Victory Through Air Power is a 1943 Walt Disney animated Technocolor feature film released during World War II. It’s based on the book–of the same title–by Alexander P. de Seversky.
Its thesis is summed up in its title: That by using bombers and fighter aircraft, the United States can attain swift, stunning victory over its Axis enemies: Germany, Italy and Japan.
Although it’s not explicitly stated, the overall impression given is that, through the use of air power, America can defeat its enemies without deploying millions of ground troops.
The movie has long since been forgotten except by film buffs, but its message has not. Especially by the highest officials within the U.S. Air Force.
Although the Air Force regularly boasted of the tonage of bombs its planes dropped over Nazi Germany, it failed to attain its primary goal: Break the will of the Germans to resist.
On the contrary: Just as the German bombings of England had solidified the will of the British people to resist, so, too, did Allied bombing increase the determination of the Germans to fight on.
Nor did the failure of air power end there.
On June 6, 1944–D-Day–the Allies launched their invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
It opened shortly after midnight, with an airborne assault of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops. This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed–73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Allied air power bombed and strafed German troops out in the open. But it couldn’t dislodge soldiers barricaded in steel-and-concrete-reinforced bunkers or pillboxes. Those had to be dislodged, one group at a time, by Allied soldiers armed with rifles, dynamite and flamethrowers.
This situation proved true throughout the rest of the war.
Then, starting in 1964, the theory of “Victory Through Air Power” once again proved a dud–in Vietnam.
Air Force General Curtis E. LeMay said, “We should bomb Vietnam back into the Stone Age.” And the bombers under his command did their best to achieve this.
From 1964 to 1975, 7 million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia–more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II.
Yet the result proved exactly the same as it had in World War II: The bombing enraged the North Vietnamese and steeled their resolve to fight on to the end.
The belief that victory could be achieved primarily–if not entirely–through air power had another unforeseen result during the Vietnam war. It gradually sucked the United States ever deeper into the conflict.
To bomb North Vietnam, the United States needed air force bases in South Vietnam. This required that those bombers and fighters be protected.
So a force to provide round-the-clock security had to be maintained. But there weren’t enough guards to defend themselves against a major attack by North Vietnamese forces.
So more American troops were needed–to guard the guards.
North Vietnam continued to press greater numbers of its soldiers into attacks on American bases. This forced America to provide greater numbers of its own soldiers to defend against such attacks.
Eventually, the United States had more than 500,000 ground troops fighting in Vietnam–with no end in sight to the conflict.
Now, with forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) launching a blitzkreig throughout Iraq, President Barack Obama seems to have caught the “Victory Through Airpower” disease.
ISIS has thrown the American-trained Iraqi Army into a panic, with soldiers dropping their rifles and running for their lives.
This has led Republicans to accuse the President of being about to “lose” Iraq.
As a result, since September, 2014, he has ordered massive bombing of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.
Yet that has not altered the balance of power in Iraq.
As political columnist Mark Shields observed on the May 22 edition of the PBS Newshour, this has only led to greater Republican demands for “boots on the ground”:
“Now, there are 60 nations in this coalition. I haven’t seen people lining up to join this fight. I mean, in a proxy war, you are dependent upon your proxies. And the Iraqis turn out to be not particularly engaged, divided, not unified, not committed the same way….
“Get tough, get tough, swagger. [Senator] Lindsey Graham wants to put in [10,000 troops]….
“George Pataki said, put in as many as you need, and kill everybody you can and get out. Now, getting out, I think, was the question and it remains the dilemma to this moment.
“And…anybody who walks around with a flag pin in his lapel now who is running for president or running for Congress and says let’s go in and let’s kick some tail and let’s take some numbers and bomb some people, that takes no courage at all, because it’s not their blood they’re talking about, and it’s not their children’s blood.”
Once again, the United States has bought into the lie of “victory through air power.” And, as a result, the nation stands poised to once again sacrifice billions of dollars and thousands of lives in a worthless cause.
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JUNE 6: ONE DAY, TWO ANNIVERSARIES
In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2015 at 12:38 am“For it is the doom of men that they forget.”
–Merlin, in “Excalibur”
June 6–a day of glory and tragedy.
The glory came 71 years ago–-on Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
On that morning, Americans awoke to learn–-from radio and newspapers–-that their soldiers had landed on the French coast of Normandy.
In Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Overall command of ground forces was given to British General Bernard Montgomery.
Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion to liberate France from Nazi Germany, proved one of the pivotal actions of World War II.
It opened shortly after midnight, with an airborne assault of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops.
This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel–-the legendary “Desert Fox”–-commanded the German forces. For him, the first 24 hours of the battle would be decisive.
“For the Allies as well as the Germans,” he warned his staff, “it will be the longest day.”
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed–-73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Initially, the Allied assault seemed likely to be stopped at the water’s edge–-where Rommel had always insisted it must be.
He had warned that if the Allies established a beachhead, their overwhelming advantages in numbers and airpower would eventually prove irresistible.
German machine-gunners and mortarmen wreaked a fearful toll on Allied soldiers. But commanders like U.S. General Norman Cota led their men to victory through a storm of bullets and shells.
Coming upon a group of U.S. Army Rangers taking cover behind sand dunes, Cota demanded: “What outfit is this?”
“Rangers!” yelled one of the soldiers.
“Well, Goddamnit, then, Rangers, lead the way!” shouted Cota, inspiring the soldiers to rise and charge into the enemy.
The command also gave the Rangers the motto they carry to this day.
The allied casualty figures for D-Day have been estimated at 10,000, including 4,414 dead. By nationality, the D-Day casualty figures are about 2,700 British, 946 Canadians and 6,603 Americans.
The total number of German casualties on D-Day isn’t known, but is estimated at 4,000 to 9,000.
Allied and German armies continued to clash throughout France, Belgium and Germany until May 7, 1945, when Germany finally surrendered.
But those Americans who had taken part in D-Day could be proud of having dealt a fatal blow to the evil ambitions of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
So much for the glory of June 6. Now for the tragedy–-which occurred 47 years ago, on Thursday, June 6, 1968.
Twenty-four years after D-Day, Americans awoke to learn–-mostly from TV–-that New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy had died at 1:44 a.m. of an assassin’s bullet.
He had been campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and had just won the California primary on June 4.
This had been a make-or-break event for Kennedy, a fierce critic of the seemingly endless Vietnam war.
He had won the Democratic primaries in Indiana and Nebraska, but had lost the Oregon primary to Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.
If he could defeat McCarthy in California, Kennedy could force his rival to quit the race. That would lead to a showdown between him and Vice President Hubert Humphery for the nomination.
(President Lyndon B. Johnson had withdrawn from the race on March 31–-just 15 days after Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16.)
After winning the California and South Dakota primaries, Kennedy gave a magnaminous victory speech in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles:
“I think we can end the divisions within the United States….We are a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country.
“And I intend to make that my basis for running over the period of the next few months.”
Then he entered the hotel kitchen–-where Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian from Jordan, opened fire with a .22 revolver.
Kennedy was hit three times–once fatally in the back of the head. Five other people were also wounded.
Kennedy’s last-known words were: “Is everybody all right?” and “Jack, Jack”–-the latter clearly a reference to his beloved older brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Almost five years earlier, that brother–-then President of the United States–-had been assassinated in Dalas on November 22, 1963.
Then Robert Kennedy lost consciousness–-forever, dying in a hospital bed 24 hours later.
Kennedy had been a U.S. Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator (1964-1968). But it was his connection to President Kennedy for which he was best-known.
His assassination–-coming so soon after that of JFK–-convinced many Americans there was something “sick” about the nation’s culture.
One of the best summaries of Robert Kennedy’s legacy was given in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s, by historian William L. O’Neil:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….
“He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
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