English

DTIC ADA421966: Strategy for Defeat: The Lutfwaffe, 1933-1945

As with all military thought, a wide variety of political, historical, and economic factors guided the development of air doctrines in the period between the First and Second World Wars. Yet standing above all other influences was a revulsion against the mud and despair of the trenches. Thus, it is not surprising that an Italian senior officer, Giulio Douhet, would argue that airpower could prevent the repetition of a war that had cost Italy more than 400,000 dead. In terms of the first formulations of air doctrine, Douhet's thought did not prove particularly influential. In Britain, the development of doctrine, both within and outside of the Royal Air Force (RAF), already was well advanced by the end of the First World War. Douhet may have exercised more influence on American doctrine, since various translated extracts of his work found their way into the library and schools of the American Air Service as early as 1922. But the formulation of a precision bombing doctrine in the United States raises the question of how deeply his writings influenced early Army Air Corps pioneers.

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