Dresden (top), Berlin (bottom left).

Build and deploy an air force of heavy bombers; fly them over the enemy's factories; and destroy the enemy's materials and infrastructure.

In the cloudless peacetime skies of the American southwest, flight crews tested the Norden bombsight by dropping sandbags onto marked circles in the desert floor. Results encouraged the manufacturer to claim they "could hit a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet (3,000 meters). This was malarkey. At that height, a pickle barrel was smaller than the cross-hairs in the bombsight. Still, it sold the war planners.

 

Bombardier's view -- July 7 -- over Alt Cosel. Bombs are hitting at left.

Post-mission reconn photos revealed that America's high altitude precision bombers missed as often as they hit the target. Misses fell in fields and forests; and hit houses and schools.

On July 7, 1944, the 15th AAF mistakenly wiped out the village of Alt Cosel.

Bombs fell everywhere over the 6-month bombing campaign. Each white dot is a bomb crater.

A scaled comparison: if a German air campaign had targeted the Watertown Arsenal with similar technology and tactics, they might have wiped out half of Watertown, Massachusetts.

Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Then Germany declared war on the United States. America surged into its war plan. The Roosevelt administration made sure manufacturers were all-in by handing out large government contracts. Soon, Ford's Willow Run plant was producing one B-24 every hour. The American industrial juggernaut ultimately supplied Britain, Russia, and its own military, overwhelming Germany and Japan.

American home-front messaging, sponsored by Buick.

America was united in this fight. Even the bread had mobilized.

Women and childen were urged to serve.

Recruiting young men to fight.

Ronald Reagan, master story-teller

1943 was a deadly year for the American air forces. To surge recruiting, the Pentagon produced this short movie. By late '43, it was playing in US movie houses. Here is a 4-minute excerpt.

American military training produced the finest soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen.

The Lindell crew