Abstract
In August 1945 the longer-term implications of the devastation inflicted on Nagasaki and Hiroshima tended to be lost in more general feelings of relief as six years of worldwide bloodshed and misery came to an abrupt halt. Since then, however, it has been increasingly difficult to formulate any ideas about the present and future application of air power without ultimately taking into account the presence of nuclear weapons.1 Indeed, the delivery of the weapons in 1945 seemed to mark the culmination of the pervasive impact of air power during the Second World War. So much so, that Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder could quietly assert at the University of Cambridge in 1947:
I am utterly convinced that the outstanding and vital lesson of the last war is that airpower is the dominant factor in this modern world and that, though the methods of exercising it will change, it will remain the dominant factor as long as power determines the fate of nations.2
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Notes and References
Lord Tedder, ‘Air Power in War’, Lees Knowles lectures (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1947 ).
Churchill quoted in Eugene M. Emme (ed.), The Impact of Air Power: National Security and World Politics ( New York: Van Nostrand, 1959 ).
Quote from Brigadier General A. F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Indiana University Press, 1975 ) p. 142.
H. G. Wells War in the Air ( London: George Bell and Sons, 1908 ).
Headquarters Royal Flying Corps Memo, 22 September 1966. Quoted in full in Hyam, Military Intellectuals in Britain 1918–39 ( New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1966 ) pp. 253–6.
ACTS, Air Force, Part 1, ‘Air Warfare’, 1 March 1936, p. 14, quoted by R. F. Futrell in Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1964 ( Alabama: Air University Maxwell Air Force Base, 1974 ).
A comprehensive analysis of the various influences on national air power before 1939 is given in R. J. Overy, The Air War 1939–45 ( London: Europa Press, 1980 ).
Alexander Boyd, The Soviet Air Force since 1918 (London: Macdonald & Jane’s, 1977) pp. 180–2.
S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1954 ) p. 500.
B. H. Liddell-Hart, History of the Second World War ( London: Cassell, 1970 ) p. 390.
H. D. Hall, History of the Second World War, North American Supply ( London: HMSO, 1955 ) p. 424.
Analysed in full in P. M. Smith, The Air Force Plans for Peace, 1943–1945 ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970 ).
Quoted by Lieutenant Colonel D. Maclsaac in Wilson Center Paper no. 8, The Air Force and Strategic Thought 1945–51 (Wilson Center, 21 June 1979 ).
Memo for Chiefs of Staff, 28 May 1945. Quoted by J. T. Greenwood in Air Power and Warfare (USAFA, 1978 ) p. 219.
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© 1983 M. J. Armitage and R. A. Mason
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Armitage, M.J., Mason, R.A. (1983). The Dominant Factor. In: Air Power in the Nuclear Age, 1945–82. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04192-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04192-3_1
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