Everything about Firebombing totally explained
Firebombing is a
bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of
fire, caused by
incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs.
The tactic originated during
World War II with the use of
strategic bombing to destroy the ability of the enemy to wage war.
London,
Coventry and many other British cities were firebombed during
the Blitz. Most German cities were extensively firebombed starting in 1942. Many large Japanese cities were fire bombed during the last six months of World War II.
This technique makes use of small
incendiary bombs (possibly delivered by a
cluster bomb such as the
Molotov bread basket). If a fire catches, it could spread, taking in adjacent buildings that would have been largely unaffected by a high explosive bomb. This is a more effective use of the payload that a bomber could carry.
The use of incendiaries alone doesn't generally start uncontrollable fires where the targets are roofed with nonflammable materials such as tiles or slates. The use of a mixture of bombers carrying high explosive bombs, such as the British
blockbuster bombs, which blew out windows and roofs and exposed the interior of buildings to the incendiary bombs, are much more effective. Alternatively, a preliminary bombing with conventional bombs can be followed by subsequent attacks by incendiary carrying bombers.
Tactics
Early in World War II many British cities were firebombed. Two particularly notable raids were the
Coventry Blitz on
14 November 1940, and the
blitz on London on the night of
29 December/
30 December 1940, which was the most destructive raid on London during the war with much of the destruction caused by fires started by incendiary bombs. During the Coventry Blitz the Germans pioneered several innovations which were to influence all future strategic bomber raids during the war. These were: The use of pathfinder aircraft with electronic aids to navigate, to mark the targets before the main bomber raid; The use of high explosive bombs and air-mines (
blockbuster bombs) coupled with thousands of incendiary bombs intended to set the city ablaze. The first wave of follow-up bombers dropped high explosive bombs, the intent of which was knock out the utilities (the water supply, electricity network and gas mains), and to crater the road - making it difficult for the fire engines to reach fires started by the follow-up waves of bombers. The follow-up waves dropped a combination of high explosive and incendiary bombs. There were two types of incendiary bombs: those made of
magnesium and those made of
petroleum. The high explosive bombs and the larger
air-mines were not only designed to hamper the Coventry fire brigade, they were also intended to damage roofs, making it easier for the incendiary bombs to fall into buildings and ignite them. As
Arthur Harris, commander of
RAF Bomber Command, wrote after the war:
In the early days of bombing our notion, like that of the Germans, was to spread an attack out over the whole night, thereby wearing down the morale of the civilian population. The result was, of course, that an efficient fire brigade could tackle a single load of incendiaries, put them out, and wait in comfort for the next to come along; they might also be able to take shelter when a few high explosives bombs were dropping. ... But it was observed that when the Germans did get and effective concentration, ... then our fire brigades had a hard time; if a rain of incendiaries is mixed with high explosives bombs there's an temptation for the fireman to keep his head down. The Germans again and again missed their chance, as they did during the London blitz that I watched from the roof of the Air Ministry, of setting our cities ablaze by a concentrated attack. Coventry was adequately concentrated point of space, but all the same there was little concentration in point of time, and nothing like the fire tornadoes of Hamburg or Dresden ever occurred in this country. But they did do us enough damage to teach us the principle of concentration, the principle of starting so many fires at the same time that no fire fighting services, however efficiently and quickly the were reinforced by the fire brigades of other towns could get them under control. |
The development of the
tactical innovation of the
bomber stream by the RAF to overwhelm the
German aerial defenses of the
Kammhuber Line during World War II would have increased the RAF's concentration in time over the target, but after the lessons learned during the Blitz, the concentration of dropping bombs over the target in the shortest time possible became standard tactic of the RAF because it was known to be more effective than spreading the raid over a longer time period. The mix of bombs to be used on the Dresden raid was about 40% incendiaries, much closer to the RAF city busting mix than that usually used by the Americans in precision bombardments. This was quite a common mix when the USAF anticipated cloudy conditions over the target.
In its attacks on Japan the USAAF abandoned its policy of precision bombing and used a mix of incendiaries and high explosives to burn Japanese cities to the ground. These tactics were used to devastating effect with many burnt out. The first raid using low-flying B-29s carrying
incendiaries to drop on Tokyo was on the night of February 24-25 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city. Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 279 B-29s raided on the night of March 9–10, dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting
firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either
Hiroshima or
Nagasaki. Another example is the
Bombing of Kobe on
17 March 1945, 331 B-29 bombers launched a firebombing attack against the city. Of the city's residents, 8,841 were confirmed to have been killed in the resulting
firestorms, which destroyed an area of three square miles and included 21% of Kobe's urban area. At the time, the city covered an area of
14 square miles (36 km²). More than 650,000 people had their homes destroyed, and the homes of another million people were damaged.
Popular culture
Further Information
Get more info on 'Firebombing'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://firebombing.totallyexplained.com">Firebombing Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
