The IAF's exaggerated sense of its success
By Henri Wasserman
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) an economist with a rare talent for writing, concluded his experience in studying the results of aerial warfare in one profound sentence: "In 1941, after thoroughly studying the first rule of modern warfare, which is that between the reports of Air Force commanders and reality there is no actual connection, President Roosevelt ordered the establishment of a special research team, to determine the real facts."
The command to conduct the survey was given in November 1944, in order to examine the practical results of the aerial campaign against Germany, when the Allies' victory was already apparent, and there was need to obtain reliable information on casualties, as well as to decide the policy of bombardment on Japan, which had yet to surrender.
Distinguished citizens were appointed to most of the key positions, since the U.S. Air Force commanders, who conducted most of the fighting against Germany at the time, were sure that it was they who tipped the scales and delivered victory. The results of the survey were prepared by 300 civilian researchers, who were aided by 800 military personnel during the two and a half year survey, which covered 330 reports and appendixes.
Controversial interpretation
The interpretation of the results is to this day controversial. Since there was no doubt that the American and British air forces played a substantial part in defeating Germany, not much stood between this consensus and the crowning of the air force as first among all corps. In all the many wars the United States has waged since, air force personnel repeated the same mantra: 'Learn the lesson of World War II!' If you wish to have a relatively "clean" victory, decisive yet low on casualties, grant the air force an open mandate to bomb, and the more the merrier.
World War II was the first time the achievements of air bombardments were assessed, and Galbraith writes about it in his memoir ("A Life in Our Times"). The survey's economic chapter, which was written by his team, claimed that the efforts of Albert Speer, Germany's minister of armaments, to improve military-industrial output "won support from the air strikes. The shock of the air strikes allowed him to harvest the population's energy while the crisis of the war allowed Speer to break Germany's governmental-industrial-bureaucratic inertia" and to influence it to accept regulations.
Targeting military industry
This is demonstrated in the terrible bombardment of Hamburg in 1943, which also helped the German war effort: Tens of thousands of workers, whose bourgeois livelihoods were instantly eliminated, were now available for military industry, which was in desperate need of manpower, and moreover they were paid higher salaries than before while contributing to the war effort.
This bombing was typical of the British bombardment tactics, which specialized in nighttime strikes, wiping out entire city quarters. The U.S. Air Force's specialty was targeting the German military industries. American bombing experts recommended targeting the manufacture of German bearings. On August 17, 1943 and October 14, 1943 the Bavarian city Schweinfurt was attacked, and during the Big Week operation, on February 24, 1944, 1,100 bombers dropped 3,600 fragmentation bombs and 23,500 fire and phosphorous bombs on the city.
But the U.S. Air Force commanders were disappointed: soon after steadfast workers rescued the lathes and other factory machines from the rubble, transferred them to bunkers and country towns, and within several weeks production resumed. After several months it even increased considerably.
A similar thing happened in the airplane factories, which were scattered in several German cities. The bombers attacked in several concentrated sorties, each one thousands of bombers strong. Here again the results were very different from those promised by the air commanders.
Galbraith: "In the last week of February, 1944 all the factories known to manufacture airplane parts in Germany were attacked, and 3,636 tons of explosives were dropped on them. The casualties among American bombers were immense. In January, before the attacks, the Germans manufactured 2,077 bombers and fighter planes. In March, a month after the bombing, production reached 2,243. And in September 1944, when production was at its peak, it was two times higher than before the attacks... a conjecture could be made that the results of the air strikes were to improve the German air plane production."
On the eve of the war's end the Germans possessed plenty of planes, but there was a grave shortage of pilots, especially skilled ones, as well as a shortage of all kinds of fuel. Only when the Allied bombers focused their efforts on targeting fuel refineries, as well as power plants and transport routes (roads, bridges, railroad tracks and crossroads), a shortage of supplies began to be felt on the battlefields. These facts had no effect on the mantra that the air force won the war.
There is no resemblance between Lebanon and Germany, as there is no resemblance between the forces of Hezbollah and the Wehrmacht. Still, it is interesting to mention another aspect of that survey, in which American researchers, psychologists and public opinion experts were asked to examine the morale of the soldiers on the front and their families in the rear. They questioned POW's and ordinary citizens, read letters sent to and from the front, etc.
Again the air force commanders failed. As the bombardments increased, the spirit of resistance in the German people became stronger, a thing which Propaganda Minister Goebbels took advantage of in an impressive occasion at the Berlin stadium on February 18, 1943, where he roared to the crowd, "Do you want total war?" The loyal crowd's response was not late in coming.
The Allied bombardments unified the German ranks as they were never unified before. Even firm opponents of the Nazi regime gladly went to their compatriots' aid. All agreed to call the Allied attacks "terror attacks." Contemporary studies, based on secret Gestapo reports, corroborate the survey findings: the number of forbidden, critical, clandestine jokes (Fluesterwitze) did indeed rise somewhat, and occasionally civilians expressed the opinion that the Allied bombardments were a fitting punishment, but here again the promise to break the enemy's fighting spirit, or to drive a wedge between the rear and the fighting forces, had nothing to stand on.
It is hard to talk of industrial infrastructure in a country such as Lebanon, or of a steady connection between a modern transportation infrastructure and the ability to smuggle Katyushas and light missiles across the border on hand carts, donkeys and mules. But we must ask: Is there any doubt that the bombardments of the Israel Air Force unified the ranks and hearts of the people of the Land of the Cedar as they were never unified before?
Hezbollah came to being as a result of the first Lebanon war, and with a little encouragement from the people of the General Security Services it took shape, grew and became established - and now who will vouch that as a result of the second Lebanon war Hezbollah units will not be absorbed into the Lebanese Army?
If that should happen, obviously the IAF officers will be among the first to promise that only a "painful" aerial blow could once and for all eliminate the new enemy.
The writer teaches in the history department at the Open University.
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Colin Brace
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