Victor Davis Hanson | The Race for Air Supremacy in World War II

World War II, the greatest armed conflict in human history, encompassed global fighting in unprecedented ways. This course analyzes Allied and Axis investments and strategies that led one side to win and the other to lose. It also considers how the war’s diverse theaters, belligerents, and ways of fighting came eventually to define a single war.

Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.

The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.

By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.

[Galland_]

Sorry but if this guy is a ww2 historian he should know about the elephant in the room: A single sortie of 500+ heavy bombers consumed more aviation fuel than germany had available for all purposes in one day. When german fuel production was at its peak, that is.

[poppyclypsenoir]

In WWII the four engine bomber was good for killing women and children and was not good for much else. The dismal accuracy of high altitude bombing (even against stationary targets) eventually caused all the allies to revert to terror bombing of cities. This tactic had the opposite effect on the axis powers, as they then believed their struggle had become one to prevent annihilation. This is why both the Germans and the Japanese fought to the bitter end. I believe the four engine bomber has nothing to do with air supremacy. Tactically inefficient, vulnerable to a fault and strategically unsound the four engine bomber contributed little to the outcome of the war. The Japanese only surrendered after the Soviets invaded Manchuria and were unconvinced the super bomb had destroyed two of their cities.