dominating factor on and beyond the battlefield. Since Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, and Kosovo have apparently proven that, undergirded by appropriate weapons technology, current air power theory and doctrine are indeed the major components of modern military success.

Prior to the Gulf War, in the sum total of human history, not even powerful industrial nations such as the United States had had the ability or opportunity to realize this dream. World War II witnessed enormous numbers of Allied heavy-bomber strikes against German and Japanese targets—daylight precision attacks and nighttime urban saturation fire bombing raids. Although these attacks brought great destruction upon the enemy and afforded the Allies air supremacy ...