0:02 The so-called strategic bombing campaign
0:04 is definitely one of the darkest and
0:06 most overlooked aspects of the Second
0:07 World War. Today, we're going to show
0:09 you why through things you didn't know,
0:11 so that by the end with the full
0:12 picture, you'll understand just how
0:14 brutal it was, affecting everyone from
0:16 the airmen inside bombers to the people
0:19 on the ground and everything in between.
0:21 Let's begin.
0:22 The horrors of strategic bombing
0:24 actually began when Germany's Luftwaffer
0:26 demonstrated what large-scale aerial
0:28 attacks could do, obliterating dozens of
0:31 cities early in the war. In 1940 alone,
0:33 the Luftwaffer dropped over 41,000 tons
0:35 of bombs on cities like London, Warsaw,
0:37 and Rotterdam, killing and displacing
0:40 tens of thousands of civilians. But the
0:41 Allied bombing campaign would soon make
0:43 what the Luftwaffer had done seem like
0:45 nothing as they dropped an estimated 2.7
0:47 million tons of bombs on Europe,
0:50 followed by 650,000 tons in the Pacific
0:52 and finally the two atomic bombs when
0:54 traditional bombing wasn't enough.
0:56 Bombing operations escalated
0:57 significantly with the Allied effort to
0:59 disrupt German forces in Europe, aiming
1:01 to weaken their ability to wage war in
1:03 preparation for the ground invasion that
1:05 would follow. Joint US and British
1:07 longrange bombers flew from England over
1:09 Western Europe, delivering devastating
1:11 bomb payloads to the most important
1:12 military targets in German held
1:15 territories. At least that was the plan.
1:16 In practice, however, this campaign
1:18 would spark controversy that remains to
1:20 this day. And you'll see why in a
1:22 moment. The British and Americans agreed
1:24 on sustained aroundthe-clock bombings
1:26 with the British bombing by night and
1:28 the Americans by day, each utilizing
1:30 their own tactics and methods. The
1:32 Americans wanted to use daylight for
1:33 more precise bombing with their Nordon
1:35 bomb site, which was said to be capable
1:37 of putting a bomb into a pickle barrel.
1:39 Well, that couldn't have been further
1:40 from the truth. Although daylight
1:42 missions did improve accuracy since
1:44 crews could see their targets, they also
1:46 put bombers in great danger from enemy
1:48 anti-aircraft defenses and especially
1:50 interceptor fighters. Daylight bombing
1:52 was also intended to reduce collateral
1:54 damage and civilian casualties, at least
1:56 in theory, as long as civilians weren't
1:58 being deliberately targeted. The
1:59 British, on the other hand, having
2:01 suffered under the Luftwaffer's bombing
2:03 raids and flying bombs that harassed
2:04 their cities, saw nothing wrong with
2:06 bombing German cities and civilian
2:08 targets just as they did military ones.
2:10 Their focus was less on crippling
2:12 Germany's war industry and more on
2:13 breaking the morale of the German
2:15 population. In reality, both bombing
2:17 strategies caused immense civilian
2:20 deaths as only 14% of bombs actually hit
2:21 their intended targets. Later in the
2:23 war, this improved to 44%. But the
2:25 bombarders's aim could still be thrown
2:27 off by weather, enemy fire, or simply
2:29 faulty intelligence and misidentified
2:31 targets. Now, let's go step by step,
2:33 showing you each aspect of the bombing
2:35 campaigns, getting progressively more
2:36 disturbing, so that by the end of the
2:39 video, you'll have a complete picture.
2:40 Let's start with the bombers, their
2:42 crews, and the bombs they used. The
2:44 workhorse bomber for the Americans was
2:46 the famous B7 Flying Fortress with a
2:49 maximum payload of 8,000 lb. However,
2:51 this was usually less depending on how
2:53 far the target was and how much fuel was
2:55 needed. Alongside it was the
2:58 consolidated B-24 Liberator, which had a
2:59 greater range and could carry a heavier
3:02 payload. The British relied on the Avro
3:04 Lancaster, designed for high-capacity
3:06 area bombing with an enormous payload
3:08 for the time of 14,000 lb and up to
3:11 22,000 maximum when carrying specialized
3:13 bombs like the Tallboy, Grand Slam, or
3:16 bouncing bombs used in special missions.
3:18 The Handley Page Halifax was also widely
3:20 used by the British, while the B-29
3:22 Superfortress, the most advanced bomber
3:23 of the war, would see action in the
3:25 Pacific, conducting longrange bombings
3:27 and ultimately dropping the atomic
3:30 bombs. Most often, payloads consisted of
3:32 high explosive bombs, usually ranging
3:34 from 500 to 1,000 lb, though there were
3:38 12 and even 22,000 lb specialized bombs.
3:39 While these caused severe structural
3:41 destruction, the real horror came from
3:43 incendury bombs. These contained
3:46 magnesium or thermite and later napalm
3:48 which burned at extreme temperatures of
3:50 up to 4,000° Fahrenheit, hot enough to
3:52 melt steel. They were dropped in
3:54 combination with high explosive bombs to
3:56 create massive firestorms, engulfing
3:58 entire city blocks and causing horrific
4:00 casualties among the population. But
4:01 wait until we get to the incendiaries
4:05 used on Japan. Inside bombers, 75% of
4:07 air crews were in their late teens or
4:09 early 20s and suffered the most horrific
4:11 casualty rate of the war. More than half
4:14 of them were killed on operations. 12%
4:15 were killed or wounded in
4:18 non-operational accidents and 13% became
4:20 prisoners of war. Around 8,000 men were
4:22 killed just in training accidents before
4:24 even seeing combat. Bombing missions
4:26 were extremely dangerous and terrifying
4:28 where even the smallest malfunction
4:30 could cost them their lives. And as you
4:32 can see, it often did. Flying at high
4:34 altitudes in unpressurized cabins,
4:37 temperatures dropped to -50° F. So
4:39 airmen had to wear electrically heated
4:42 suits and oxygen masks to stay alive. If
4:43 their equipment failed, they could
4:45 sustain frostbite, and if their oxygen
4:47 supply was cut, they would simply fall
4:49 asleep without realizing it. If no one
4:51 noticed in a couple of minutes, they
4:52 would never wake up. The cold was so
4:54 extreme that gunners could lose their
4:56 fingers just by touching the frozen
4:57 metal of their machine guns without
4:59 gloves. And if they were hit by
5:01 shrapnel, their blood would freeze as it
5:03 left their body. They had parachutes,
5:04 but they weren't very reliable, and
5:06 crews had to jump through narrow escape
5:09 hatches, wearing bulky flight gear, all
5:10 while their aircraft was falling out of
5:14 control or burning. Only 25% of airmen
5:16 managed to bail out and deploy their
5:17 parachutes successfully, while some
5:19 aircraft, like the Avro Lancaster, had
5:22 an even lower survival rate of just 15%
5:24 due to smaller and poorly positioned
5:27 escape hatches. There are examples of
5:29 airmen jumping out of burning aircraft
5:31 without parachutes, preferring to die on
5:33 impact. There are two known instances
5:35 where airmen survived a fall without a
5:37 parachute from over 18,000 ft with trees
5:40 and snow softening the impact. Even if
5:42 you survived the hit from enemy fire,
5:44 bailed out without part of the aircraft
5:46 hitting you, and your parachute worked,
5:47 you were now descending into enemy
5:49 territory where the people your bombs
5:50 had been killing don't have much
5:53 sympathy for you. Around 10,000 airmen
5:55 became prisoners of war, enduring
5:57 interrogations, brutal treatment and
5:59 conditions in P camps for months or even
6:02 years. The German flack was the most
6:04 feared threat, but interceptor fighters
6:06 were the ones responsible for downing
6:08 the most bombers. Before the
6:10 introduction of longrange escort
6:12 fighters like the P-51 Mustang, bombers
6:14 were on their own during the most
6:16 vulnerable part of their mission. This
6:18 was because early escort fighters had
6:20 significantly shorter range than
6:21 bombers, meaning they could only protect
6:23 them for part of the journey before
6:25 having to turn back. German fighters
6:27 armed with 20 mm cannons would swarm the
6:29 bombers, trying to disable the gunners,
6:31 then the engines to bring them down.
6:33 This forced bombers to fly in tight
6:35 formations for mutual protection,
6:37 relying on their machine guns, up to 13
6:39 of them, as seen on the B7 Flying
6:41 Fortress. While this slightly improved
6:42 defense against fighters, it also
6:44 increased vulnerability to flack as a
6:46 single well-placed shell could damage
6:49 multiple aircraft in formation. The
6:51 famous 88 mm flack gun was fired in
6:53 coordinated volleys with shells designed
6:55 to explode in proximity to enemy
6:57 aircraft, scattering around 1,000
6:59 fragments in all directions. An
7:01 explosion within a 30ft radius was
7:03 extremely lethal. The fragments ripped
7:05 through the aluminum skin of bombers,
7:07 severing control cables, fuel tanks, oil
7:09 lines, and engines while also taking out
7:12 crew members. A direct hit meant instant
7:13 destruction of the aircraft and everyone
7:15 on board, especially if bomber was hit
7:18 with its bombs still on board. Now, for
7:19 the people on the ground, the situation
7:23 was no better. Around 130 German cities
7:24 were heavily bombed to the point of
7:26 almost complete destruction with
7:28 examples like Dresdon, which despite
7:31 having no real military significance was
7:33 turned into rubble with around 30,000
7:35 people killed in just a couple of days.
7:38 Between 750,000 and 1 million Germans
7:40 would die in air raids, most of them
7:42 women, children, and civilian men, while
7:44 many others suffered due to food and
7:46 medical shortages caused by intensive
7:48 bombings. And if you think it couldn't
7:49 get any worse, we've come to the bombing
7:51 campaign in the Pacific to prove you
7:53 wrong. We've all heard about the atomic
7:55 bombs, but the disturbing truth is that
7:57 they were not actually the biggest cause
7:58 of destruction and loss of life in
8:01 Japan. Here in the final chapter of
8:03 World War II, the B29 Superfortress was
8:05 the primary bomber used in the bombing
8:07 of Japan, trying to force them into
8:09 submission. At first, the bombing of
8:11 Japan was a logistical nightmare as it
8:13 was simply too far. But after the
8:16 capture of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, the
8:17 US bombers were now well within range of
8:20 Japan's mainland and ready to unleash
8:22 devastation on an unprecedented scale.
8:24 The infamous winds at high altitudes
8:26 over Japan threw bombs wildly offt
8:28 target and made precision bombing
8:30 impossible, while factories and military
8:31 targets were usually mixed with the
8:34 civilian population. So to find the best
8:36 solution for this, the Americans
8:38 conducted lowaltitude nighttime
8:39 incendurary raids that would simply
8:42 destroy everything and everyone. The
8:44 first full-scale firebombing raid took
8:47 place on March 9th, 1945 over Tokyo, and
8:49 it became the deadliest air raid in
8:51 history, far surpassing anything seen in
8:56 Europe. In a single night, 334 B-29s
8:59 dropped over 1,600 tons of incendurary
9:02 bombs like the M69, which burst into
9:04 jellied gasoline, sticking to surfaces
9:07 and burning at over 1,800° F. These
9:09 bombs ignited the highly flammable
9:11 wooden Japanese houses, and the fires
9:13 quickly spiraled out of control, forming
9:15 a firestorm that engulfed nearly 16
9:18 square miles of Tokyo. The intense heat
9:20 literally boiled the water in canals
9:21 where people had jumped in, desperately
9:24 trying to escape the flames. We couldn't
9:25 even describe how it looked without this
9:27 video being taken down from YouTube.
9:30 Over 100,000 civilians were caught in
9:31 the fire, more than the death toll of
9:34 either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, making the
9:36 Tokyo firebombing the single deadliest
9:38 night of World War II. This strategy was
9:41 repeated across Japan with 67 different
9:42 cities completely destroyed in
9:44 firebombing raids, killing more than
9:46 half a million Japanese civilians. And
9:48 of course, because all of this just
9:51 wasn't enough, on August 6th, 1945, the
9:54 B29 Inola Gay dropped Little Boy, a 15
9:57 kiloton uranium bomb on Hiroshima. 3
9:59 days later, a second bomb, Fat Man, was
10:01 dropped on Nagasaki, finally forcing
10:04 Japan to capitulate. 6 days later, the
10:06 two atomic bombs combined instantly
10:09 killed 110,000 people upon impact,
10:12 flattening entire cities. Thousands more
10:13 succumbed in the following weeks,
10:15 months, and years from radiation
10:16 effects, which would go on to affect
10:18 hundreds of thousands of people for
10:21 decades after the attack. Thus, the most
10:23 destructive war in human history ended
10:25 beneath mushroom clouds, symbolizing the
10:26 temporary end of a level of destruction
10:29 never seen before or since until we
