MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz continued to close the ring around
Japan, bypassing a number of the strategically insignificant islands; MacArthur
advanced from the south and south-west towards the Philippines, while Nimitz
pushed from Hawaii across the Central Pacific. Despite suffering horrific casual-
ties and fighting hopelessly outnumbered, the Japanese continued to resist; it
took the dropping of two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki,
inflicting some 220,000 casualties in a span of three days, to convince Tokyo to
surrender in August 1945.
Although the ability to bring to bear superior numbers over vast distances was
clearly a major factor in the success of American operational art, numbers never tell
the whole story. The long-range bombing campaigns, which clearly involved a form
of calculus, were also an effort, pushed energetically by air power theorists, to break
the will of the Axis populace—to strike directly at what some call an opponent’s
psychological centre of gravity. Before the war, a fair amount of optimism prevailed
among these theorists about how effective such an air campaign could be; however,
actual results fell far short of expectations. Although considerable debate still
surrounds the issue, it seems clear that the bombing of major cities and industrial
centres alone was not sufficient for victory, but might well have been necessary.
Indeed, the destructive power of modern, heavy bombers was unparalleled.
The bombing of Hamburg in 1943, for example, generated 90,000 casualties over
the course of four months. The controversial bombing of Dresden in 1945
resulted in 80,000 casualties in the space of three months, while the most
devastating of the Tokyo raids caused 125,000 casualties during the month of
May 1945. 51 Yet, rather than forcing their governments to surrender, civilian
populations tended to become inured to the destruction, desiring not to capitu-
late, but to strike back. Arguably, their will to fight was strengthened rather than
weakened. 52 It is difficult to know the true extent to which Axis production
figures were diminished by Allied bombing; after all, German production figures
actually increased during the period of the bombing; part of that can be explained
by the fact that Germany shifted to a full wartime economy only after 1943.
However, it seems clear that the Allied bombing effort, while not sufficient for
success, was certainly necessary. Resources pulled to defend the German heart-
land from attack were not available to make a difference on either the Eastern or
Western Fronts. What these events reveal is just how interconnected operations in
the air, on land, and at sea had become. Operational success or failure in one
dimension influenced operations in the others. In a manner of speaking, the
separate dimensions were becoming more interdependent.
THE KOREAN CONFLICTAmerican operational art changed little between 1945 and 1950. Much of the
equipment from the Second World War remained in service, though there were
improved tank, artillery, and aircraft models, particularly jet aircraft. The US
150 The Evolution of Operational Art