Civilian casualties of strategic bombing
Strategic bombing is best defined as the use of airpower to strike at the most crucial points of the enemy's war effort—factories, oil refineries, railroads, and other infrastructure—rather than just directly targeting military bases, supply depots, or enemy combatants. Strategic bombing may also include the intent to dehouse, demoralize, or kill enemy civilians, and thus hinders them from supporting the enemy's war effort.[2] The bombing can be utilized by strategic bombers or missiles, and may use general-purpose bombs, guided bombs, incendiary bombs, chemical weapons, biological weapons, or nuclear weapons.
This article lists the strategic bombing of cities and towns, and their human death tolls throughout history, starting from before World War II.
Contents
- 1 Spanish Civil War (July 18, 1936 – April 1, 1939)
- 2 Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – December 8, 1941, merged into World War II on December 8, 1941)
- 3 World War II (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945)
- 4 1991 Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991)
- 5 Second Chechen War (August 26, 1999 – May 2000, June 2000 – April 15, 2009)
- 6 See also
- 7 Notes
- 8 References
Spanish Civil War (July 18, 1936 – April 1, 1939)
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City/Town | Country | Date | Estimated death toll | Attacking force | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jaén | Spain | 1 April 1937 | 159 | German Luftwaffe "Condor Legion" | See: Bombing of Jaén. |
Guernica | Spain | 26 April 1937 | 126–400 | German Luftwaffe "Condor Legion" and the Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria | Considered to be the first aerial attack that caused widespread destruction of a city in military aviation history. See: Bombing of Guernica. |
Barcelona | Spain | 16–19 March 1938 | 1,000–1,300 | Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria | See: Bombing of Barcelona. |
Alicante | Spain | 25 May 1938 | 275–393 | Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria | See: Bombing of Alicante. |
Granollers | Spain | 31 May 1938 | 100–224 | Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria | See: Bombing of Granollers. |
La Garriga | Spain | 28–29 January 1939 | 13 | Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria | See: Bombing of La Garriga. |
Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – December 8, 1941, merged into World War II on December 8, 1941)
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City/Town | Country | Date | Estimated death toll | Attacking force | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nanking | China | 25 September 1937 | 600 | Imperial Japanese Army Air Service | See: Bombing of Nanking. |
Guangzhou | China | 28 May and 4 June 1938[3][4] | 1,400-1,450 | Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service | Japanese naval bombers attacked Guangzhou, killing 700–750 civilians and wounding 1,350 on 28 May 1938. Seven days later, the city was attacked again, causing an estimated 2,000 casualties (700 deaths). Combined the dates, an estimated 1,400–1,450 Chinese civilians were killed.[3][4] |
Chushien | China | 4 October 1940 | 21 | Imperial Japanese Army Air Service | 21 civilians were killed when a Japanese airplane flew over the town of Chushien and released rice and wheat plus rat fleas carrying Y. pestis.[5][6] |
Ningbo | China | 29 October 1940 | 99 | Imperial Japanese Army Air Service | 99 civilians were killed when Imperial Japanese Army Air Service bombers struck the city of Ningbo with ceramic bombs full of fleas carrying the bubonic plague.[5][7] |
Chongqing | China | 5 June 1941 | 4,000 | Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service | Conflagration. Within three hours of bombing, 4,000 residents were asphyxiated to death. See: Bombing of Chongqing. |
World War II (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945)
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City/Town | Country | Date | Estimated death toll | Attacking force | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wieluń | Poland | 1 September 1939 | c. 1 300 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | See: Bombing of Wieluń. |
Warsaw | Poland | 1-27 September 1939 | c. 25 000 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | See: Bombing of Warsaw in World War II. |
Rotterdam | Netherlands | 14 May 1940 | 884 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | Firestorm. See: Rotterdam Blitz. |
London | United Kingdom | 7 September 1940 | 430 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | Firestorm. See: London Blitz. |
Coventry | United Kingdom | 14 November 1940 | 568 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | Firestorm. See: Coventry Blitz. |
Birmingham | United Kingdom | 19 November 1940 | 450 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | Firestorm. See: Birmingham Blitz. |
Bristol | United Kingdom | 24 November 1940 | 207 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | Firestorm. See: Bristol Blitz. |
Belgrade | Kingdom of Yugoslavia | 6–8 April 1941 | 1,500–17,000[8] | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | See: Bombing of Belgrade in World War II. |
Leningrad | Russia | 19 September 1941 | 1,000 | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | See: Siege of Leningrad. |
Paris | France | 2–3 March 1942 | 600 | RAF Bomber Command | See: Bombing of France during World War II. |
Rangoon | Burma | 23 and 25 December 1941 | 1,250-7,000 | Imperial Japanese Army Air Service | Lack of adequate protection of the city caused extensive damage to houses and mass civilian casualties. See: Bombing of Rangoon (1941–1942). |
Cologne | Germany | 30–31 May 1942 | 411 | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Cologne in World War II. |
Stalingrad | Russia | 23 August 1942 | 25,000–40,000[9] | Oberkommando der Luftwaffe | Firestorm. Over 1,000 German planes flew 1,660 sorties, dropping 1,000 tons of incendiary bombs on the first day of the Battle of Stalingrad, effectively gutting the city's residential area.[9] See: Bombing of Stalingrad in World War II. |
Mortsel | Belgium | 5 April 1943 | 936 | USAAF | |
Hamburg | Germany | 24–30 July 1943 | 42,600[10] | RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF Eighth Air Force | Firestorm.[11] See: Battle of Hamburg. |
Kassel | Germany | 22–23 October 1943 | 10,000 | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Kassel in World War II. |
Augsburg | Germany | 25–26 February 1944 | 730 | RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF Eighth Air Force | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Augsburg in World War II. |
Caen | France | 7 July 1944 | 400 | RAF Bomber Command | Carried out in support of Operation Charnwood, the attempt by ground forces to capture Caen. The bombing failed, as the main German armor and infantry positions to the north of Caen remained intact. In order to avoid dropping bombs on their own ground forces, the markers were dropped too far forward, pushing the bombed zone well into Caen itself and further away from the German defenses, and thus inflicting heavy French civilian casualties. |
Darmstadt | Germany | 11–12 September 1944 | 11,500 | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Darmstadt in World War II. |
Duisburg | Germany | 14–15 October 1944 | 2,500 | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Duisburg in World War II. |
Ulm | Germany | 17 December 1944 | 707[12] | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm.[12] See: Bombing of Ulm in World War II. |
Dresden | Germany | 13–15 February 1945 | 22,700–25,000[13] | RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF Eighth Air Force | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Dresden in World War II. |
Pforzheim | Germany | 23 February 1945 | 17,600 | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Pforzheim in World War II. |
The Hague | Netherlands | 3 March 1945 | 551 | RAF Bomber Command | The high rate of civilian casualties resulted due to the wrong coordinates given to RAF pilots, which dropped the bombs on the densely populated neighborhood of Bezuidenhout instead of Haagse Bos, where the Germans had installed V-2 launching facilities that had been used to attack English cities. See: Bombing of the Bezuidenhout. |
Tokyo | Japan | 9–10 March 1945 | 88,000–100,000 | USAAF Twentieth Air Force | Conflagration. 279 B-29s dropped about 1,700 short tons (1,500 t) of bombs, destroying 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city.[14] [15][16] [17][18] See: Bombing of Tokyo |
Osaka | Japan | 13–14 March 1945 | 3,987 | USAAF Twentieth Air Force | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Osaka. |
Würzburg | Germany | 16 March 1945 | 5,000 | RAF Bomber Command | Firestorm. See: Bombing of Würzburg in World War II. |
Kobe | Japan | 16–17 March 1945 | 8,841[19] | USAAF Twentieth Air Force | Firestorm.[19] See: Bombing of Kobe in World War II. |
Taipei | Taiwan | 31 May 1945 | 3,000 | USAAF Fifth Air Force | See: Raid on Taipei. |
Aomori | Japan | 29 July 1945 | 1,767[20] | USAAF Twentieth Air Force | Firestorm.[20] See: Bombing of Aomori in World War II |
Hiroshima | Japan | 6 August 1945 | 50,000–60,000 | USAAF 393rd Bomb Squadron | The first ever use of nuclear weaponry in combat. Uranium-based nuclear weapon: codename Little Boy. An estimated 50,000-60,000 were instantly killed. Some 70,000 others suffered burns or died by the end of 1945 and in the years afterwards.[21][22][23][24][25] See: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
Nagasaki | Japan | 9 August 1945 | 35,000–40,000 | USAAF 393rd Bomb Squadron | The second and the last use of nuclear weaponry in combat. Plutonium-based nuclear weapon: codename Fat Man. An estimated 35,000-40,000 people were instantly killed. Some 50,000 others suffered burns or died by the end of 1945 and in the years afterwards.[21][26][27][28][25] See: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
1991 Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991)
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City/town | Country | Date | Estimated death toll | Attacking force | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Baghdad | Iraq | 14 February 1991 | 130 | Royal Air Force | A laser-guided missile intended against a bridge in the Al-Fallujah neighborhood missed and hit a residential area, killing up to 130 civilians.[29] |
Second Chechen War (August 26, 1999 – May 2000, June 2000 – April 15, 2009)
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City/Town | Country | Date | Estimated death toll | Attacking force | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Elistanzhi | Chechnya, Russia | October 7, 1999 | 34 | Russian Air Force | See: Elistanzhi cluster bomb attack |
Grozny | Chechnya, Russia | October 21, 1999 | 118 | Russia's Strategic Missile Troops | The use of Scud ballistic missiles against various civilian and government/military targets. See also: Grozny ballistic missile attack. |
See also
Notes
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Brauer, Jurgen. Castles, Battles, and Bombs: How Economics Explains Military History. p 199. University Of Chicago Press; Reprint edition (2008) ISBN 0-2260-7164-2.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Bombing of Shanghai, Chongqing, and other Cities
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 LIFE, June 20, 1938, Page 9
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Biological Weapons
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Daniel Barenblatt, A Plague upon Humanity, 2004, p.32.
- ↑ Knell 2009, pp. 194–195.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 AT STALINGRAD: ANTE PAVELIC AND THE HRVATSKA LEGIJA, 1941-1943.
- ↑ Frankland & Webster 1961, pp. 260-261.
- ↑ Dyson 2006, p. 3.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Bombing of Ulm in World War II
- ↑ Neutzner 2010, p. 17.
- ↑ U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology. March 1945. Air Force Historical Studies Office. Retrieved 3 March 2009.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ David McNeill. "The night hell fell from the sky". Japan Focus, 10 March 2005.
- ↑ Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. p 599. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks (1984) ISBN 0-684-81378-5.
- ↑ Mark Selden. "A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the American Way of War from the Pacific War to Iraq". Japan Focus, 2 May 2007.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 21st Bomber Command Tactical Mission Report 43, April 19th, 1945 Cite error: Invalid
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tag; name "tact-43" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 20.0 20.1 Wainstock. The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Page 9
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Mary Palevsky, Robert Futrell, and Andrew Kirk. Recollections of Nevada's Nuclear Past UNLV FUSION, 2005, p. 20.
- ↑ Mary Palevsky, Robert Futrell, and Andrew Kirk. Recollections of Nevada's Nuclear Past UNLV FUSION, 2005, p. 20.
- ↑ Gulf War
References
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