Japan 1944-45 examines the only time in history that a major war was
ended by the use of air power. It shows how the United States used a
combination of industrial capability and geography to devastate Japan
from the air, and why the Japanese, despite a promising start to their
defense, proved unable to prevent the XXIst Air Force from destroying
their country.
Since the early 1930s air power advocates had claimed that aerial
bombardment alone could defeat a nation. Yet by January 1945, while it
had been the key to winning ground campaigns, from the German Blitzkrieg
to the Allies' advance across the Pacific, air power had failed to
demonstrate their most audacious claim: that strategic bombing, by
itself, could win a war.
The United States sought to prove it by reducing the Japanese Home
Islands' military and industrial capability through bombing alone until
they had to surrender.