World War II: Operation Matterhorn

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By early November 1944, LeMay had gotten the unit to a much higher level of combat efficiency — the crews were better trained and the aircraft were better maintained — but it didn’t solve the overall problem. While B-29 missions continued against targets in Southeast Asia, Formosa and Kyushu, it was becoming apparent to LeMay, Arnold and the Joint Chiefs that sustained B-29 operations out of the CBI were of limited strategic value. The raids, averaging 50 to 60 B-29s, were delivering about 125 to 150 tons of bombs to the target, and not all the targets could be classified as strategic (i.e., war industries). During the same time period, the Eighth and Fifteenth air forces in Europe were putting 3,500 tons of bombs on a strategic target in a single day.

In December 1944, the Joint Chiefs decided that Matterhorn would be phased out and the aircraft and personnel of the 58th would be transferred to Tinian, one of the islands in the Marianas group near Saipan. Certain personnel and B-29s would be left behind in India under the command of Lord Mountbatten and would not join the others until March 1945. On January 6, 1945, Arnold announced that he was naming LeMay as new commander of XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas, replacing Brig. Gen. Haywood ‘Possum’ Hansell.

In all fairness, the attempt to operate the B-29s out of the CBI should be classified as an experiment. Even in a different combat theater with better logistical support, early B-29 operations would likely have proved difficult, given the teething problems associated with a complicated new aircraft. In fact, the XXI Bomber Command produced only marginal results during its first months of combat operations, resulting in General Hansell’s suffering the same fate as Kenneth Wolfe. It would not be until March 1945, with LeMay at the helm, that the B-29s started to inflict serious strategic damage on the Japanese Home Islands. By mid-1945, large segments of Japan’s major industrial cities had been reduced to rubble as a result of the Allied bombing effort. The Imperial Navy had been destroyed, and the Japanese army and air forces had been forced to move underground. Some military historians believe the Japanese would have surrendered by the end of 1945 even if the United States had not elected to use the atomic bomb.

In any case, Hap Arnold was on target in his prediction — a war can be fought and won through the right use of strategic air power.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Airborne Operations, Aviation History, Historical Conflicts, World War II

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