Military Aviation

I

Introduction

Military Aviation, the use of airplanes and other flying machines for military purposes. Since the beginning of the 20th century the military airplane has evolved from a slow, unreliable device made of wood, wire, and fabric into a sophisticated weapons system of enormous complexity that revolutionized the conduct of warfare. Air power has provided military commanders with new means of gathering intelligence, dominating a battlefield, striking the enemy over great distances, and forging global lines of supply and communication. Aviation redefined old notions of war, rendering civilians on the home front as vulnerable to attack as soldiers on the battlefield.

II

The Airplane and World War I

The American aviators Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright made the world's first powered, controlled, heavier-than-air flights on December 17, 1903. By 1910, however, leadership in the new technology had passed to Europe, where publishers and other magnates supported aviation through the sponsorship of races and competitions, while governments purchased aircraft for the earliest military flying units and funded research and development.

Within a month of the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, military aviators had demonstrated their value as aerial scouts and observers. The need to prevent enemy fliers from observing activity behind the lines led to the development of the first fighter aircraft. The appearance in 1915 of the German Fokker E.II, which featured a machine gun synchronized to shoot through the arc of the spinning propeller, opened the era of air combat.

The fight for control of the airspace over the trenches fueled rapid technical development. Comparative advantage shifted back and forth across the lines as new aircraft were introduced. By 1918 the skies were contested by superb fighter aircraft such as the German Fokker D.VII, French Spad XIII, and British S.E.5 and Sopwith Camel, which operated at speeds of up to 200 km/h (125 mph), and altitudes of 6,100 m (20,000 ft).

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It was in France that the word “ace” was first applied to a fighter pilot with five or more combat kills. The German ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as the “Red Baron,” ran up a total of 80 victories before being shot down and killed behind British lines on April 21, 1918. René Fonck, a French pilot with 75 victories, was the highest-ranking ace to survive the war. Other top fighter pilots of the war were Major Edward “Mick” Mannock (Britain, 73 victories); Major William “Billy” Bishop (Canada, 72 victories); Captain Ernst Udet (Germany, 62 victories); and Captain Eddie Rickenbacker (United States, 26 victories).

While public attention focused on the fighter pilots, observation and artillery spotting were the most critical tasks performed by aircraft during World War I. Air forces on both sides explored other missions, such as the use of ground attack airplanes to support infantry. Large flying boats conducted antisubmarine patrols and long-range ocean reconnaissance.

German airships—known as zeppelins after the name of the leading manufacturer—bombed cities in Belgium, Britain, and France during the years 1914 to 1917, but the slow hydrogen-filled ships proved easy for fighters to set aflame. After 1917 German fliers attacked London and other cities with twin-engine Gotha aircraft and giant four-engine bombers such as the Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI, with a wingspan of more than 42 m (138 ft) and a bomb load of 2,040 kg (4,500 lbs).

III

Military Aviation 1919-1939

The world's military air services faced difficult times after World War I. The German air force was disbanded by the Treaty of Versailles, while air power advocates in the victorious Allied nations struggled to prove that the airplane was the weapon of the future. Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, who had commanded United States Air Service combat units during World War I, launched a controversial drive for the creation of an independent air force. Court-martialed in 1925 following a series of attacks on U.S. military policy, Mitchell resigned from the service, but not from the fight for increased American air strength.

The American and British navies had experimented with aircraft carriers during World War I. Between the end of World War I in 1918 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939, they built a few larger and faster carriers, with fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo-bombers built purposely to land and take off from carriers.

Military aircraft evolved slowly in the 1920s. But in the early 1930s a revolution took place in airplane technology, driven by the growing airline industry. New airliners like the Douglas DC-1, first flown in 1933, had strong, streamlined aluminum-alloy structures, more powerful engines, much better propellers, and drag-reducing features such as retractable landing gear. These features were soon incorporated in aircraft such as the American-built Boeing B-17 four-engine bomber, nicknamed the Flying Fortress, first flown in 1935. First-generation all-metal pursuit aircraft such as the Soviet Polikarpov I-16 and the American Curtiss P-36 set the stage for the fighters that would contest the skies in a conflict already looming.

IV

Aviation in World War II

From beginning to end, World War II was an air war. Germany opened the conflict with stunning drives across Poland in 1939, and Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and France in 1940, using bombers to support its rapidly moving armored forces. Attempts to obtain air superiority over Britain in preparation for an invasion began with German attacks on shipping in the English Channel in July 1940, followed by aerial raids on British coastal installations and Royal Air Force (RAF) bases, and day and night bombing attacks on London and other British cities.

The fighter pilots of Britain's Royal Air Force won the Battle of Britain in 1940 by a narrow margin. The quality of their Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire interceptors, the short range of the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 escort fighters, and the vulnerability of other German aircraft such as the Heinkel He 111, Junkers Ju 88, and Dornier Do 17 bombers were all factors in the victory. Just as important, however, was the network linking radar stations to command centers that plotted the position of German aircraft and guided British fighter pilots toward their targets by radio. Electronic weaponry had emerged as a major factor in aerial warfare.

The high losses resulting from early raids on Germany convinced the leaders of RAF Bomber Command to discontinue daylight precision attacks on specific targets in favor of night raids conducted against the industrial centers of German cities. The United States Army Air Force (USAAF) began a daylight precision bombing campaign from Britain against Germany with Boeing B-17 and Consolidated B-24 aircraft in 1943, but by the fall of that year, German fighters and antiaircraft guns had brought the offensive to the edge of collapse. The appearance of long-range escort fighters like the Republic P-47, North American P-51, and Lockheed P-38 helped turn the tide in favor of the U.S. bombers. During 1944 and early 1945, the USAAF struck Germany during the day, while the RAF attacked at night. One by one, Germany's cities were reduced to rubble.

Tactical air power played a major role in the invasion of Europe. Allied fighters controlled the skies over the Normandy (Normandie) beaches before the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. Air superiority was never in doubt, and fighters armed with guns and rockets proved to be effective, fast-responding anti-tank weapons, similar to the performance of the Russian Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovikh ground-attack airplane on the Eastern Front.

Aircraft carriers were the decisive weapon in the vast Pacific theater. Japan opened the Pacific war with bold and successful air attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other United States and British bases in the Pacific on December 7 and 8, 1941. The real turning point of the Pacific war came on June 4, 1942, when American carrier-based aircraft sank four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser in the waters northwest of Midway Island. The Japanese Navy never recovered from the loss of hundreds of its most experienced pilots.

For the next three years, Allied forces pushed the enemy back across the Pacific. Japan entered the war with the world's finest torpedo bomber (Nakajima B5N2 Type 97) and long-range fighter aircraft (Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0, known as the Zero). In 1942 the arrival of Grumman F6F Hellcats and Chance Vought F4U Corsairs began to tip the technological balance in favor of United States naval aviators. The mediocre Curtiss P-40 and Bell P-39 aircraft, flown by the U.S. Army during the early months of the war, were replaced by superior P-38, P-47, and P-51 fighters. B-17 and B-24 bombers attacked Japanese island bases, while B-25 bombers sunk Japanese merchant ships.

Aircraft such as the American-built Douglas C-47, Douglas C-54, and Curtiss C-46 were the aerial workhorses of the war effort, ferrying personnel and supplies to the far corners of the globe. Many of the 12,000-plus C-47s built during the war helped found the postwar airline industry, and a few of them were still being used in 2002. Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats patrolled the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to attack German U-boats and rescue downed Allied pilots. Specially modified Spitfires, P-38s, and other airplanes roamed over hostile territory, collecting vital photographic intelligence.

In the final phase of the air war in the Pacific, the USAAF’s new, large, and high-flying Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers launched attacks on targets in Japan from bases in China during 1944. The capture of the islands of Saipan and Tinian enabled the B-29s to range even farther over the Japanese islands. When high altitude precision bombing techniques yielded disappointing results, Army Air Force planners sent the B-29s in low and at night to conduct area fire raids of the sort pioneered by the RAF. The results were devastating—more than 83,000 residents of Tokyo lost their lives during a single raid on the night of March 10, 1945. The dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was quickly followed by the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945 (see Nuclear Weapons).

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