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 its own skies, the attrition of enemy air forces, and the destruction of enemy oil supplies and transportation networks. The strategic bombing campaign forced Germany to divert 40 percent of its industry to aerial defense, 2 million of its workers to manufacturing supplies and equipment for air defense, 2 million of its soldiers to manning ground defenses, and 2.5 million of its laborers to cleaning up the damage. Victory in the air was "complete," and air power had helped "turn the tide overwhelmingly in favor of Allied ground forces."

Despite Europe's priority in Allied planning, America's first strategic bombing effort of the war began against Japan, when sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and launched from the USS Hornet attacked targets on the Japanese home island of Honshu in mid-April 1942. Although militarily insignificant, the Doolittle raid embarrassed and infuriated Japanese military leaders and raised Allied morale. It was an omen of what Japan could expect from America's air power.

All the while, the Pacific war was more than just half-a-world away. In Europe the United States had powerful allies to consult and support at every turn. Except for the British Empire's forces in India, Burma, and Australia, the war against Japan was an American show. Europe had Eisenhower to unite British and American armies, navies, and air forces. In the Pacific, the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy competed in the drive toward the Japanese homeland. In General Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area, the U.S. Army fought from Australia through New Guinea to Leyte and Luzon in the Philippines. In Admiral Chester Nimitz's Pacific Ocean Areas, the U.S. Navy moved among the islands from the Solomons and Gilberts through the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas to Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Combined with a lesser American effort to support China's war against Japan, the distances involved insured a major role for the USAAF.

In the Army's initial fighting on Papua New Guinea, thick jungles, rugged terrain, and inadequate forces restricted the help the USAAF could provide for MacArthur's hard-pressed command. By December 1942 the Fifth Air Force under Major General George Kenney had sufficient numbers of P-38s to seize air superiority over the island, allowing its B-17, B-24, B-25, and A-20 bombers to cut the flow of Japanese reinforcements and supplies. Kenney proved the master tactical innovator, developing skip bombing to sink enemy ships and arming his medium bombers with extra nose-mounted machine guns and even 75-mm cannon to improve their firepower. Kenney took a "seamless" approach to air power that had, in Carl Spaatz's words, "no line of cleavage 33