Black J. World War Two A Military History

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destroy opposing economies and, more particularly, that large

bombers would be able to fight off fighter attack and thus not require

fighter escorts.

As a result, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had twice as

many bombers as fighters for most of the inter-war period. These

bombers were seen not only as likely to be effective in war, but also

as a deterrent against attack. Priorities were not changed until 1937.

The American Air Corps Tactical School developed a policy of high-

flying daylight precision bombing designed to damage an opponent’s

industrial system. This later greatly influenced American policy in

World War Two, but, in practice, precision was to be difficult to

achieve,

and it also took a very long time to work out what were

the key targets to hit in a modern industrial war machine.

Meanwhile, seeking a strategic bombing force that could act as a

deterrent and also as a strategic threat, Germany had initially led in

the development of the four-engine bomber: the ‘Ural’ or ‘Amerika’

bomber. However, only prototypes were built. The capability to

produce the engines necessary for the planned heavy bombers was

lacking. In 1937, the four-engined bomber programme was aban-

doned. In 1939, Britain and America were the only countries with

bombers in production suitable for strategic bombing.

Strategic air power had captured the imagination of many, sowing

fears that the bombing of civilian targets would be decisive in a

future war.This affected British thinking at the time of the Munich

crisis in 1938. In practice, as World War Two was to show, Douhet

had exaggerated the potential of bombing (as well as underesti-

mating the size of bomber forces required to give effect to his plans),

and underplayed the value of tactical air support. In addition, the

concentration on air defence affected the allocation of scarce

resources.

The inter-war use of air power had already suggested that it

might be less effective than its protagonists claimed, but the conflicts

of the 1920s and 1930s, for example the use of aircraft against insur-

gents in Morocco and Iraq, offered only limited guidance because

they did not happen between equally balanced air forces, while rapid

technological developments soon made equipment outdated. The

conflicts were also inadequately analysed. The spectacular terror

bombing of civilian targets in the Spanish Civil War, particularly

Madrid (1936), Guernica (1937) and Barcelona (1938), by German

BACKGROUND

and Italian planes sent to help Franco’s Nationalists, did not actually

play a significant role in the result of the conflict.The war, neverthe-

less, suggested to the Germans that large long-range bombers were

not necessary in order to have an impact, but in Britain the ability to

learn lessons from the war about air support was limited by inter-

service rivalry and the nature of air-force culture. In particular, there

was, in Britain and elsewhere, resistance to the possibilities of

ground-support operations on the part of those committed to

strategic bombing. Lessons were also not drawn from the Sino-

Japanese War. The battle of Shanghai in 1937 showed that Chinese

losses made during the day could be regained at night, when

Japanese air power was impotent.

Leadership decisions, service culture and politico-military tasking

determined doctrine and force structure.After Hitler came to power,

there was a major emphasis in Germany on the Luftwaffe (air force),

which absorbed about 40 per cent of the defence budget in 1933–6.

However, Hermann Göring, Air Minister and Commander-in-Chief

of the Luftwaffe, as well as a prominent Nazi, was not interested in

the less glamorous side of air power, such as infrastructure, and was

less than careful in his appointments. Ernst Udet, whom he made

Technical Director, was overly interested in dive-bombing. Göring’s

concern for the prestige of high plane numbers encouraged an

emphasis on twin-engined bombers, not longer-range four-engined

aircraft. Furthermore, the search for a force structure that would

make what was termed by a journalist Blitzkrieg (lightning war) a

success, a search made necessary by Hitler’s preference for quick

wars, led to a lack of support for strategic bombing, which was seen,

instead, as a long-term solution. There was no coherent doctrine

underlying Blitzkrieg, but it entailed no obvious requirement for a

strategic bombing force, and no doctrine of strategic air power was

developed by the Germans, although, for the long-term, Göring

sought such a force.

More generally, the German air industry did not develop suffi-

ciently to support an air force for a major conflict. There were

problems with the availability of aviation fuel for the air force, and

also a preference for numbers of planes as opposed to a balanced

expenditure that would include investment in infrastructure, for

example logistical provision, especially spares.

BACKGROUND

In France and the Soviet Union, the stress was on tactical

doctrine and force structure, rather than strategic bombing. Both

Britain and France devoted attention to fighter defence in the late

1930s, seeing this as a necessary response to German power. They

were able to take advantage of the marked improvement in the

flying standards and combat characteristics of planes in the inter-war

period, an improvement that reflected the general advance in avia-

tion.This was particularly so for fighters in the mid- and late 1930s,

as wooden-based biplanes were replaced by all-metal cantilever-wing

monoplanes with high-performance engines capable of far greater

speeds, for example the American P36 Hawk, German

Messerschmitt 109 and Soviet I16 Rata.The range and armament of

fighters and the range, payload and armament of bombers all

increased.

Improvements in fighters began to undermine the doctrine of the

paramountcy of the bomber.The introduction of radar on the eve of

the war was another blow to the latter. The British developed two

effective and nimble monoplane fighters, the Hawker Hurricane and

Supermarine Spitfire, and, alongside early warning radar, they were

to help rescue Britain, in 1940, from the consequences of devoting

too much attention to bombing.

However, the British still had to

overcome the poor tactics based on a tight vic (V-formation) of

three planes. In contrast, the Germans had developed a more flexible

two-aircraft Rotte formation.

Another important inter-war development, which stemmed from

the increasing size of planes, was greater interest in the use of

airborne troops. A number of powers, especially Germany and the

Soviet Union, trained parachute and glider-borne units.There were

also developments in air transport: in 1935, the Soviets moved a

14,000-strong rifle division by air from near Moscow to the Far

East, while, in 1937–8, they practised dropping artillery and tanks by

parachute. In the event, the greatest use of such troops was to be by

Germany in 1940–1 and by Britain and the USA in 1944.As yet, the

nature of technology did not permit the greater flexibility that was

to be offered from the 1950s by helicopters.

The potential of air power also led to a growing interest in jet

aircraft, rocketry and space flight, especially in Germany and the

Soviet Union. The Soviet Katyusha multiple rocket launcher was

BACKGROUND

one result. Known as ‘Stalin’s Organ’, the rockets were fired in

volleys, with the launchers moved on trucks. They were therefore a

particularly mobile weapon.

In 1930, Frank Whittle, an RAF officer, patented the principles

that led to the first gas-turbine jet engine, which he first ran under

control in 1937. His innovation was rapidly copied, and the

Germans, in 1939, and the Italians, a year later, beat the British jet

into the air. The jet fighter, however, arrived in service too late to

affect the course of the war. In 1944, the British brought Meteors

and the Germans Me262 into service, and the Allies found that the

speed of the latter (540 mph) made it difficult to tackle, but the

Germans had insufficient numbers, and the plane also had problems,

both with the engines and with an inadequate rate of turn.

World War Two was to see an extensive use of air power. It was

possible to manufacture, supply and man large numbers of aircraft

without the high cost that advanced electronics and other factors

were to lead to by the 1980s.Thus the characteristics of planes were

particularly opportune during World War Two. The major improve-

ments made in aircraft and associated technology during the 1930s

ensured that they were far more useful than during World War One,

but, as yet, their specifications had not improved to a degree that was

to inhibit their use. A similar point could be made about naval air

power and also about airfields.

Conclusions

War planning prior to World War Two responded to shifts in

doctrine, force structure and weaponry, but was primarily set by the

strategic transformations resulting from changes in political goals and

alliances.

Both were to be of major importance in 1939–41, and to

underline the unpredictability of developments. In 1939, Hitler

initially fought alone. His eventual ally in the Polish campaign,

although not in war with Britain and France, was the Soviet Union,

not his Axis allies, Italy and Japan. Allied (i.e. anti-Axis) concern

about Soviet policy was to lead to planning in the winter of

1939–40 for intervention to help the Finns against the Soviets, as

well as a French scheme for the bombing of the Soviet oil wells at

Baku.Thus planning had to be devised to cope with unexpected and

BACKGROUND

rapidly changing contingencies. It also had to cope with the need to

give effect to plans in a rapidly changing military environment in

which opposing capability was far from clear or fixed. There were

also the problems of achieving combined arms effectiveness, more

specifically co-operation between armour and infantry, as well as

between ground forces and air power, and, in some spheres, the

added factor of naval commitments, possibilities and strength. These

difficulties should be remembered before resorting to the all-too-

easy course of blaming the defeated for the choices they made.

NOTES

1 B.A. Shillony, Revolt in Japan:The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936

Incident (Princeton, 1973); L.Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and

the Culture of Western Imperialism (Berkeley, 1998).

2 G.L.Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, 1937–39 (Chicago,

1980); W. Murray, The Change in the European Balance of Power,

1938–1939: The Path to Ruin (Princeton, 1984); D.C. Watt, How War

Came (1989); R.A.C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement: British Policy

and the Coming of the Second World War (London, 1993); P.M.H. Bell, The

Origins of the Second World War in Europe (2nd edn, Harlow, 1997); P.W.

Doerr, British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939 (Manchester, 1998); I. Lukes

and E. Goldstein (eds), The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II

(London, 1999).

3 D. Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control:The Royal Air Force 1919–1939

(Manchester, 1990); N. Shepherd, Ploughing Sand: British Rule in

Palestine, 1917–1948 (Piscataway, New Jersey, 2000); H. Schmidt, The

United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (New Brunswick, New

Jersey, 1971).

4 J.P. Harris, Men, Ideas and Tanks: British Military Thought and Armoured

Forces, 1903–1939 (Manchester, 1995); A. Danchev, Alchemist of War:The

Life of Basil Liddell Hart (London, 1998); A. Gat, British Armour Theory

and the Rise of the Panzer Arm: Revisiting the Revisionists (London, 2000).

5 J.S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military

Reform (Lawrence, 1992); R.M. Citino, The Path to Blitzkrieg: Doctrine

and Training in the German Army, 1920–1939 (Boulder, 1999).

6 R. Simpkin, Deep Battle:The Brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii (London,

1987); S.W. Stoecker, Forging Stalin’s Army: Marshal Tukhachevsky and the

Politics of Military Innovation (Boulder, 1998).

7 M. Alpert, ‘The Clash of Spanish Armies: Contrasting Ways of War in

Spain, 1936–1939’, War in History, 6 (1999), pp. 331–51; J. Corum,‘The

Spanish Civil War: Lessons Learned and Not Learned by the Great

Powers’, Journal of Military History, 62 (1998), pp. 313–34.

BACKGROUND

8 D.E. Johnson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the US Army,

1917–1945 (Ithaca, 1998); W.O. Odom, After the Trenches: The

Transformation of US Army Doctrine, 1918–1939 (College Station, 1999);

B.M. Linn, Guardians of Empire:The US Army and the Pacific, 1902–1940

(Chapel Hill, 1997).

9 A.R. Millett and W. Murray (eds), Military Effectiveness II. The Interwar

Period (Cambridge, 1988); H.R. Winton and D.R. Mets (eds), The

Challenge of Change: Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918–1941

(Lincoln, 2000).

10 A. Kemp, The Maginot Line: Myth and Reality (1981); R.A. Doughty, The

Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 1919–1939

(Hamden, 1985); M.S.Alexander, The Republic in Danger: General Maurice

Gamelin and the Politics of French Defence, 1933–1940 (Cambridge, 1992).

11 A. Suchcitz, ‘Poland’s Defence Preparations in 1939’, and P.D. Stachura,

‘The Battle of Warsaw, August 1920, and the Development of the

Second Polish Republic’, in P.D. Stachura (ed.), Poland Between the Wars

1918–1939 (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 109–10, 54–5.

12 B. Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford, 1980).

13 A. Sella, ‘Khalkhin-Gol: The Forgotten War’, Journal of Contemporary

History, 18 (1983), pp. 658–67; A. Coox, Nomonhan: Japan against Russia

1939 (Stanford, 1985).

14 J. Sumida, ‘ “The Best Laid Plans”: the Development of British Battle-

Fleet Tactics, 1919–1942’, International History Review, 14 (1992), pp.

682–700.

15 C.G. Reynolds, The Fast Carriers:The Forging of an Air Navy (New York,

1968); G.Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy, 1914–1945 (London, 1989);

T.Wildenberg, Destined for Glory: Dive Bombing, Midway, and the Evolution

of Carrier Airpower (Annapolis, 1998);T.C. Hone, N. Friedman and M.D.

Mandeles, American and British Aircraft Carrier Development, 1919–1941

(Annapolis, 1999).

16 N. Polmar and D. Carpenter, Submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy

1904–1945 (1986).

17 E.S. Miller, War Plan Orange:The US Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945

(Annapolis, 1991), p. 175.

18 S.E. Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second London Naval

Conference and the Onset of World War II (Cambridge, Massachusetts,

1974); E. Goldstein and J.H. Maurer, The Washington Naval Conference:

Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability, and the Road to Pearl Harbor (Ilford,

1994).

19 PRO. CAB. 16/109 fol. 9.

20 P. Fritzsche, ‘Machine Dreams: Airmindedness and the Reinvention of

Germany’, American Historical Review, 98 (1993), pp. 685–709.

21 C. Segrè, ‘Giulio Douhet: Strategist, Theorist, Prophet?’, Journal of

Strategic Studies, 15 (1992), pp. 69–80; A.F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader

for Air Power (New York, 1964); J.J. Cooke, Billy Mitchell (Boulder,

Colorado, 2002).

BACKGROUND

22 M. Smith,‘“A Matter of Faith”: British Strategic Air Doctrine Between

the Wars’, Journal of Contemporary History, 15 (1980), pp. 423–42.

23 S.L. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing 1910–1945

(Washington, 1995).

24 E.L. Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe:The Reich Air Ministry and the German

Aircraft Industry 1919–39 (Lincoln, 1976); J. Corum, The Luftwaffe:

Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940 (Lawrence, 1997).

25 J. Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War (London, 1999), pp. 109–10.

26 S. Ritchie, Industry and Air Power: The Expansion of British Aircraft

Production, 1939–1941 (London, 1997).

27 C.M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower, and Strategy Between the Wars

(Stanford, 2000).

BACKGROUND

War in China

The first major series of attacks was launched not by Germany, but

by Japan. On 18 September 1931, Japanese soldiers blew up part of

the South Manchurian railway near Shenyang (Mukden).This inci-

dent served as the basis for an advance north and west from the

established Japanese sphere of influence in southern Manchuria,

moving forward along the railways and seizing major positions.

Manchuria fell in a five-month campaign. Japanese expansion was

helped by the fact that Manchuria was ruled not by the

Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist government) but by an

autonomous warlord, Chang Hsueh-liang. Furthermore, the centre

of Kuomintang power was Nanjing, in central southern China, not

the ancient capital of Beijing, which was close to Manchuria.

There, the Japanese proved able not only to defeat conventional

forces, but also to check large guerrilla forces from 1931. The

Japanese renamed Manchuria Manchukuo and, in 1934, made Pui

Yi Hsüan-t’ung, the last Manchu Emperor, the puppet emperor of

the state.

Having seized Manchukuo, the Japanese army developed it as a

military and industrial base effectively outside civilian control, and

with the build-up of coal- and iron-based heavy industry which

served as the basis for a powerful military-industrial complex. This

was used to support expansionism in China and to strengthen Japan

in the event of war with the Soviet Union, a possibility greatly

feared (and anticipated) in Japanese army circles. The Japanese had

CHAPTER TWO

Initial attacks

intervened in the Soviet Far East during the Russian Civil War that

had followed the Communist seizure of power in 1917.

The willingness of the Soviet Union, hitherto the dominant

power in north Manchuria, where it had intervened in force in

1929, to cede its interests before the Japanese advance was also

important to the consolidation of the Japanese position in

Manchuria. In 1935, the Soviets withdrew to the frontier on the

Amur River, although relations remained tense. In 1938 and 1939,

the Soviets were willing to clash with Japan on Manchuria’s fron-

tiers: at Changkufen (August 1938) and Nomonhan Bridge (May

1939). In the first, the Japanese suffered from poor coordination

between armour, infantry and artillery,

and, in the second, the

Japanese were seriously beaten. This increased their army’s concern

about Soviet intentions.

In 1937, when full-scale war broke out with China, the Japanese

initially captured Beijing and Tientsin, but the war then broadened

out, not least because the navy’s attempt to seize Shanghai in August

was firmly resisted and the army intervened in strength to provide

assistance. Bitter fighting led to the destruction of the best

Nationalist units and to the fall of Shanghai on 11 November. The

Japanese then advanced on Nanjing, which fell on 13 December

after a heavy air attack.They also overran the northern provinces of

Hopei, Shansi and Inner Mongolia, defeating badly-led but

numerous opposing forces.

The ports of Amoy, Swastow and Canton, as well as the Yellow

River valley, and Wuhan and other cities on the middle Yangtze,

followed in 1938, and the island of Hainan in February 1939. The

1938 campaign had joined the Japanese positions in northern and

central China, as well as gaining important commercial positions,

although it had not proved possible to encircle and destroy the prin-

cipal Chinese forces. The 1939 campaign added important coastal

positions as part of an attempt to separate China from foreign links.

It reflected Japanese amphibious capability, which had earlier been

seen in Shanghai. Japanese-ruled Formosa (Taiwan) proved a useful

local base for operations against the Chinese coast. In addition, from

Hainan, the Japanese could threaten French Indo-China.

The Japanese were helped by the extent to which many Chinese

did not fight. Some Chinese warlords were unwilling to risk their

INITIAL ATTACKS

troops. On a number of occasions, German advisers prepared defen-

sive positions only to find that their Chinese defenders fled when

the Japanese approached. More generally, there was a lack of cohe-

sion in the Chinese response that reflected the local ties of warlords

and most troops.

Little information is available on Japanese operations, specifically

on policymaking as opposed to what happened on the ground. In

operational terms, the Japanese showed that it was not necessary to

introduce mass mechanisation in order to conquer large tracts of

territory. Lacking raw materials and industrial capability, Japan was

technologically behind the European powers in various aspects of

military innovation, such as the use of tanks and motorised trans-

port.This led to a greater stress on ‘spirit’ over material, for example

with an emphasis on the use of bayonets and swords in attack.

‘Spirit’, however, did not suffice in China, not least because, ironi-

cally, the Japanese underrated the extent of nationalist determination

in China. Despite expanding their army from 408,000 troops in

1937 to 2.08 million in 1941, and stationing over 1.5 million of

these troops in China and Manchuria (the latter in large part to

deter Soviet attack, but also to counter continued guerrilla activity),

the Japanese lacked the manpower to seize all of China. In addition,

resistance continued. The Chinese military had been badly affected

by successive defeats, losing well-trained units and equipment; and

most of what was left was indifferently trained and led badly, and,

also, lacked equipment, especially adequate artillery, let alone

motorised transport and air support. Nevertheless, Japanese drives on

Changsa in the summers of 1939 and 1940 and in January 1942

failed, and it was not captured until a renewed drive in 1944.

Railway junctions played a particularly important role in

campaigning due to the lack of motor transport.The Japanese were

affected by the problems of transporting sufficient food as Chinese

forces cleared the countryside of supplies.

Furthermore, what she did seize had cost Japan a great deal in

resources, particularly raw materials. Even within occupied areas,

Japanese control outside the cities was limited and episodic. Japanese

military leaders were surprised, and frustrated, by their failure to

impose victory. It proved far easier to destroy the Chinese navy in

1937 and to deploy overwhelming force against cities, the nodes of

INITIAL ATTACKS