World War II: Air Force

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World War II was an intense total war and a crucial part of history which helped form the world as we know it today. It was a massive global occurrence whose events altered the political alignment and social structure of the entire world and eventually led to the creation of the United Nations. It was the most widespread war with over one hundred million soldiers in service from over 30 countries around the globe. Within the war, one of the strongest and most influential forces for all of the different countries and armed forces was the Air force. An air force is a division of the military mainly consisting of aerial warfare, but can be used for everything from bombing to reconnaissance. Air forces surfaced during or near World War I but didn’t…show more content…
Although dogfights were first used in World War I, they became a major staple in World War II due to the fact every major power had some sort of air force and was capable of these air battles. These battles were fierce, fast, and extremely deadly. One of the top dogfight competitors of World War II was the Imperial Japanese Army Air service with their Mitsubishi A6M Zeros. Zeros quickly became the most capable carrier-based fighter in the world, combining excellent maneuverability and very long range. It was able to fly circles around the allies’ large bombers and even the allies’ fighter aircraft. It ruled the pacific theater up until around 1942 when the allied forces began to build faster, stronger, and more long ranged aircraft such as the P51D Mustang or the Spitfire MK9 with top speeds of four hundred miles per hour plus and an extremely deadly range. Air combat played such a major role in World War II with forty seven thousand deaths involving aviation combat of just United States service men alone. It decided major battles and allowed both sides to gain strategic advantages over their enemy all of the western and Pacific…show more content…
Up until that point the United States only involvement was supplying the United Kingdom with money and necessary equipment to defend themselves. The U.S. did not want to see Germany’s power increase so rapidly but they also did not want to join another world war for many political and economic reasons. Although we were relatively prepared and knew the possibility was very imminent, the severity of Pearl Harbor really caught the U.S. off guard. On the morning of December 7, 1941 at 7:58 AM, 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. All eight United States Navy battleships were damaged, four of which were sunk. They later raised all but one from the ocean and six of the eight were returned to service and fought in the war. In total the Japanese destroyed six ships and one hundred and eighty eight air craft, damaged twelve ships including three destroyers and three cruisers and one hundred and fifty six air craft, killed two thousand four hundred and two Americans, and injured one thousand two hundred and eighty two people. The Japanese only lost five submarines, twenty nine air craft, and sixty four soldiers. The day after the attack, Roosevelt delivered his famous Infamy Speech to a Joint Session of Congress, calling for a formal declaration of war on the Empire of Japan. Congress
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