WW2 USN Strategic Bombing Capability
- Thread starter wuzak
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Who said anything about Venturas (or Harpoons) operating from carriers? From 1943 until the end of the war, land based USN patrol bombing squadrons in the Aleutians conducted a long-range campaign against the northern Japanese home islands..a campaign sometimes referred to as the "Empire Express."
http://www.norpacwar.com/
https://www.nps.gov/aleu/learn/photosmultimedia/upload/VP-139-Historical-Survey.pdf
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/lockheeds-electra-and-lodestar/
One of the most important features of the Ventura in U.S. naval service was the installation of ADS-1 search radar, which enabled the crew to detect ships and submarine conning towers from many miles away before enemy sailors knew the airplane was there. Radar also made blind bombing possible using radar navigation, a feature that proved invaluable in the fog-shrouded waters of the Aleutians and Kuriles, where Venturas saw the most action. The Navy's Venturas and Harpoons came about largely due to a major compromise with the Army Air Corps. The Army objected to the Navy's use of land-based bombers, an objection that forced the Navy to depend on amphibious patrol bombers and float planes for patrol use during the early months of the war. But when the Army needed a Navy manufacturing plant at Renton, Washington, for the manufacture of Boeing B-29s, it agreed to give up its objections and to allow all Army production of B-34s and B-37s to go to the Navy in return for use of the facility. The Navy also received other bomber types, particularly B-24s and B-25s, from the Army production as part of the compromise.
The Venturas supplemented Army B-24s and B-25s in the Aleutians, and it was common for the three types to operate together on missions against Japanese positions. Their radar allowed them to drop their bombs without seeing the ground, and the Navy bombers often led Army B-24s on missions against fog-obscured targets on Kiska. The Army Liberators would fly formation on a Navy Ventura, which would drop its bombs using radar, and the B-24 bombardiers would drop as soon as they saw the bombs fall out of the Navy plane.
Headquarters, U.S. Army Air Forces, elected to withdraw all but two bomber squadrons from the Eleventh Air Force and transfer them to the South Pacific where reinforcements were sorely needed. With Army bomber strength in the Aleutians reduced, the importance of the Venturas to continuing operations against the Kuriles increased. In fact, for several months the Navy bombers would be the only Allied aircraft attacking targets in the Japanese home islands.
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As pointed out in previous posts re: the USN land-based bombing campaign against the home islands, several of the points made in the initial post on this thread are invalidated.
As bombers go, PV-1, PV-2 and PB4Y-2 aircraft weren't all that slow. In answer to the initial question of whether the USN had a strategic bombing capability, the answer is Yes, although not anywhere to the extent that the USAAF had.
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FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
As bad as it sounds, the politicians did not allow the US to win - look at the both wars and the US fought with both arms tied behind its back.
Let's face it - the atomic bombings got the attention of Japanese leadership - the invasion by the Soviet Union was the final blow,
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Prime example:
North Korea complained that the U.S. Battleships, which were brutally pounding their shore positions, were unfair - so the U.S. was forced to remove them from active missions against North Korean targets.
The value of the Red Army was in subduing Japan's huge Kwantung Army in Manchuria, Korea, and China. The last thing any of the western powers wanted was the Red Army meddling in the Japanese home islands. That would have rekindled racial hatreds harkening back to the war of 1904-1905 and before, and led to smoldering resentments like those in Germany after the Treaty of Versailles. We all know what that led to.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The Japanese and Russians had also been skirmishing off and on for nearly ten years along the Manchurian border, too.
They were coming down from the north end of the Kuril Islands island by island.
Since I became member of this forum, I have been thinking that you are one of people who have cool eyes on history.
Yes, but to organize all the logistic chain, from a tiny island to another, without a Navy, I think that could have been for the Red Army an impossible task.
Or we have to think that the U.S. Navy could have lent, very sportingly, all the LST, Liberty ships, etc. and the Carrier cover that were necessary?
Not to point the fact that Red Army vast majority of tanks, artillery, ammo etc. in August 1945 was six or seven thousand km far from Vladivostok, with the Siberia in between.
As noted before, the Japan Island invasion would have been a bloodbath for anyone who have dared to go ashore on a japanese beach.
That the Soviets could have been interested in strategically important positions in Korea, Manchuria etc. that is another matter of fact, but on this I think the Americans had a different point of view...
KiwiBiggles
Senior Airman
Or, as Clive James very wittily put it:
"...although the consideration is usually ignored that the Red Army, which had no amphibious equipment, might not have been in an ideal condition to fight after its troops had swum to Hokkaido."
"...although the consideration is usually ignored that the Red Army, which had no amphibious equipment, might not have been in an ideal condition to fight after its troops had swum to Hokkaido."
michaelmaltby
Colonel
We can speculate and amuse ourselves about Sampan invasions/evacuations but the facts suggest otherwise .... if Stalin had intended to invade the major Japanese islands he would have had transport in hand to pull the invasion off ... when he tripped the switch - August Storm - on that rainy August night, launching a superbly planned and executed three-pronged envelopment of a widely spread but thinly maned IJA. David Glantz calls August Storm the Soviet Military's "Phd Thesis" in warfare. And the Red Army had launched amphibious attacks against the Germans, Crimea and Black Sea IIRC.
Stalin had committed to attack Japan in a timeframe to be determined by the defeat of Germany, and the launch date of August Storm fulfilled Stalin's promise.
Stalin knew all about Los Alamos, the bombs and Manhattan ... he just shrugged when Truman told him at Potsdam that he had a really big bomb.
Stalin was a poker player par excellence ... emotionally happy to see the USA bleed on the islands ... suffer the way the Russians had suffered, IMCO .... so, August Storm, his move, was the Soviet Army's "Barbarossa" .... the Russians were going to drive as far and as fast as they could while there was time remaining. Stalin understood that America would use the bomb again if necessary and that would be the final blow ... the killing blow. And, so it was. Sanity took hold and returned to Japan. MacArthur and party stepped off a plane in Japan unarmed. America and Japan were changed forever.
Post unconditional surrender, the Soviets tried to muscle in on the military governance of Japan
(can you imagine) Truman's administration shut that down by placing the facts of the Soviet contribution in perspective. Accordingly, the Soviets behaved and stood proudly on the deck of the Missouri alongside the other allied leaders and victims.
Stalin didn't care ... he had done very well for himself with very little investment .... we still pay for his scheming with North Korea on our hands ... Stalin also learned that America had the resolution to use atomic weapons.
The sources that have influenced my opinions in this post are numerous. I will cheerfully reference if asked
Stalin had committed to attack Japan in a timeframe to be determined by the defeat of Germany, and the launch date of August Storm fulfilled Stalin's promise.
Stalin knew all about Los Alamos, the bombs and Manhattan ... he just shrugged when Truman told him at Potsdam that he had a really big bomb.
Stalin was a poker player par excellence ... emotionally happy to see the USA bleed on the islands ... suffer the way the Russians had suffered, IMCO .... so, August Storm, his move, was the Soviet Army's "Barbarossa" .... the Russians were going to drive as far and as fast as they could while there was time remaining. Stalin understood that America would use the bomb again if necessary and that would be the final blow ... the killing blow. And, so it was. Sanity took hold and returned to Japan. MacArthur and party stepped off a plane in Japan unarmed. America and Japan were changed forever.
Post unconditional surrender, the Soviets tried to muscle in on the military governance of Japan
(can you imagine) Truman's administration shut that down by placing the facts of the Soviet contribution in perspective. Accordingly, the Soviets behaved and stood proudly on the deck of the Missouri alongside the other allied leaders and victims.Stalin didn't care ... he had done very well for himself with very little investment .... we still pay for his scheming with North Korea on our hands ... Stalin also learned that America had the resolution to use atomic weapons.
The sources that have influenced my opinions in this post are numerous. I will cheerfully reference if asked
Even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
- Thread starter
- #116
wuzak
Captain
Thanks Muskeg. That is very interesting.
I'd only say that flying from the Aleutians would limit the target opportunities.
But certainly those squadrons did provide a measure of strategic bombing capability for the USN.
The thread was started in response to a quote that suggested that the USN's carrier forces would be quite able to cripple Japanese industry.
Certainly, if Venturas/Harpoons could be launched from carriers they would have increased bombing capability of the carrier force.
Shortround6
Major General
Basically operations in the Aleutians and the Kuril Islands were strategic only in the sense that they were "pinning" attacks.
There was no attack on sources of raw materials or of manufacturing/processing plants. Each side had the goal of tying up more enemy forces than they themselves were committing to the area. And trying to keep the enemy from setting up a staging area for a further advance.
It is 1400 miles from Attu station, the western most island in the Aleutian chain to the closest city on the Northern Island of Hokkaido.
It is over 1400 miles from Anchorage ALaska to Seattle WA and almost 1500 miles from from Anchorage to Attu Station.
Given the weather and lack of decent port facilities this "avenue" of attack wasn't really practical.
The Navy only had 4-5 Squadron of Ventura's in the Aleutians the Privateers only showed up in the last few weeks.
Strategic bombing capability, in the sense of attacking the Japanese homeland , was zero even using Army B-24s from this area.
There was no attack on sources of raw materials or of manufacturing/processing plants. Each side had the goal of tying up more enemy forces than they themselves were committing to the area. And trying to keep the enemy from setting up a staging area for a further advance.
It is 1400 miles from Attu station, the western most island in the Aleutian chain to the closest city on the Northern Island of Hokkaido.
It is over 1400 miles from Anchorage ALaska to Seattle WA and almost 1500 miles from from Anchorage to Attu Station.
Given the weather and lack of decent port facilities this "avenue" of attack wasn't really practical.
The Navy only had 4-5 Squadron of Ventura's in the Aleutians the Privateers only showed up in the last few weeks.
Strategic bombing capability, in the sense of attacking the Japanese homeland , was zero even using Army B-24s from this area.
Would B-29 ops have been more productive from the Aleutians than as per the original plan using mainland China?
And the ramifications of this continue today:
Kuril Islands dispute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shortround6
Major General
Hard to say without more research. It is around 600 miles from the North coast of Hokkaido to Tokyo and around 1180 miles from the North coast of Hokkaido to the south (or southwest ) coast of the southern Island. So basically most of Japan was out of range of the B-29 even if it operated from the western most Aleutian Island. Trying to establish a major air base on a Russian Kuril Island (or Russian mainland?) not only faced opposition from Uncle Joe but the logistics would have been as bad or worse than using the more southern Pacific Islands.
From wiki so.......
"The chain has around 100 volcanoes, some 40 of which are active, and many hot springs andfumaroles. There is frequent seismic activity..."
"The climate on the islands is generally severe, with long, cold, stormy winters and short and notoriously foggy summers. The average annual precipitation is 30–40 inches (760–1,020 mm), most of which falls as snow."
Granted armies and AIr forces have operated in conditions as bad if not worse by why choose this option if there are others?
From wiki so.......
"The chain has around 100 volcanoes, some 40 of which are active, and many hot springs andfumaroles. There is frequent seismic activity..."
"The climate on the islands is generally severe, with long, cold, stormy winters and short and notoriously foggy summers. The average annual precipitation is 30–40 inches (760–1,020 mm), most of which falls as snow."
Granted armies and AIr forces have operated in conditions as bad if not worse by why choose this option if there are others?
