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