Strategic bombing during World War II United States Fourteenth Air Force based in southern China undertook the first air raids in French Indochina. The American bombing campaign gained intensity after the surrender of Germany in May 1945, and by July Japanese defences were incapable of impeding their movement. The Americans had attained complete air supremacy. After the victory over Japan, on 19 August the denizens of Hanoi broke into the streets and removed the black coverings off the street lamps. In 1944–45, the Eastern Fleet of the Royal Navy undertook several raids on the occupied Netherlands East Indies. They also bombed the Japanese-occupied Indian territory of
History of Germany during World War I Russia and Britain. The beginning of war was presented in Germany as the chance for the nation to secure "our place under the sun," as the Foreign Minister Bernhard von Bülow had put it, which was readily supported by prevalent nationalism among the public. The Kaiser and the German establishment hoped the war would unite the public behind the monarchy, and lessen the threat posed by the dramatic growth of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which had been the most vocal critic of the Kaiser in the Reichstag before the war. Despite its membership in the Second International, the