Haywood S. Hansell - Impact On Strategic Doctrine

Impact On Strategic Doctrine

Hansell outlined an alternate strategy for defeating Japan, using precision bombing as its basis, that he believed would have also succeeded by November 1945 while obviating the need for area bombing using incendiaries or the atomic bomb. He did not find fault with the incendiary strategy per se, but rather with the premise that fire-bombing was necessary because otherwise Japan could not be defeated except by invasion of her home islands. Historian Michael Sherry concluded that the case he presented was "powerful". Arnold by implication had erred in changing AAF strategy, especially taking into account the "deep and pervasive revulsion among the American people against strategic bombing of all sorts" that was a consequence.

"in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bomb had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."

Historian and Hansell biographer Dr. Charles Griffith concluded that Hansell sacrificed his command of the B-29 force and his later career on principle, adhering to the idea that precision rather than area bombing was not only more moral, but more effective as a strategy. His dismissal, Griffith argues, was a pivotal event in U.S. airpower doctrine, as the Air Force moved toward a strategy of bombing civilian populations, which led to an increasing dependence on the more potentially devastating, inflexible, and "Douhetian" doctrine of nuclear warfare that lasted for decades.

Conrad Crane took a somewhat different stance, arguing that despite the firebombing campaign in Japan, American air commanders throughout World War II and thereafter placed an emphasis on precision bombing and avoiding civilian casualties. The use of precision guided weapons in the Gulf War and beyond, he wrote, demonstrated "continued adherence to precision-bombing doctrine and...significant progress toward the ideal...first envisioned" by Hansell and the other Air Corps Tactical School theorists.

Hansell lectured on the theory of precision air attack throughout his life, particularly at the United States Air Force Academy and the Air War College. He authored three books on air strategy: The Air War Plan That Defeated Hitler (1972), The Strategic Air War Against Japan (1980), and Strategic Air War Against Germany and Japan: A Memoir (1986). Hansell continued to study modern weapons systems, becoming an advocate of the Strategic Defense Initiative and the B-2 Spirit bomber. However his main focus was in promoting technical advances in precision guided weapons to make precision bombing more practical and therefore more desirable as a military strategy.