America's Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910-1945

World War I demonstrated the potential of aerial bombing and also its underlying weakness: without accuracy, it was more bluster than power. Eager to avoid the horrors of prolonged trench warfare and to adopt an economy of force strategy U.S. military services aggressively pursued the goal of precision. In this book, Stephen L. McFarland traces the evolution of bombing doctrines and of two interrelated technologies - bombsights and automatic pilots - from the earliest efforts in 1910 to stabilize aircraft in flight to the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. Using primary sources, he discusses the technology behind strategic bombing campaigns and offers the first complete account of the Norden bombsight as the underpinning of that strategy.