title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: As the ships were traveling to the beach, the heavy seas, combined with the chaos of the fighting caused most of the landing force to be thrown off-course and most of the 116th Infantry missed its landing spots. Most of the regiment's tank support, launched from too far off-shore, foundered and sank in the channel. The soldiers of the 116th Infantry were the first to hit the beach at 0630, coming under heavy fire from German fortifications. Company A, from the Virginia National Guard in Bedford was annihilated by overwhelming fire as it landed on the 116th's westernmost section of the beach, along with half of Company A, B, and C of the 2nd Ranger Battalion and the 5th Rangers Battalion which was landing to the west of the 116th. The catastrophic losses suffered by this small Virginia community led to it being selected for the site of the National D-Day Memorial. The 1st Infantry Division's forces ran into similar fortifications on the eastern half of the beach, suffering massive casualties coming ashore. By 0830, the landings were called off for lack of space on the beach, as the Americans on Omaha Beach were unable to overcome German fortifications guarding the beach exits. Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, commanding the American First Army, considered evacuating the survivors and landing the rest of the divisions elsewhere. However, by noon, elements of the American forces had been able to organize and advance off the beach, and the landings resumed. By nightfall, the division headquarters landed on the beach with about 60 percent of the division's total strength, and began organizing the push inland. On 7 June, a second wave of 20,000 reinforcements from both the 1st and 29th Divisions was sent ashore. By the end of D-Day, 2,400 men from the two divisions had become casualties on Omaha Beach. Added to casualties at other beaches and air-drops made the total casualties for the Normandy landings 6,500 Americans and 3,000 British and Canadians, lighter numbers than expected.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The entire division had landed in Normandy by 7 June. By 9 June, Omaha Beach was secure and the division occupied Isigny. On 14 July, the division was reassigned to XIX Corps, part of the First Army, itself part of the 12th Army Group.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division cut across the Elle River and advanced slowly toward Saint-Lô, fighting bitterly in the Normandy hedgerow country. German reserves formed a new defensive front outside the town, and American forces fought a fierce battle with them two miles outside of the town. German forces used the dense bocage foliage to their advantage, mounting fierce resistance in house-to-house fighting in the ravaged Saint-Lô. By the end of the fight, the Germans were relying on artillery support to hold the town following the depletion of the infantry contingent. The 29th Division, which was already undermanned after heavy casualties on D-Day, was even further depleted in the intense fighting for Saint-Lô. Eventually, the 29th was able to capture the city in a direct assault, supported by airstrikes from P-47 Thunderbolts.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: After taking Saint-Lô, on 18 July, the division joined in the battle for Vire, capturing that strongly held city by 7 August. It continued to face stiff German resistance as it advanced to key positions southeast of Saint-Lô It was then reassigned to V Corps, and then again to VIII Corps. Turning west, the 29th took part in the assault on Brest which lasted from 25 August until 18 September.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: After a short rest, the division returned to XIX Corps and took part of the Battle of Aachen by moving to defensive positions along the Teveren-Geilenkirchen line supporting the 30th Infantry Division in Germany and maintained those positions through October. On 16 November, the division began its drive to the Roer River, blasting its way through Siersdorf, Setterich, Durboslar, and Bettendorf, and reaching the Roer by the end of the month. Heavy fighting reduced in Jülich Sportplatz and the Hasenfeld Gut on 8 December. The Division did not take part in the Battle of the Bulge as they were held in reserve for equipment refitting and received replacements of fresh troops arriving from England and France after training for weeks.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: From 8 December 1944 to 23 February 1945, the division was assigned to XIII Corps and held defensive positions along the Rur and prepared for the next major offensive, Operation Grenade. The division was reassigned to XIX Corps, and the attack jumped off across the Rur on 23 February, and carried the division through Jülich, Broich, Immerath, and Titz, to Mönchengladbach by 1 March 1945. The division was out of combat in March. In early April the division was reassigned to XVI Corps, where the 116th Infantry helped mop up in the Ruhr Pocket. On 19 April 1945 the division, assigned to XIII Corps, pushed to the Elbe River and held defensive positions until 4 May and also made contact with Soviet troops. Meanwhile, the 175th Infantry cleared the Klotze Forest. After V-E Day, the division was on military occupation duty in the Bremen enclave. It was assigned to XVI Corps again for this assignment.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: From July 1943, the 29th Infantry Division was commanded by Major General Charles H. Gerhardt. The division had such a high casualty rate that it was said that Gerhardt actually commanded three divisions: one on the field of battle, one in the hospital and one in the cemetery. The 29th Infantry Division lost 3,887 killed in action, 15,541 wounded in action, 347 missing in action, 845 prisoners of war, in addition to 8,665 non-combat casualties, during 242 days of combat. This amounted to over 200 percent of the division's normal strength. The division, in turn, took 38,912 German prisoners of war.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division were awarded five Medals of Honor, 44 Distinguished Service Crosses, one Distinguished Service Medal, 854 Silver Star Medals, 17 Legion of Merit Medals, 24 Soldier's Medals, 6,308 Bronze Star Medals, and 176 Air Medals during the conflict. The division itself was awarded four distinguished unit citations and four campaign streamers for the conflict.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division remained on occupation duty until the end of 1945. Camp Grohn near Bremen was the division headquarters until January 1946. The 29th Infantry Division returned to the United States in January 1946 and was demobilized and inactivated on 17 January 1946 at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 23 October 1946, the division was reactivated in Norfolk, Virginia. However, its subordinate elements were not fully manned and activated for several years. It resumed its National Guard status, seeing weekend and summer training assignments but no major contingencies over the next few years.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In 1959, the division was reorganized under the Pentomic five battle group division organization. Ewing's "29th Infantry Division: A Short History of a Fighting Division" says that several Maryland infantry and engineer companies were reorganized to form 1st Med Tank Bn, 115th Armor; the 29th Aviation Company was established; and the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, 183rd Armor, was established in Virginia as the division's reconnaissance squadron.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In 1963, the division was reorganized in accordance with the Reorganization Objective Army Divisions plan, eliminating its regimental commands in favor of brigades. The division took command of 1st Brigade, 29th Infantry Division and 2nd Brigade, 29th Infantry Division of the Virginia Army National Guard, as well as 3rd Brigade, 29th Infantry Division of the Maryland Army National Guard. The division continued its service in the National Guard under this new organization.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In 1968, in the middle of the Vietnam War, the Army inactivated several National Guard and Reserve divisions as part of a realignment of resources. The 29th Infantry Division was one of the divisions inactivated. During that time, the division's subordinate units were reassigned to other National Guard divisions. 1st Brigade was inactivated, while 2nd Brigade was redesignated as the 116th Infantry Brigade, and the 3rd Brigade was redesignated as 3rd Brigade, 28th Infantry Division.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 6 June 1984, 40 years after the landings on Omaha Beach, the Army announced that it would reactivate the 29th Infantry Division, organized as a light infantry division, as part of a reorganization of the National Guard. On 30 September 1985, the division was reactivated at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, with units from the Virginia Army National Guard (VAARNG) and Maryland Army National Guard (MDARNG). The 116th Infantry Brigade was redesignated the 1st Brigade, 29th Division, while the 58th Infantry Brigade became the 3rd Brigade. That year, the division also received its distinctive unit insignia.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: At the end of the Cold War the division was a joint Virginia Army National Guard (VAARNG) and Maryland Army National Guard (MDARNG) unit. Virginia provided the division's headquarters, the 1st and 2nd Brigade, the Division Artillery (with one MDARNG artillery battalion) and other minor units, while Maryland provided the 3rd Brigade, Aviation Brigade, 29th Infantry Division (with two VAARNG aviation companies), the Division Support Command (with one VAARNG aviation company) and other minor units. The division was organized as follows:


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: At the end of the Cold War, the Army saw further drawdowns and reductions in spending. The 29th Infantry Division was retained, however 2nd Brigade was inactivated in favor of assets from the inactivating 26th Infantry Division, which was redesignated the 26th Brigade, 29th Infantry Division.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The largest National Guard training exercise ever held in Virginia took place in July 1998, bringing units from the 29th Infantry Division together for one large infantry exercise. The Division Maneuver Exercise, dubbed Operation Chindit, brought together Guard units from Virginia and Maryland, as well as Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and the District of Columbia. The exercise began with the insertion of troops from the 29th Infantry Division's 1st and 3rd Brigades by UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters into strategic landing zones. NATO-member forces trained with the 29th Infantry Division throughout the exercise. In December 2008, the division also dispatched a task force to Camp Asaka near Tokyo, Japan for exercises with the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force called Yama Sakura 55, a bilateral exercise simulating an invasion of Japan.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In March 1994, during a time of post-Cold War reductions in the size of the Regular Army, the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment was tasked to test a new concept. The Regiment's task was to organize, train, certify, and deploy a multi-component battalion-sized task force made up of National Guard, Army Reserve and Regular Army Soldiers to serve as the US Army's rotational Infantry Battalion for the Multi-National Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. The Soldiers selected for the unit reported to Fort Bragg, North Carolina in July 1994 to begin their training for the mission.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The task force was designated as the 4th Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and carried the lineage of Company D, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which had served throughout World War II and into the 1950s. Also known as Task Force 4-505 or "The Sinai Battalion," it was formally activated on 4 November 1994. The battalion was made up of 88% National Guardsmen and Army Reservists from 32 different states, and 12% Regular Army Soldiers, most from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. Virginia and Maryland Army National Guardsmen from the 29th Infantry Division (Light) provided the largest contingent for the battalion. All of the National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers volunteered for a year of active duty in order to serve in the unit. After completing six months of peacekeeping training at Fort Bragg, the 4th Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment deployed to the Sinai from January through June 1995, then redeployed to Fort Bragg. On 15 July 1995, the 4th Battalion was inactivated at Fort Bragg, and its Soldiers returned to their parent units.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Hundreds of soldiers from the 29th Infantry Division completed nine days of training on 16 June 2001 at Fort Polk, Louisiana, to prepare for their peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, as the second division headquarters to be deployed as a part of SFOR 10. In all, 2,085 National Guard soldiers from 16 states from Massachusetts to California served with the multinational force that operated in the US sector, MND-N. Their rotation began in October 2001 and lasted six months.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 29th Infantry Division completed a two-week warfighter exercise at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in late July 2003. Nearly 1,200 soldiers of the division participated in the training, which was overseen by First United States Army. Also engaged in the simulation war were about 150 soldiers of the New York Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division. The exercises covered a variety of operations, ranging from large scale contingencies to airborne and civil affairs operations.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In March 2004, the 3rd Battalion 116th Infantry of 500+ soldiers was mobilized for 579 days in support of Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan. Following 4-month train up, the battalion deployed to Bagram Air Base Afghanistan where the unit split into two operational elements. One element was stationed at Bagram where they were responsible for near base security and the theater-north Quick Reaction Force. They executed 5, 10, and 20 kilometer ring patrols to increase force security and stayed ready to react at a moments notice to deploy anywhere in Afghanistan to react to "troops in contact" that requested support. The other element moved south with the Bn Commander to control and shape operations in the Wardak and Ghazni provinces. It was here that the 116th would take its first casualties by enemy contact since World War II. SGT Bobby Beasley and SSG Craig Cherry were killed in an IED attack on a patrol in southern Ghazni near Gilan. Within the first three months, the unit would deploy nearly every soldier around Bagram, and throughout the Wardak and Ghazni provinces during the first Afghan elections in which President Hamid Karzai was elected. The unit would redeploy back to the United States in July 2005 highly decorated for its efforts during their mission following hundreds of successful combat patrols and engagements.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In 2005, 350 veterans, politicians, and soldiers representing the division went to Normandy and Paris, in France for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The Army National Guard organized a major ceremony for the 60th anniversary, as many of the veterans who participated in the invasion were in their 80s at that time, and the 60th anniversary was seen as the last major anniversary of the landings in which a large number of veterans could take part.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division underwent major reorganization in 2006. A special troops battalion was added to the division's command structure, and its three brigades were redesignated. It as organized around three brigades; the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team of North Carolina, the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of Virginia, and the Combat Aviation Brigade, 29th Infantry Division of Maryland.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In December 2006, the division took command of the Eastern region of Kosovo's peacekeeping force, to provide security in the region. The division's soldiers were part of a NATO multi-national task force consisting of units from the Ukraine, Greece, Poland, Romania, Armenia and Lithuania under the command of U.S. Army Brigadier General Douglas B. Earhart who concurrently served as the 29th's Deputy Commanding General. The division returned to Fort Belvoir in November 2007.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: After a three-month pre-deployment train-up at Mississippi's Camp Shelby, the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in September 2007, as part of the Iraq War's Operation Iraqi Freedom, returning home in May 2008.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Approximately 72 Virginia and Maryland National Guard soldiers with the 29th ID deployed to Afghanistan from December 2010 to October 2011. As part of the 29th ID Security Partnering Team, the Soldiers were assigned to NATO's International Security Assistance Force Joint Command Security Partnering Team with the mission of assisting with the growth and development of the Afghan National Security Forces where they served as advisers and mentors to senior Afghan leaders. They were part of a NATO Coalition of 49 troop-contributing nations that Security Partnering personnel interacted with daily across Afghanistan.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: They were replaced in November 2011 by a new team from the 29th Infantry Division. A team of 65 29th ID soldiers served in Afghanistan as a Security Partnering Team until July 2012.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 29th ID suffered one casualty during this deployment. Maj. Robert Marchanti of the Maryland Army National Guard, was killed on 25 February 2012.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In 2014 the 29th ID twice sent soldiers to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany to assist in the training of U.S. and multinational soldiers preparing to head to Kosovo as part of the Kosovo Force mission. The 29th ID soldiers performed as the KFOR staff, serving as subject matter experts, enforcing KFOR orders, systems and procedures, and working with JMRC to help the deploying troops achieve their training objectives.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 29th ID currently serves as the Domestic All-Hazards Response Team (DART) in FEMA Regions 1 through 5 (states east of the Mississippi). In this role the 29th ID is prepared to assist state National Guard in their service to governors and citizens during an incident response. The DART provides defense support of civil authority capabilities in response to a catastrophic event. The DART conducts joint reception, staging, onward-movement and Integration of inbound OPCON forces and establishes base support installations and /or forward operating bases for sustaining operations.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 24 July 2015, Brig. Gen. Blake C. Ortner took command of the 29th Infantry Division from Maj. Gen. Charles W. Whittington.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 19 December 2016 the 29th Infantry Division assumed command of U.S. Army Central's intermediate division headquarters, Task Force Spartan, at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. This deployment includes 450 Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina Army National Guard soldiers and is the first time the 29th Infantry Division has been a part of Third Army since 1944, during WWII.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: More than 80 members of the 29th deployed to Jordan in August 2016 where they assumed command of the military's joint operations center there to support Operation Inherent Resolve. Soldiers of the 29th led engagements and joint training with the Jordan Armed Forces and allied countries before returning in July 2017.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 5 May 2018, Brig. Gen. John M. Epperly took command of the 29th Infantry Division from Maj. Gen. Blake C. Ortner. On 3 October 2020, Epperly was succeeded by Maj. Gen. John M. Rhodes.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 29th Infantry Division exercises training and readiness oversight of the following units, which are not organic: there is a division headquarters battalion, an armored brigade combat team, two infantry brigade combat teams, a combat aviation brigade, a field artillery brigade, a maneuver enhancement brigade, and a division sustainment brigade.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 29th Infantry Division has been featured numerous times in popular media, particularly for its role on D-Day. The division's actions on Omaha Beach are featured prominently in the 1962 film "The Longest Day", as well as in the 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan". Soldiers of the division are featured in other films and television with smaller roles, such as in the 2009 film "Inglourious Basterds" and the 2005 film "War of the Worlds".


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 29th Infantry Division is also featured in numerous video games related to World War II. The division's advance through Normandy and Europe is featured in the games Close Combat, Company of Heroes and Call of Duty 3, in which the player assumes the role of a soldier of the division.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: A number of soldiers serving with the 29th Infantry Division have gone on to achieve notability for various reasons. Among them are highly decorated soldier Joseph A. Farinholt, soccer player James Ford, United States federal judge Alfred D. Barksdale, and historian Lawrence C. Wroth, generals Milton Reckord, Norman Cota, Charles D. W. Canham, and Donald Wilson. Major Thomas D. Howie who commanded 3d Battalion, 116th Infantry during the battle of St. Lo became immortalized as "The Major of St. Lo" for the honors rendered to him after being killed in action.


title: 29th Infantry Division (United States)

text: U.S. soldiers who received the Medal of Honor during service with the 29th Infantry Division include Henry Costin, Earle Davis Gregory, and Patrick Regan from World War I and Frank D. Peregory and Sherwood H. Hallman. from World War II.


title: Indraja

text: Rajathi, better known by her stage name Indraja, is an Indian actress known for her work in Telugu and Malayalam films. She has also appeared in a few Tamil and Kannada films, in addition to television shows.


title: Indraja

text: Indraja was born as Rajathi in a Telugu Brahmin family in Chennai. She is the eldest of three sisters and comes from a Carnatic music family. During school days, she won prizes in singing and drama competitions. A trained classical singer and dancer, she learned Kuchipudi dance form Madhavapeddi Murthy. She was preparing to be a journalist.


title: Indraja

text: Indraja was cast as a child actress in Rajinikanth-starrer Uzhaippali movie. With Jantar Mantar, her first movie as a grown-up, she adopted the name of her character in that movie, 'Indraja' as her stage name. Later, S. V. Krishna Reddy's "Yamaleela" catapulted her to instant stardom. The film ran for over a year. She acted in "Thadayam" and "Rajavin Parvaiyile" but she was not able to make much headway in Tamil movies, as both movies failed to make an impact at the box office.


title: Indraja

text: She played the female lead roles in a number of successful Malayalam films, such as the 1999 action drama "Ustaad" alongside Mohanlal, crime thriller "F.I.R" alongside Suresh Gopi, 2002 comedy-drama "Chronic Bachelor" alongside Mammootty, 2004 comedy drama "Mayilattam" opposite Jayaram, and 2005 action drama "Ben Johnson" alongside Kalabhavan Mani are some of her most notable Malayalam films. After a hiatus post her marriage, she has returned to movies with some notable roles in several Telugu movies.


title: AI takeover

text: An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which an artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species. Possible scenarios include replacement of the entire human workforce, takeover by a superintelligent AI, and the popular notion of a robot uprising. Some public figures, such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control.


title: AI takeover

text: The traditional consensus among economists has been that technological progress does not cause long-term unemployment. However, recent innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will become obsolete, leaving people in various sectors without jobs to earn a living, leading to an economic crisis. Many small and medium size businesses may also be driven out of business if they will not be able to afford or licence the latest robotic and AI technology, and may need to focus on areas or services that cannot easily be replaced for continued viability in the face of such technology.


title: AI takeover

text: AI technologies have been widely adopted in recent years, and this trend will only continue to gain popularity given the digital transformation efforts from companies across the world. While these technologies have replaced many traditional workers, they also create new opportunities. Industries that are most susceptible to experience AI takeover include transportation, retail, and military. AI military technologies, for example, allow soldiers to work remotely without any risk of injury. Author Dave Bond argues that as AI technologies continue to develop and expand, the relationship between humans and robots will change; they will become closely integrated in several aspects of life. Overall, it is safe to assume that AI will displace some workers while creating opportunities for new jobs in other sectors, especially in fields where tasks are repeatable.


title: AI takeover

text: Computer-integrated manufacturing is the manufacturing approach of using computers to control the entire production process. This integration allows individual processes to exchange information with each other and initiate actions. Although manufacturing can be faster and less error-prone by the integration of computers, the main advantage is the ability to create automated manufacturing processes. Computer-integrated manufacturing is used in automotive, aviation, space, and ship building industries.


title: AI takeover

text: The 21st century has seen a variety of skilled tasks partially taken over by machines, including translation, legal research and even low level journalism. Care work, entertainment, and other tasks requiring empathy, previously thought safe from automation, have also begun to be performed by robots.


title: AI takeover

text: An autonomous car is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. Many such vehicles are being developed, but as of May 2017 automated cars permitted on public roads are not yet fully autonomous. They all require a human driver at the wheel who is ready at a moment's notice to take control of the vehicle. Among the main obstacles to widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles, are concerns about the resulting loss of driving-related jobs in the road transport industry. On March 18, 2018, the first human was killed by an autonomous vehicle in Tempe, Arizona by an Uber self-driving car.


title: AI takeover

text: Scientists such as Stephen Hawking are confident that superhuman artificial intelligence is physically possible, stating "there is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains". Scholars like Nick Bostrom debate how far off superhuman intelligence is, and whether it would actually pose a risk to mankind. According to Bostrom, a superintelligent machine would not necessarily be motivated by the same "emotional" desire to collect power that often drives human beings but might rather treat power as a means toward attaining its ultimate goals; taking over the world would both increase its access to resources and help to prevent other agents from stopping the machine's plans. As an oversimplified example, a paperclip maximizer designed solely to create as many paperclips as possible would want to take over the world so that it can use all of the world's resources to create as many paperclips as possible, and, additionally, prevent humans from shutting it down or using those resources on things other than paperclips.


title: AI takeover

text: AI takeover is a common theme in science fiction. Fictional scenarios typically differ vastly from those hypothesized by researchers in that they involve an active conflict between humans and an AI or robots with anthropomorphic motives who see them as a threat or otherwise have active desire to fight humans, as opposed to the researchers' concern of an AI that rapidly exterminates humans as a byproduct of pursuing arbitrary goals. The idea is seen in Karel Čapek's "R.U.R.", which introduced the word "robot" to the global lexicon in 1921, and can even be glimpsed in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (published in 1818), as Victor ponders whether, if he grants his monster's request and makes him a wife, they would reproduce and their kind would destroy humanity.


title: AI takeover

text: The word "robot" from "R.U.R." comes from the Czech word, robota, meaning laborer or serf. The 1920 play was a protest against the rapid growth of technology, featuring manufactured "robots" with increasing capabilities who eventually revolt. HAL 9000 (1968) and the original Terminator (1984) are two iconic examples of hostile AI in pop culture.


title: AI takeover

text: Nick Bostrom and others have expressed concern that an AI with the abilities of a competent artificial intelligence researcher would be able to modify its own source code and increase its own intelligence. If its self-reprogramming leads to its getting even better at being able to reprogram itself, the result could be a recursive intelligence explosion where it would rapidly leave human intelligence far behind. Bostrom defines a superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest", and enumerates some advantages a superintelligence would have if it chose to compete against humans:


title: AI takeover

text: According to Bostrom, a computer program that faithfully emulates a human brain, or that otherwise runs algorithms that are equally powerful as the human brain's algorithms, could still become a "speed superintelligence" if it can think many orders of magnitude faster than a human, due to being made of silicon rather than flesh, or due to optimization focusing on increasing the speed of the AGI. Biological neurons operate at about 200 Hz, whereas a modern microprocessor operates at a speed of about 2,000,000,000 Hz. Human axons carry action potentials at around 120 m/s, whereas computer signals travel near the speed of light.


title: AI takeover

text: A network of human-level intelligences designed to network together and share complex thoughts and memories seamlessly, able to collectively work as a giant unified team without friction, or consisting of trillions of human-level intelligences, would become a "collective superintelligence".


title: AI takeover

text: More broadly, any number of qualitative improvements to a human-level AGI could result in a "quality superintelligence", perhaps resulting in an AGI as far above us in intelligence as humans are above non-human apes. The number of neurons in a human brain is limited by cranial volume and metabolic constraints, while the number of processors in a supercomputer can be indefinitely expanded. An AGI need not be limited by human constraints on working memory, and might therefore be able to intuitively grasp more complex relationships than humans can. An AGI with specialized cognitive support for engineering or computer programming would have an advantage in these fields, compared with humans who evolved no specialized mental modules to specifically deal with those domains. Unlike humans, an AGI can spawn copies of itself and tinker with its copies' source code to attempt to further improve its algorithms.


title: AI takeover

text: A significant problem is that unfriendly artificial intelligence is likely to be much easier to create than friendly AI. While both require large advances in recursive optimisation process design, friendly AI also requires the ability to make goal structures invariant under self-improvement (or the AI could transform itself into something unfriendly) and a goal structure that aligns with human values and does not undergo instrumental convergence in ways that may automatically destroy the entire human race. An unfriendly AI, on the other hand, can optimize for an arbitrary goal structure, which does not need to be invariant under self-modification.


title: AI takeover

text: The sheer complexity of human value systems makes it very difficult to make AI's motivations human-friendly. Unless moral philosophy provides us with a flawless ethical theory, an AI's utility function could allow for many potentially harmful scenarios that conform with a given ethical framework but not "common sense". According to Eliezer Yudkowsky, there is little reason to suppose that an artificially designed mind would have such an adaptation.


title: AI takeover

text: Many scholars, including evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, argue that a superintelligent machine is likely to coexist peacefully with humans.


title: AI takeover

text: The fear of cybernetic revolt is often based on interpretations of humanity's history, which is rife with incidents of enslavement and genocide. Such fears stem from a belief that competitiveness and aggression are necessary in any intelligent being's goal system. However, such human competitiveness stems from the evolutionary background to our intelligence, where the survival and reproduction of genes in the face of human and non-human competitors was the central goal. According to AI researcher Steve Omohundro, an arbitrary intelligence could have arbitrary goals: there is no particular reason that an artificially intelligent machine (not sharing humanity's evolutionary context) would be hostile—or friendly—unless its creator programs it to be such and it is not inclined or capable of modifying its programming. But the question remains: what would happen if AI systems could interact and evolve (evolution in this context means self-modification or selection and reproduction) and need to compete over resources—would that create goals of self-preservation? AI's goal of self-preservation could be in conflict with some goals of humans.


title: AI takeover

text: Many scholars dispute the likelihood of unanticipated cybernetic revolt as depicted in science fiction such as "The Matrix", arguing that it is more likely that any artificial intelligence powerful enough to threaten humanity would probably be programmed not to attack it. Pinker acknowledges the possibility of deliberate "bad actors", but states that in the absence of bad actors, unanticipated accidents are not a significant threat; Pinker argues that a culture of engineering safety will prevent AI researchers from accidentally unleashing malign superintelligence. In contrast, Yudkowsky argues that humanity is less likely to be threatened by deliberately aggressive AIs than by AIs which were programmed such that their goals are unintentionally incompatible with human survival or well-being (as in the film "I, Robot" and in the short story "The Evitable Conflict"). Omohundro suggests that present-day automation systems are not designed for safety and that AIs may blindly optimize narrow utility functions (say, playing chess at all costs), leading them to seek self-preservation and elimination of obstacles, including humans who might turn them off.


title: AI takeover

text: The AI control problem is the issue of how to build a superintelligent agent that will aid its creators, while avoiding inadvertently building a superintelligence that will harm its creators. Some scholars argue that solutions to the control problem might also find applications in existing non-superintelligent AI.


title: AI takeover

text: Major approaches to the control problem include "alignment", which aims to align AI goal systems with human values, and "capability control", which aims to reduce an AI system's capacity to harm humans or gain control. An example of "capability control" is to research whether a superintelligence AI could be successfully confined in an "AI box". According to Bostrom, such capability control proposals are not reliable or sufficient to solve the control problem in the long term, but may potentially act as valuable supplements to alignment efforts.


title: AI takeover

text: Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have expressed concerns about the possibility that AI could develop to the point that humans could not control it, with Hawking theorizing that this could "spell the end of the human race". Stephen Hawking said in 2014 that "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." Hawking believed that in the coming decades, AI could offer "incalculable benefits and risks" such as "technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand." In January 2015, Nick Bostrom joined Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Lord Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and numerous AI researchers in signing the Future of Life Institute's open letter speaking to the potential risks and benefits associated with artificial intelligence. The signatories "believe that research on how to make AI systems robust and beneficial is both important and timely, and that there are concrete research directions that can be pursued today."


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (), better known by the acronym Hukbalahap, was a communist guerrilla movement formed by the farmers of Central Luzon. They were originally formed to fight the Japanese, but extended their fight into a rebellion against the Philippine government, known as the Hukbalahap Rebellion, in 1946. It was put down through a series of reforms and military victories by Defense Secretary, and later President, Ramon Magsaysay.


title: Hukbalahap

text: A monument dedicated to the Huks in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija, was constructed to honor their actions during World War II.


title: Hukbalahap

text: Constituted in March 1942, the Hukbalahap was to be part of a broad united front resistance to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. This original intent is reflected in its name.


title: Hukbalahap

text: By 1950, the Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP) had resolved to reconstitute the organization as the armed wing of a revolutionary party, prompting a change in the official name to "Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan", (HMB, lit. 'People's Liberation Army'), likely in emulation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.


title: Hukbalahap

text: Notwithstanding this name change, the HMB continued to be popularly known as the "Hukbalahap", and the English-speaking press continued to refer to it and its members, interchangeably, as the Huks (Singular: Huk) during the whole period between 1945 and 1952.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Hukbalahap movement has deep roots in the Spanish "encomienda", a system of grants to reward soldiers who had conquered New Spain, established in 1570. This developed into a system of exploitation. In the 19th century, Filipino landlordism, under the Spanish colonization, arose and, with it, further abuses.


title: Hukbalahap

text: After the opening of ports in Manila, the Luzon economy was transformed to meet the demands for exports of rice, sugar, and tobacco. Landowners increased demands on farmers, who rented parcels of land. These demands included increased rents, demands for proceeds from the sale of crops, and predatory lending agreements to fund farm improvements.


title: Hukbalahap

text: Only after the coming of the Americans were reforms initiated to lessen tensions between tenants and landlords. The reforms, however, did not solve the problems and, with growing political consciousness produced by education, peasants began to unite under educated but poor leaders. The most potent of these organizations was the Hukbalahap, which began as a resistance organization against the Japanese but ended as an anti-government resistance movement.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The idea of a guerrilla organization was conceived as early as October 1941, months before the Philippines' entry to World War II. As early as 1941, Juan Feleo, a well-known peasant leader and member of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, had begun to mobilize peasants in his home province of Nueva Ecija for the conflict. Pedro Abad Santos, founding member of the Socialist Party of the Philippines, had also ordered Luis Taruc to mobilize forces in Pampanga.


title: Hukbalahap

text: At the outbreak of World War II in the Philippines and the capture of Manila, top-ranking leaders of the PKP were captured by the Japanese military. Crisanto Evangelista, its founder, was among those who were captured and was executed in 1942. Abad Santos was similarly captured, but was released in 1943. Dr. Vicente Lava took the reins of the PKP and tried to re-organize the party.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In February 1942 a "struggle conference" was held in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija to discuss organization, strategy, and tactics. Members of the PKP, the Popular Front Party, the League for the Defense of Democracy, KPMP, AMT, and KAP convened to create a structure for unified resistance against the Japanese.


title: Hukbalahap

text: A united front tactic was agreed upon as a means of attracting the broadest sections of population, not necessarily communists. A three-front resistance was agreed upon: military, political, and economic. The military aim was to harass the Japanese continuously and keep it off-balance so as to prevent it from focusing on activities aimed at winning the goodwill of the people. The political aim was to discredit the Japanese-sponsored republic and build the concept of a functioning democracy as a grass roots level, while the economic objective was to prevent the enemy's looting. The result was the creation of the Central Luzon Bureau (CLB), an organization meant to lead resistance against the Japanese. Key positions were filled out as follows:


title: Hukbalahap

text: At the advent of this conference, several armed groups were immediately organized and began operating in Central Luzon. A significant event was on March 13, 1942, when a squadron headed by Felipa Culala (alias Dayang-Dayang) encountered and defeated Japanese forces in Mandili, Candaba, Pampanga. News of Culala's successful raid raised morale for resistance fighters.


title: Hukbalahap

text: On March 29, 1942, peasant leaders met in a forest clearing located in Sitio Bawit, Barrio San Julian, at the junction of Tarlac, Pampanga, and Nueva Ecija to form a united organization. "Hukbong Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon" was chosen as the name of the organization. After the meeting, a military committee was formed with Taruc ("Supremo"), Castro Alejandrino (Vice Commander), Bernardo Poblete (), and Culala as members. The Hukbalahap high command was also joined by the military commissariat; a party apparatus that provided guidance to the Huks.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The CLB was regarded as the "wartime version of the PKP". While PKP officials did assume important positions in the Huk structure, the movement encompassed more that simply members of the PKP and its affiliated organizations.


title: Hukbalahap

text: Robert Lapham reports either Luis Taruc or Casto Alejandrino met with Col. Thorpe at his Camp Sanchez in the spring of 1942, and the conferees agreed to cooperate, share equipment and supplies, with the Americans providing trainers. However, though the Huks fought the Japanese, they also "tried to thwart United States Army Forces in the Far East guerrillas", "therefore, they were considered disloyal and were not accorded U.S. recognition or benefits at the end of the war."


title: Hukbalahap

text: After its inception, the group grew quickly and by late summer 1943 claimed to have 15,000 to 20,000 active men and women military fighters and 50,000 more in reserve. These fighters' weaponry was obtained primarily by stealing it from battlefields and downed planes left behind by the Japanese, Filipinos, and Americans. They fought Japanese troops, worked to subvert the Japanese tax-collection service, intercepted food and supplies to the Japanese troops, and created a training school where they taught political theory and military tactics based on Marxist ideas. In areas that the group controlled, they set up local governments (, Barrio United Defense Corps) and instituted land reforms, dividing up the largest estates equally among the peasants and often killing the landlords. In some cases, however, landlords were welcomed as participants in Huk resistance, swayed by anti-Japanese sympathies. PKP organizers quickly went to work to set up BUDCs in Huk controlled barrios, which contributed to its success as a resistance army, although in reality there was an overlap between independently formed barrio governments, "neighborhood committees" set up by the Japanese, and BUDCs.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Huk movement was notable for its inclusion of women peasants, who advocated for inclusion in the movement in resistance to word of Japanese war atrocities against women, including rape and mutilation. Many of these women fought, but the majority of the resistance remained in villages, collecting supplies and intelligence. Women in the forest camps were forbidden from entering combat, but often trained in first aid, communication/propaganda, and recruitment tactics.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Huks enjoyed early successes with their continuous attacks, aimed at raising morale through quick successes as well as to acquire weapons for the severely unarmed group. The Japanese conducted two counterattacks against the Huks, on September 6 and December 5, 1942. Both attacks did nothing to dampen the frequency of Huk raids, and only served to intensify Huk operations. On March 5, 1943, the Japanese struck the Huk headquarters in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija in a surprise attack. A large number of CPP cadres and Huk soldiers were captured during the raid. By the end of the war, the Huks had 1,200 engagements, and inflicted some 25,000 enemy casualties. The Huks' strength consisted of 20,000 fully armed regulars and some 50,000 reservists.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Hukhbalahap's methods were often portrayed by other guerrilla leaders as terrorist; for example, Ray C. Hunt, an American who led his own band of 3000 guerrillas, said of the Hukbalahap that


title: Hukbalahap

text: My experiences with the Huks were always unpleasant. Those I knew were much better assassins than soldiers. Tightly disciplined and led by fanatics, they murdered some Filipino landlords and drove others off to the comparative safety of Manila. They were not above plundering and torturing ordinary Filipinos, and they were treacherous enemies of all other guerrillas (on Luzon).


title: Hukbalahap

text: However, the Hukbalahap claimed that it extended its guerrilla warfare campaign for over a decade merely in search of recognition as World War II freedom fighters and former American and Filipino allies who deserved a share of war reparations.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The end of the war saw the return of American forces in the Philippines. While the Hukbalahap expected to have their war efforts recognized and be treated as allies, the Americans, with the help of USAFFE guerillas and former PC members, forcibly disarmed Huk squadrons while charging other guerrillas of treason, sedition, and subversive activity, leading to the arrests of Luis Taruc and Casto Alejandrino in 1945, as well as incidents such as the massacre of 109 Huk guerrillas in Malolos, Bulacan.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In September 1945, President Sergio Osmeña released Taruc, Alejandrino, and other Huk leaders from prison. The PKP, through Huk leaders, then formally disbanded the movement and formed the Hukbalahap Veterans' League in an effort to get the Hukbalahap recognized as a legitimate guerrilla movement. Alejandrino was its nominal chairman.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In 1946, peasants in Central Luzon backed members of the Democratic Alliance in that year's election, with six candidates eventually winning seats in the Senate. Among these candidates was Luis Taruc. However, they were blocked from sitting in Congress by the government, which only exacerbated negative sentiment among the peasants in Central Luzon. The new Roxas administration attempted a pacification program, with help from Taruc, Alejandrino, Juan Feleo, and other representatives. They would be accompanied by MP guards and government officials to try and pacify peasant groups, however this did not result in any sort of success. Within days of the so-called "truce", violence once again erupted in Central Luzon. Taruc and others claimed that civilian guards and government officials were "sabotaging the peace process".


title: Hukbalahap

text: On August 24, 1946, Feleo was stopped by a large band of "armed men in fatigue uniforms" in Gapan, Nueva Ecija. He had planned to present the peasant's concerns to the Secretary of the Interior Jose Zulueta, before he was taken and killed. Thousands of Huk veterans and PKM members were sure that Feleo was murdered by landlords, or possibly the Roxas administration itself. The incident led to Taruc joining the peasants and re-igniting the insurrection. The Roxas administration then outlawed the Hukbalahap on March 6, 1948.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In 1949, Hukbalahap members ambushed and murdered Aurora Quezon, Chairman of the Philippine Red Cross and widow of the Philippines' second president, Manuel L. Quezon, as she was en route to her hometown for the dedication of the Quezon Memorial Hospital. Several others were also killed, including her eldest daughter and son-in-law. This attack brought worldwide condemnation of the Hukbalahaps, who claimed that the attack was done by "renegade" members. The continuing condemnation and new post-war causes of the movement prompted the Huk leaders to adopt a new name, the "" or the "People's Liberation Army" in 1950.


title: Hukbalahap

text: Public sympathies for the movement had been waning due to their postwar attacks. The Huks carried out a campaign of raids, holdups, robbery, ambushes, murder, rape, massacre of small villages, kidnapping and intimidation. The Huks confiscated funds and property to sustain their movement and relied on small village organizers for political and material support. The Huk movement was mainly spread in the central provinces of Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, Bulacan, and in Nueva Vizcaya, Pangasinan, Laguna, Bataan and Quezon.


title: Hukbalahap

text: An important movement in the campaign against the Huks was the deployment of hunter-killer counter guerrilla special units. The "Nenita" unit (1946–1949) was the first of such special forces whose main mission was to eliminate the Huks. The Nenita Force was commanded by Major Napoleon Valeriano. The Nenita terror tactics which were not only committed against dissidents but also towards law-abiding people sometimes helped the Huks gain supporters as a consequence.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In July 1950, Major Valeriano assumed command of the elite 7th Battalion Combat Team (BCT) in Bulacan. The 7th BCT would develop a reputation toward employing a more comprehensive, more unconventional counterinsurgency strategy and reduced the random brutality against the civilian population.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In June 1950, American alarm over the Huk rebellion during the Cold War prompted President Truman to approve special military assistance that included military advice, sale at cost of military equipment to the Philippines and financial aid under the Joint United States Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG). On 26 Aug. 1950, in an "anniversary celebration" of the Cry of Pugad Lawin, the Huks temporarily seized Santa Cruz, Laguna and Camp Makabulos, Tarlac, confiscating money, food, weapons, ammunition, clothing, medicine, and office supplies. In September 1950, former USAFFE guerrilla, Ramon Magsaysay was appointed as Minister of National Defense on American advice. With the Huk Rebellion growing in strength and the security situation in the Philippines becoming seriously threatened, Magsaysay urged President Elpidio Quirino to suspend the writ of "habeas corpus" for the duration of the Huk campaign. On 18 Oct. 1950, Magsaysay captured the Secretariat, including the general secretary Jose Lava, following the earlier capture of the Politburo in Manila.


title: Hukbalahap

text: American assistance allowed Magsaysay to create more BCTs, bringing the total to twenty-six. By 1951, army strength had increased by 60 percent over the previous year with 1,047-man BCTs. Major military offensive campaigns against the Huks were carried out by the 7th, 16th, 17th, and 22nd BCTs.


title: Hukbalahap

text: Another major effort against the Huks was Operation "Knockout" of the Panay Task Force (composed of the 15th BCT, some elements of the 9th BCT and the Philippine Constabulary commands of Iloilo, Capiz and Antique) under the command of Colonel Alfredo M. Santos. The Operation conducted a surprise attack on Guillermo Capadocia, commander of the Huk Regional Command in the Visayas, erstwhile Secretary General and one of the founders of the PKP. Santos' masterstroke was the enlistment of Pedro Valentin, a local mountain leader who knew the people and the terrain like the back of his hand. Capadocia died on Panay, of battle wounds, on September 20, 1952.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In 1954, Lt. Col. Laureño Maraña, the former head of Force X of the 16th PC Company, assumed command of the 7th BCT, which had become one of the most mobile striking forces of the Philippine ground forces against the Huks, from Valeriano who was now a colonel. Force X employed psychological warfare through combat intelligence and infiltration that relied on secrecy in planning, training, and execution of attack. The lessons learned from Force X and Nenita were combined in the 7th BCT.


title: Hukbalahap

text: With the all out anti-dissidence campaigns against the Huks, they numbered less than 2,000 by 1954 and without the protection and support of local supporters, active Huk resistance no longer presented a serious threat to Philippine security. From February to mid-September 1954, the largest anti-Huk operation, "Operation Thunder-Lightning" was conducted and resulted in the surrender of Luis Taruc on May 17. Further cleanup operations of guerillas remaining lasted throughout 1955, diminishing its number to less than 1,000 by year's end.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Hukbalahap was regarded by the PKP as its "citizen's army" against the Japanese. It was headed by the Central Luzon Bureau, with Vicente Lava as its secretary, and a secretariat, ostensibly a party apparatus meant to keep the Huks in line with PKP ideology. There were five committees which composed the Huk structure:


title: Hukbalahap

text: The Huk military structured was modeled after the Chinese Red Army. It was composed of squads and platoons, consisting of 100 officers and men, which formed a squadron. Two squadrons formed one battalion, and two battalions formed a regiment. These numbers were not always followed though: For example, Squadron 8, based in Talavera, Nueva Ecija, had twelve squads, each with a dozen men.


title: Hukbalahap

text: The initial force of 500 armed Huks which was organized into five squadrons had increased to a fully armed guerrilla force of 20,000 men. By 1944, Huk strength numbers at 76 squadrons. After the Cabiao raid by the Japanese, the PKP adopted a "retreat for defense" policy, which broke up squads to smaller groups of three to five men.


title: Hukbalahap

text: In areas controlled by Huk guerrillas, the Huks organized an ad-hoc police force to keep the peace and stop looters and thieves. Huks also formed "Sandatahang Tanod ng Bayan" (Barrio United Defense Corps), which acted as neighborhood governments in support of the Huk forces in the field. These BUDC's were composed of KPMP and AMT members, which organized popular support for Huks, shielded harvest from the Japanese, and attacked Filipino collaborators; in effect, setting up protected zones and safe havens for the Huks. The Hukbalahap also set-up a government, composed of a President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and five policemen. The barrio government also had three departments, with a person-in-charge leading it. One department collected intelligence information about the military, another handled communication between different barrios and Huk members, and the third arranged for supplies. The Hukbalahap government also performed civil tasks, such as officiating in weddings, baptisms, funerals, and issued marriage licenses and birth certificates.


title: Jack (given name)

text: Jack is a given name, a diminutive of John. Since the late 20th century, Jack has become one of the most common names for boys in many English-speaking countries. It may also be a short form of the male name Jackson. Jack is also used to a lesser extent as a female given name, often as a shortened version of Jacqueline.


title: Jack (given name)

text: The word "jack" is also commonly used in other contexts in English for many occupations, objects and actions, linked to the use of the word as a metaphor for a common man.


title: Jack (given name)

text: Jack is thought by some to have hailed from the earlier Jackin (from the name Jankin). Alternatively, it may be derived from the name Jacques, the French form of the name James or Jacob. There is also a theory that it is Celtic in origin, meaning "healthy, strong, full of vital energy" (compare the Welsh word "iach", "health"), from a putative Ancient British "Yakkios". Both the name and the word "jack" were long used as a term to refer to any man, especially of the common classes.


title: Jack (given name)

text: In several English-speaking countries, Jack has become increasingly used as a formal name, rather than being a mere nickname as it traditionally has been. In its own right, it is now more popular than John, James, and Jacob. In recent years, Jack has been the most common given name for boys in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, and has grown in popularity in the United States.


title: Jack (given name)

text: John–from which Jack was often derived–was, along with William, the most frequent male name throughout the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. Jack appeared on the lists of the most frequently used male-baby names in the UK for 2003–2007.


title: Jack (given name)

text: According to the United States Census of 1990, Jack is an uncommon American name, the given name for 0.315% of the male population and 0.001% of the female population. However, the frequency of Jack as a baby name has steadily increased from the 160–170 rank prior to 1991 to a rank of 35 in 2006.


title: Jack (given name)

text: The name Jack is unusual in the English language for its frequent use as a noun or verb for many common objects and actions, and in many compound words and phrases.


title: Jack (given name)

text: Examples include implements, such as a car jack, knucklebones (the game jacks), or the jack in bowls.


title: Jack (given name)

text: The word is also used in other words and phrases such as: apple jack, hijack, jack of clubs (playing card), jack straw (scarecrow), jack tar (sailor), jack-in-the-box, jack-of-all-trades, Jack the lad, jack o'lantern, jackdaw, jackhammer, jackknife, jackpot, lumberjack, Union Jack, etc.


title: Art LaFleur

text: Art LaFleur (September 9, 1943 – November 17, 2021) was an American character actor and acting coach.


title: Art LaFleur

text: LaFleur was born in Gary, Indiana. He played football in 1962 as a redshirt at the University of Kentucky under Coach Charlie Bradshaw as chronicled in a 2007 book, "The Thin Thirty". He was a sportscaster on ESPN and on CBS.


title: Art LaFleur

text: LaFleur has had many guest-starring roles on television series, including "Angel" and "JAG". In 1983, he was cast in the ABC sitcom pilot "Another Ballgame" alongside Alex Karras and Susan Clark. The series went through many development changes before its fall premiere, with Emmanuel Lewis being added to the show and LaFleur being dropped from the regular cast. Once the final change to the series title was made (to "Webster"), LaFleur was kept only as a guest star in the pilot.


title: Art LaFleur

text: In 1993, LaFleur played baseball player Babe Ruth in "The Sandlot". He had another notable role as the eccentric and obsessive character Red Sweeney (Silver Fox), in the 1995 family comedy film "Man of the House". He also appeared in one episode of the television series "M*A*S*H", in season 9 ("Father’s Day”) as an MP, looking for the people responsible for a stolen side of beef. LaFleur played US Army soldier, Mittens in the 1985 science fiction film "Zone Troopers".


title: Art LaFleur

text: In addition to playing Babe Ruth, LaFleur also appeared as baseball player Chick Gandil of 1919 Black Sox infamy, in "Field of Dreams". In terms of military and national security film roles he appeared as the White House's security chief in Disney's "First Kid" (1996), as "McNulty" in both "Trancers" (1985), "Trancers II" (1991) and as 1st Sgt. Brandon T. Williams in "In the Army Now" (1994). He played pilot, Jack Neely in "Air America" (1990), appeared as Banes in "The Replacements" (2000) and in "Beethoven's 4th" (2003) as Sergeant Rutledge. He also played Red Sweeney in Disney’s “Man of the House” in 1995.


title: Art LaFleur

text: LaFleur played a coach for the New York Yankees in the 1992 film, "Mr. Baseball". He also appeared in "The Santa Clause 2" in 2002 and "" in 2006, both times as the tooth fairy. In 2005, he appeared in "Hostage" as a deputy sheriff of Bruce Willis. In 2009, he appeared in the Direct-to-DVD film "" and in the Science-Fiction horror film "The Rig".


title: Art LaFleur

text: He also appeared on "House M.D." in 2005 as Warner Fitch, in the episode entitled "Sports Medicine." He also appeared on "Home Improvement" as Jimbo in season 1 episode 7 (Nothing More Than Feelings).


title: Art LaFleur

text: The Gary SouthShore RailCats, LaFleur's hometown professional baseball team recognized him with a special bobblehead and first pitch ceremony on July 20, 2019.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers, long- or medium-range missiles, or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to the enemy's war-making capability. The term terror bombing is used to describe the strategic bombing of civilian targets without military value, in the hope of damaging an enemy's morale.


title: Strategic bombing

text: One of the strategies of war is to demoralize the enemy so that peace or surrender becomes preferable to continuing the conflict. Strategic bombing has been used to this end. The phrase "terror bombing" entered the English lexicon towards the end of World War II and many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids have been described as terror bombing by commentators and historians. Because the term has pejorative connotations, some, including the Allies of World War II, have preferred to use euphemisms such as "will to resist" and "morale bombings".


title: Strategic bombing

text: The theoretical distinction between tactical and strategic air warfare was developed between the two world wars. Some leading theorists of strategic air warfare during this period were the Italian Giulio Douhet, the Trenchard school in the United Kingdom, and General Billy Mitchell in the United States. These theorists were highly influential, both on the military justification for an independent air force (such as the Royal Air Force) and in influencing political thoughts on a future war as exemplified by Stanley Baldwin's 1932 comment that "the bomber will always get through".


title: Strategic bombing

text: One of the aims of war is to demoralize the enemy; facing continual death and destruction may make the prospect of peace or surrender preferable. The proponents of strategic bombing between the world wars, such as General Douhet, expected that direct attacks upon an enemy country's cities by strategic bombers would lead to a rapid collapse of civilian morale so that political pressure to sue for peace would lead to a rapid conclusion. When such attacks were tried in the 1930s—in the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War—they were ineffective. Commentators observed the failures and some air forces, such as the Luftwaffe, concentrated their efforts upon direct support of the troops.


title: Strategic bombing

text: "Terror bombing" is an emotive term used for aerial attacks planned to weaken or break enemy morale. Use of the term to refer to aerial attacks implies the attacks are criminal according to the law of war, or if within the laws of war are nevertheless a moral crime. According to John Algeo in "Fifty Years among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms 1941–1991", the first recorded usage of "Terror bombing" in a United States publication was in a "Reader's Digest" article dated June 1941, a finding confirmed by the "Oxford English Dictionary".


title: Strategic bombing

text: Aerial attacks described as terror bombing are often long range strategic bombing raids, although attacks which result in the deaths of civilians may also be described as such, or if the attacks involve fighters strafing they may be labelled "terror attacks".


title: Strategic bombing

text: German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking officials of Nazi Germany frequently described attacks by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during their strategic bombing campaigns as "Terrorangriffe"—terror attacks. The Allied governments usually described their bombing of cities with other euphemisms such as area bombing (RAF) or precision bombing (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same. However, at a SHAEF press conference on 16 February 1945, two days after the bombing of Dresden, British Air Commodore Colin McKay Grierson replied to a question by one of the journalists that the primary target of the bombing had been on communications to prevent the Germans from moving military supplies and to stop movement in all directions if possible. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale." Howard Cowan, an Associated Press war correspondent, filed a story about the Dresden raid. The military press censor at SHAEF made a mistake and allowed the Cowan cable to go out starting with "Allied air bosses have made the long awaited decision to adopt deliberate terror bombing of great German population centers as a ruthless expedient to hasten Hitler's doom." There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a longtime opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes MP, asked questions in the House of Commons on 6 March.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The controversy stirred up by the Cowan news report reached the highest levels of the British Government when on 28 March 1945 the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, sent a memo by telegram to General Ismay for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff in which he started with the sentence "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed..." Under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Chief of the Air Staff Sir Charles Portal, and the head of Bomber Command, Arthur "Bomber" Harris, among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This was completed on 1 April 1945 and started instead with the usual euphemism used when referring to strategic bombing: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests...".


title: Strategic bombing

text: Many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids of aerial warfare have been described as "terror bombing" by commentators and historians since the end of World War II, but because the term has pejorative connotations, others have denied that such bombing campaigns and raids are examples of "terror bombing".


title: Strategic bombing

text: Strategic bombing was used in World War I, though it was not understood in its present form. The first aerial bombing of a city was on 6 August 1914 when the German Army Zeppelin Z VI bombed, with artillery shells, the Belgian city of Liège, killing nine civilians. The second attack was on the night of 24–25 August 1914, when eight bombs were dropped from a German airship onto the Belgian city of Antwerp.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The first effective strategic bombing was pioneered by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in 1914. The mission was to attack the Zeppelin production lines and their sheds at Cologne (Köln) and Düsseldorf. Led by Charles Rumney Samson, the force of four aircraft inflicted minor damage on the sheds. The raid was repeated a month later with slightly more success. Within a year or so, specialized aircraft and dedicated bomber squadrons were in service on both sides. These were generally used for tactical bombing; the aim was that of directly harming enemy troops, strongpoints, or equipment, usually within a relatively small distance of the front line. Eventually, attention turned to the possibility of causing "indirect" harm to the enemy by systematically attacking vital rear-area resources.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The most well known attacks were those done by Zeppelins over England through the course of the war. The first aerial bombardment of English civilians was on January 19, 1915, when two Zeppelins dropped 24 fifty-kilogram (110-pound) high-explosive bombs and ineffective three-kilogram incendiaries on the Eastern England towns of Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn, and the surrounding villages. In all, four people were killed and sixteen injured, and monetary damage was estimated at £7,740 (about US$36,000 at the time). German airships also bombed on other fronts, for example in January 1915 on Liepāja in Latvia.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In 1915 there were 19 more raids, in which 37 tons of bombs were dropped, killing 181 people and injuring 455. Raids continued in 1916. London was accidentally bombed in May, and in July the Kaiser allowed directed raids against urban centers. There were 23 airship raids in 1916, in which 125 tons of ordnance were dropped, killing 293 people and injuring 691. Gradually British air defenses improved. In 1917 and 1918, there were only 11 Zeppelin raids against England, and the final raid occurred on August 5, 1918, which resulted in the death of KK Peter Strasser, commander of the German Naval Airship Department.


title: Strategic bombing

text: By the end of the war, 51 raids had been undertaken, in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358. These raids caused only minor hampering of wartime production, by later standards. A much greater impact was the diversion of twelve aircraft squadrons, many guns, and over 10,000 men to air defenses. The raids generated a wave of hysteria, partially caused by media. This revealed the tactic's potential as a weapon that was of use for propagandists on both sides. The late Zeppelin raids were complemented by the Gotha bomber, which was the first heavier-than-air bomber to be used for strategic bombing.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The French army on June 15, 1915, attacked the German town of Karlsruhe, killing 29 civilians and wounding 58. Further raids followed until the Armistice in 1918. In a raid in the afternoon of June 22, 1916, the pilots used outdated maps and bombed the location of the abandoned railway station, where a circus tent was placed, killing 120 persons, most of them children.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The British also stepped up their strategic bombing campaign. In late 1915, the order was given for attacks on German industrial targets, and the 41st Wing was formed from units of the RNAS and Royal Flying Corps. The RNAS took to the strategic bombing in a bigger way than the RFC, who were focused on supporting the infantry actions of the Western Front. At first, the RNAS attacked the German submarines in their moorings and then steelworks further in targeting the origin of the submarines themselves.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In early 1918 they operated their "round the clock" bombing raid, with lighter bombers attacking the town of Trier by day and large HP O/400s attacking by night. The Independent Force, an expanded bombing group, and the first independent strategic bombing force, was created in April 1918. By the end of the war, the force had aircraft that could reach Berlin, but these were never used.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Following the war, the concept of strategic bombing developed. Calculations of the number of dead to the weight of bombs would have a profound effect on the attitudes of the British authorities and population in the interwar years. As bombers became larger, it was fully expected that deaths would dramatically increase. The fear of aerial attack on such a scale was one of the fundamental driving forces of the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.


title: Strategic bombing

text: These early developments of aerial warfare led to two distinct branches in the writings of air warfare theorists: tactical air warfare and strategic air warfare. Tactical air warfare was developed as part of a combined-arms attack which would be developed to a significant degree by Germany, and which contributed much to the success of the Wehrmacht during the first four years (1939–42) of World War II. The Luftwaffe became a major element of the German blitzkrieg.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Some leading theorists of strategic air warfare, namely strategic bombing during this period were the Italian Giulio Douhet, the Trenchard school in Great Britain, and General Billy Mitchell in the United States. These theorists thought that aerial bombardment of the enemy's homeland would be an important part of future wars. Not only would such attacks weaken the enemy by destroying important military infrastructure, they would also break the morale of the civilian population, forcing their government to capitulate. Although area bombing theorists acknowledged that measures could be taken to defend against bombers—using fighter planes and anti-aircraft artillery—the maxim of the times remained "the bomber will always get through". These theorists for strategic bombing argued that it would be necessary to develop a fleet of strategic bombers during peacetime, both to deter any potential enemy, and also in the case of a war, to be able to deliver devastating attacks on the enemy industries and cities while suffering from relatively few friendly casualties before victory was achieved.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In the period between the two world wars, military thinkers from several nations advocated strategic bombing as the logical and obvious way to employ aircraft. Domestic political considerations saw to it that the British worked harder on the concept than most. The British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service of the Great War had been merged in 1918 to create a separate air force, which spent much of the following two decades fighting for survival in an environment of severe government spending constraints.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In Italy, the airpower prophet General Giulio Douhet asserted the basic principle of strategic bombing was the offensive, and there was no defense against carpet bombing and poison gas attacks. The seeds of Douhet's apocalyptic predictions found fertile soil in France, Germany, and the United States, where excerpts from his book "The Command of the Air" (1921) were published. These visions of cities laid waste by bombing also gripped the popular imagination and found expression in novels such as Douhet's "The War of 19--" (1930) and H.G. Wells's "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933) (filmed by Alexander Korda as "Things to Come" (1936)).


title: Strategic bombing

text: Douhet's proposals were hugely influential among air force enthusiasts, arguing as they did that the bombing air arm was the most important, powerful, and invulnerable part of any military. He envisaged future wars as lasting a matter of a few weeks. While each opposing Army and Navy fought an inglorious holding campaign, the respective Air Forces would dismantle their enemies' country, and if one side did not rapidly surrender, both would be so weak after the first few days that the war would effectively cease. Fighter aircraft would be relegated to spotting patrols but would be essentially powerless to resist the mighty bombers. In support of this theory, he argued for targeting of the civilian population as much as any military target, since a nation's morale was as important a resource as its weapons. Paradoxically, he suggested that this would actually reduce total casualties, since "The time would soon come when to put an end to horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war...". As a result of Douhet's proposals, air forces allocated greater resources to their bomber squadrons than to their fighters, and the 'dashing young pilots' promoted in the propaganda of the time were invariably bomber pilots.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Royal Air Force leaders, in particular Air Chief Marshal Hugh Trenchard, believed the key to retaining their independence from the senior services was to lay stress on what they saw as the unique ability of a modern air force to win wars by unaided strategic bombing. As the speed and altitude of bombers increased in proportion to fighter aircraft, the prevailing strategic understanding became "the bomber will always get through". Although anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft had proved effective in the Great War, it was accepted there was little warring nations could do to prevent massive civilian casualties from strategic bombing. High civilian morale and retaliation in kind were seen as the only answers—a later generation would revisit this, as Mutual Assured Destruction.


title: Strategic bombing

text: During the interwar period (1919–1939), the use of aerial bombing was developed as part of British foreign policy in its colonies, with Hugh Trenchard as its leading proponent, Sir Charles Portal, Sir Arthur Harris, and Sidney Bufton. The Trenchard School theories were successfully put into action in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) where RAF bombers used high-explosive bombs and strafing runs against Arab forces. The techniques of so-called "Air Control" included also target marking and locating, as well as formation flying. Arthur Harris, a young RAF squadron commander (later nicknamed "Bomber"), reported after a mission in 1924, "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage. They know that within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured".


title: Strategic bombing

text: Despite such statements, in reality, RAF forces took great care when striking at targets. RAF directives stressed:


title: Strategic bombing

text: A statement clearly pointed out that the ability of aircraft to inflict punishment could be open to abuse:


title: Strategic bombing

text: In strikes over Yemen in over a six-month period, sixty tons of bombs were dropped in over 1,200 cumulative flying hours. By August 1928, total losses in ground fighting and air attack, on the Yemeni side, were 65 killed or wounded (one RAF pilot was killed and one airman wounded). Between the wars the RAF conducted 26 separate air operations within the Aden Protectorate. The majority were conducted in response to persistent banditry or to restore the Government's authority. Excluding operations against Yemeni forces—which had effectively ceased by 1934—a total of twelve deaths were attributed to air attacks conducted between 1919 and 1939. Bombing as a military strategy proved to be an effective and efficient way for the British to police their Middle East protectorates in the 1920s. Fewer men were required as compared to ground forces.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Pre-war planners, on the whole, vastly overestimated the damage bombers could do, and underestimated the resilience of civilian populations. Jingoistic national pride played a major role: for example, at a time when Germany was still disarmed and France was Britain's only European rival, Trenchard boasted, "the French in a bombing duel would probably squeal before we did". At the time, the expectation was any new war would be brief and very brutal. A British Cabinet planning document in 1938 predicted that, if war with Germany broke out, 35% of British homes would be hit by bombs in the first three weeks. This type of expectation would justify the appeasement of Hitler in the late 1930s.


title: Strategic bombing

text: During the Spanish Civil War, the bombing of Guernica by German aviators including the Condor Legion, under Nationalist command, resulted in its near destruction. Casualties were estimated to be between 500 and 1500. Though this figure was relatively small, aerial bombers and their weaponry were continually improving—already suggesting the devastation that was to come in the near future. Yet the theory that "the bomber will always get through" started to appear doubtful, as stated by the U.S.  Attaché in 1937, "The peacetime theory of the complete invulnerability of the modern type of bombardment airplane no longer holds. The increased speeds of both the bombardment and pursuit plane have worked in favor of the pursuit ... The flying fortress died in Spain."


title: Strategic bombing

text: Large scale bombing of the civilian population, thought to be demoralizing to the enemy, seemed to have the opposite effect. Dr. E. B. Strauss surmised, "Observers state that one of the most remarkable effects of the bombing of open towns in Government Spain had been the welding together into a formidable fighting force of groups of political factions who were previously at each other's throats...", a sentiment with which Hitler's Luftwaffe, supporting the Spanish Nationalists, generally agreed.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The strategic bombing conducted in World War II was unlike any before. The campaigns conducted in Europe and Asia could involve aircraft dropping thousands of tons of conventional bombs or a nuclear weapon over a single city.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Area bombardment came to prominence during World War II with the use of large numbers of unguided gravity bombs, often with a high proportion of incendiary devices, to bomb the target region indiscriminately—to kill war workers, destroy materiel, and demoralize the enemy. In high enough concentration, it was capable of producing a firestorm. The high explosives were often delay-action bombs intended to kill or intimidate those fighting the fires caused by incendiaries.


title: Strategic bombing

text: At first this required multiple aircraft, often returning to the target in waves. Nowadays, a large bomber or missile can be used to the same effect on a small area (an airfield, for example) by releasing a relatively large number of smaller bombs.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Strategic bombing campaigns were conducted in Europe and Asia. The Germans and Japanese made use of mostly twin-engined bombers with a payload generally less than , and never produced larger craft to any great extent. By comparison, the British and Americans (who started the war with predominantly similarly sized bombers) developed their strategic force based upon much larger four-engined bombers for their strategic campaigns. The payload carried by these planes ranged from for the B-17 Flying Fortress on long-range missions, to for the B-24 Liberator, for the Avro Lancaster, and B-29 Superfortress, with some specialized aircraft, such as the 'Special B' Avro Lancaster carrying the Grand Slam.


title: Strategic bombing

text: During the first year of the war in Europe, strategic bombing was developed through trial and error. The Luftwaffe had been attacking both civilian and military targets from the very first day of the war, when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. A strategic-bombing campaign was launched by the Germans as a precursor to the invasion of the United Kingdom to force the RAF to engage the Luftwaffe and so be destroyed either on the ground or in the air. That tactic failed, and the RAF began bombing German cities on 11 May 1940. After the Battle of Britain, the Germans launched their night time Blitz hoping to break British morale and to have the British be cowed into making peace.


title: Strategic bombing

text: At first the Luftwaffe raids took place in daylight, but changed to night bombing attacks when losses became unsustainable. The RAF, who had preferred precision bombing, also switched to night bombing, also due to excessive losses. Before the Rotterdam Blitz on 14 May 1940 the British restricted themselves to tactical bombing west of the Rhine and naval installations. The day after the Rotterdam Blitz a new directive was issued to the RAF to attack targets in the Ruhr, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets which aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces that at night were self-illuminating. After the Butt Report (released in September 1941) proved the inadequacy of RAF Bomber Command training methods and equipment, the RAF adopted an area-attack strategy, by which it hoped to impede Germany's war production, her powers of resistance (by destroying resources and forcing Germany to divert resources from her front lines to defend her air space), and her morale. The RAF dramatically improved its navigation so that on average its bombs hit closer to target. Accuracy never exceeded a radius from point of aim in any case.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The United States Army Air Forces adopted a policy of daylight precision bombing for greater accuracy as, for example, during the Schweinfurt raids. That doctrine, based on the erroneous supposition that bombers could adequately defend themselves against air attack, entailed much higher American losses until long-range fighter escorts (e.g. the Mustang) became available. Conditions in the European theatre made it very difficult to achieve the accuracy achieved using the exceptional and top-secret Norden optical bombsight in the clear skies over the desert bombing ranges of Nevada and California. Raids over Europe commonly took place in conditions of very poor visibility, with targets partly or wholly obscured by thick cloud, smokescreens, or smoke from fires started by previous raids. As a result, bomb loads were regularly dropped "blind" using dead-reckoning methods little different from those used by the RAF night bombers. In addition, only the leading bomber in a formation actually utilized the Norden sight, the rest of the formation dropping their bombs only when they saw the lead aircraft's bombload falling away. Since even a very tight bomber formation could cover a vast area, the scatter of bombs was likely to be considerable. Add to these difficulties the disruptive effects of increasingly accurate anti-aircraft fire and head-on attacks by fighter aircraft and the theoretical accuracy of daylight bombing was often hard to achieve. Accuracy, described as "pinpoint", never exceeded the best British average of about a radius from point of aim in any case. Postwar German engineers considered the bombing of railways, trains, canals, and roads more harmful to production than attacks on factories themselves, Sir Roy Fedden (in his report on a postwar British scientific intelligence mission) calling it "fatal" and saying it reduced aero-engine production by two thirds (from a maximum output of 5,000 to 7,000 a month).


title: Strategic bombing

text: Strategic bombing was a way of taking the war into Europe while Allied ground forces were unable to do so. Between them, Allied air forces claimed to be able to bomb "around the clock". In fact, few targets were ever hit by British and American forces the same day, the strategic isolation of Normandy on D-Day and the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 being exceptions rather than the rule. There were generally no coordinated plans for the around-the-clock bombing of any target.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In some cases, single missions have been considered to constitute strategic bombing. The bombing of Peenemünde was such an event, as was the bombing of the Ruhr dams. The Peenemünde mission delayed Nazi Germany's V-2 program enough that it did not become a major factor in the outcome of the war.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Strategic bombing in Europe never reached the decisive completeness the American campaign against Japan achieved, helped in part by the fragility of Japanese housing, which was particularly vulnerable to firebombing through the use of incendiary devices. The destruction of German infrastructure became apparent, but the Allied campaign against Germany only really succeeded when the Allies began targeting oil refineries and transportation in the last year of the war. At the same time, the strategic bombing of Germany was used as a morale booster for the Allies in the period before the land war resumed in Western Europe in June 1944.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service frequently used strategic bombing over Singaporean, Burmese, and Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing, Singapore, and Rangoon. However, the Japanese military in most places advanced quickly enough that a strategic bombing campaign was unnecessary, and the Japanese aircraft industry was incapable of producing truly strategic bombers in any event. In those places where it was required, the smaller Japanese bombers (in comparison to British and American types) did not carry a bombload sufficient to inflict the sort of damage regularly occurring at that point in the war in Europe, or later in Japan.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The development of the B-29 gave the United States a bomber with sufficient range to reach the Japanese home islands from the safety of American bases in the Pacific or western China. The capture of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima further enhanced the capabilities that the Americans possessed in their strategic bombing campaign. High-explosive and incendiary bombs were used against Japan to devastating effect, with greater indiscriminate loss of life in the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9/10, 1945 than was caused either by the Dresden mission, or the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Unlike the USAAF's strategic bombing campaign in Europe, with its avowed (if unachievable) objective of precision bombing of strategic targets, the bombing of Japanese cities involved the deliberate targeting of residential zones from the outset. Bomb loads included very high proportions of incendiaries, with the intention of igniting the highly combustible wooden houses common in Japanese cities and thereby generating firestorms.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The final development of strategic bombing in World War II was the use of nuclear weapons. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States exploded nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 105,000 people and inflicting a psychological shock on the Japanese nation. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan, stating:


title: Strategic bombing

text: Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Nuclear weapons defined strategic bombing during the Cold War. The age of the massive strategic bombing campaign had come to an end. It was replaced by more devastating attacks using improved targeting and weapons technology. Strategic bombing by the Great Powers also became politically indefensible. The political fallout resulting from the destruction being broadcast on the evening news ended more than one strategic bombing campaign.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Strategic bombing during the Korean war was a huge part of the aerial warfare for the United States. It was widely used at targeting infrastructure and economic targets forcing the USSR and China to leverage more economically and materially in the supporting North Korean efforts. It was also consistently reliable for the US even amongst Chinese and USSR interference throughout the war.


title: Strategic bombing

text: While nuclear weapons were never used, at the outset of the war the US Strategic Air Command was ready with 9 B-29s from the 9th Bomb Wing acting as an atomic task force which were sent to Guam on standby duty.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The United States Air Force (USAF) at first conducted only tactical attacks against strategic targets. Because it was widely considered a limited war, the Truman Administration prohibited the USAF to bomb near the borders of China and the Soviet Union in fear of provoking the countries to enter into the war. Common targets were railroad yards, bridges, and airfields, seeking to disrupt supply lines and ability to produce materials for the war. The first notable strategic bombing was a bombing consisting of nine B-29s which bombed the Rising Sun oil refinery at Wonsan on July 6th of 1950 followed by a bombing of a chemical plant at Hungnam. Later that month on July 30th a Chosen nitrogen explosives factory at Hungnam was bombed destroying the largest of the Konan Industrial-Chemical Complex.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The Chinese intervention in the war in November 1950 changed the aerial bombing policy dramatically. In response to the Chinese intervention, the USAF carried out an intensive bombing campaign against North Korea to demoralize the North Koreans and inflict as much economic cost to North Korea in order to reduce their ability to wage war. The largest incendiary raid of the war had 70 B-29s drop firebombs on the town of Sinuiju and was a representation for the change in aerial bombing policy. The extensive bombing raids on North Korea continued until the armistice agreement was signed between communist and UN forces on July 27, 1953.


title: Strategic bombing

text: In the Vietnam War, the strategic bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder could have been more extensive, but fear by the Johnson Administration of the entry of China into the war led to restrictions on the selection of targets, as well as only a gradual escalation of intensity.


title: Strategic bombing

text: The aim of the bombing campaign was to demoralize the North Vietnamese, damage their economy, and reduce their capacity to support the war in the hope that they would negotiate for peace, but it failed to have those effects. The Nixon Administration continued this sort of limited strategic bombing for most of the war but pivoted towards the ending of it. Operation Linebacker campaigns were much heavier bombing campaigns taking off many of the restrictions that were placed initially and began flying B-52 bombers. Images such as that of Kim Phuc Phan Thi (although this incident was the result of close air support rather than strategic bombing) disturbed the American public enough to demand a stop to the campaign.


title: Strategic bombing

text: Due to this, and the ineffectiveness of carpet bombing (partly because of a lack of identifiable targets), new precision weapons were developed. The new weapons allowed more effective and efficient bombing with reduced civilian casualties. High civilian casualties had always been the hallmark of strategic bombing, but later in the Cold War, this began to change.