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photo
== Deployment ==
== Deployment ==
===Target: Japan===
===Target: Japan===
[[Image:B-29-bombs.jpg|thumb|300px|loading 500 pound bombs in B-29 in China, June 1944]]
==Bombing Japan==
==Bombing Japan==
Since 1941 American strategy against Japan was built around heavy raids against the flimsy, easily burned cities. Plans to base [[B-17]] bombers in the Philippines failed when Japan attacked the airbases and overran the islands. The B-29 had the range to give the Americans the weapon they needed to reach Japan. The B-29 was first deployed from bases in India and China in summer and fall 1944. The result was failure--it was extremely expensive to supply the planes (all the gasoline and bombs had to be flown in over "the Hump" (the very high Himalayan mountains), and anyway the Japanese Army overran the American bases in China. The Mariana Islands, captured in June 1944, provided a much better airbase within range of all Japanese industrial centers. However, the systematic raids that began in late 1944 were also unsatisfactory, because the AAF had learned too much in Europe; it overemphasized self-defense. AAF commander General Hap Arnold, in personal charge of the campaign (bypassing the theater commanders) brought in a new leader, brilliant, indefatigable, hard-charging General [[Curtis LeMay]].
Since 1941 American strategy against Japan was built around heavy raids against the flimsy, easily burned cities. Plans to base [[B-17]] bombers in the Philippines failed when Japan attacked the airbases and overran the islands. The B-29 had the range to give the Americans the weapon they needed to reach Japan. The B-29 was first deployed from bases in India and China in summer and fall 1944. The result was failure--it was extremely expensive to supply the planes (all the gasoline and bombs had to be flown in over "the Hump" (the very high Himalayan mountains), and anyway the Japanese Army overran the American bases in China. The Mariana Islands, captured in June 1944, provided a much better airbase within range of all Japanese industrial centers. However, the systematic raids that began in late 1944 were also unsatisfactory, because the AAF had learned too much in Europe; it overemphasized self-defense. AAF commander General Hap Arnold, in personal charge of the campaign (bypassing the theater commanders) brought in a new leader, brilliant, indefatigable, hard-charging General [[Curtis LeMay]].