About

World War II (1939-1945) was one of the most disastrous events in the course of human history. The war involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries, and caused over 50 to 85 million lives. This project is going to focus on how the Allies’ strategic bombing in Germany, a newly emerged bombing technique, shaped the course of the war.

Hello and welcome! My name is Kai-Ting Chan, currently a MLIS student in UCLA who is interested in World War II history. In this project, I utilize “Aerial Bombing Operations in World War II- Target, aircraft used, and bombs deployed for every mission in WWII” dataset from the United States Air Force to explain the origin of strategic bombing, its key figures, and the changes of Allies’ tactics and aircraft throughout the period. Through processing the data, I will categorize my narrative into five segments: Origin of Strategic Bombing, Strategic Bombing Pioneers, Tactics and Aircrafts Series, Mission Targets and Impacts, and What the Data cannot Show about the Allies’ Strategic Bombing, adding visualizations such as a map, a timeline, charts, and photos to allow the readers to better understand the impacts of the aerial missions towards the society as a whole. The project is then made web available by Mobirise and publishes via Github.

The mission of this project is to not only help the readers to understand this part of the history, but encourage the readers to think of it in multiple perspectives. War is not merely about statistics, there are a lot of aspects that the data cannot show or adequately present. Therefore, in the last section, “What the Data cannot Show about the Allies’ Strategic Bombing”, I am going to analyze what is missing in the dataset, such as the moral and humane aspects of the war. Enjoy!