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29-535: The organization was co-founded by civil rights attorney Arthur Shores , activist Rufus Lewis , Tuskegee teacher C.G. Gomillion, salesman Q. D. Adams, dockworkers' union leader Isom Clemon, Tuskegee teacher Beulah Johnson and attorney Orzell Billingsley in order to support John F. Kennedy 's bid for the Democratic nomination for president . Given the resistance of many white conservative Democrats to civil rights goals and participation of African Americans in

58-532: A combination of high explosive and incendiary bombs. There were two types of incendiary bombs: those made of magnesium and iron powders, and those made of petroleum . The high-explosive bombs and the larger air-mines were not only designed to hamper the Coventry fire brigade, they were also intended to damage roofs, making it easier for the incendiary bombs to fall into buildings and ignite them. As Sir Arthur Harris , commander of RAF Bomber Command , wrote after

87-455: A concentrated attack. Coventry was adequately concentrated in point of space, but all the same, there was little concentration in point of time, and nothing like the fire tornadoes of Hamburg or Dresden ever occurred in this country. But they did do us enough damage to teach us the principle of concentration, the principle of starting so many fires at the same time that no firefighting services, however efficiently and quickly they were reinforced by

116-457: A high explosive bomb. This is a more effective use of the payload that a bomber could carry. The use of incendiaries alone does not generally start uncontrollable fires where the targets are roofed with nonflammable materials such as tiles or slates. The use of a mixture of bombers carrying high explosive bombs, such as the British blockbuster bombs , which blew out windows and roofs and exposed

145-554: A member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He attended only one year of law school at the University of Kansas and then pursued his law studies through La Salle Extension University ’s correspondence school . Shores passed the Alabama State Bar exam in 1937 and immediately began using his legal skills to support civil rights issues. In 1938, Shores successfully sued on behalf of seven school teachers who were denied

174-666: The Supreme Court of the United States in 1944. Shores represented black teachers in the Jefferson County School Board to receive the same pay as white teachers. In 1955, Shores successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Lucy v. Adams to prevent the University of Alabama from denying admission solely based on race or color. Autherine Lucy became the first African-American to attend

203-547: The Blitz by Nazi Germany . Most large German cities were extensively firebombed starting in 1942, and almost all large Japanese cities were firebombed during the last six months of World War II . This technique makes use of small incendiary bombs possibly delivered by a cluster bomb , such as the Molotov bread basket . If a fire catches, it could spread, taking in adjacent buildings that would have been largely unaffected by

232-746: The Dresden raid was about 40% incendiaries, much closer to the RAF city-busting mix than the bomb -load usually used by the Americans in precision bombardments. This was quite a common mix when the USAAF anticipated cloudy conditions over the target. In its attacks on Japan, the USAAF abandoned its precision bombing method that was used in Europe before and adopted a policy of saturation bombing , using incendiaries to burn Japanese-held cities including Wuhan , and

261-481: The RAF Bomber Command's main force, involved their bombs being released at 22:14, with all but one of the 254 Lancaster bombers releasing their bombs within two minutes, and the last one released at 22:22. The second wave of 529 Lancasters dropped all of their bombs between 01:21 and 01:45. This means that in the first raid, on average, one Lancaster dropped a full load of bombs every half a second and in

290-911: The Supreme Court in the same year that the arrests of peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham should be ruled unconstitutional. During the 1960s, he became the first black member of the Birmingham City Council. In 1977, the NAACP honored Shores by awarding him the William Robert Ming Advocacy Award for the spirit of financial and personal sacrifice displayed in his legal work. Shores died in December 1996 at his home in Birmingham, Alabama. He

319-509: The cities of the Japanese home islands. These tactics were used to devastating effect with many urban areas burned out. The first incendiary raid by B-29 Superfortress bombers was against Kobe on 4 February 1945, with 69 B-29s arriving over the city at an altitude of 24,500 to 27,000 ft (7,500 to 8,200 m), dropping 152 tons of incendiaries and 14 tons of fragmentation bombs to destroy about 57.4 acres (23.2 ha). The next mission

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348-522: The fire brigades of other towns could get them under control. The tactical innovation of the bomber stream was developed by the RAF to overwhelm the German aerial defenses of the Kammhuber Line during World War II to increase the RAF's concentration in time over the target. But after the lessons learned during the Blitz, the tactic of dropping a high concentration of bombs over the target in

377-469: The first two hours of the raid, 226 of the attacking aircraft or 81% unloaded their bombs to overwhelm the city's fire defenses. The first to arrive dropped bombs in a large X pattern centered in Tokyo's working class district near the docks; later aircraft simply aimed near this flaming X. Approximately 15.8 square miles (4,090 ha) of the city were destroyed and 100,000 people are estimated to have died in

406-594: The former associate executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association , has served as chair of the ADC since 1979. This Alabama -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Arthur Shores Arthur Davis Shores (September 25, 1904 – December 16, 1996) was an American civil rights attorney who was considered Alabama 's "drum major for justice". Shores graduated from Talladega College where he became

435-546: The interior of buildings to the incendiary bombs, is much more effective. Alternatively, a preliminary bombing with conventional bombs can be followed by subsequent attacks by incendiary carrying bombers. Early in World War II many British cities were firebombed. Two particularly notable raids were the Coventry Blitz on 14 November 1940, and the blitz on London on the night of 29 December/30 December 1940, which

464-495: The night of 9/10 March, dropped 1,665 tons of incendiaries from altitudes of 5,000 to 9,000 ft (1,500 to 2,700 m), mostly using the 500-pound (230 kg) E-46 cluster bomb which released 38 M-69 oil-based incendiary bombs at an altitude of 2,500 ft (760 m). A lesser number of M-47 incendiaries was dropped: the M-47 was a 100-pound (45 kg) jelled-gasoline and white phosphorus bomb which ignited upon impact. In

493-860: The right to vote by the Alabama Board of Registrars. Shores was general counsel for the International Association of Railway Employees (IARE). In 1941 he took on the case of Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co. in which B. W. Steele, a member of the IARE executive, argued that an agreement between the railway and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen was illegal. A whites-only railroad union could not exclude blacks and then deny them better jobs because they were not union members. He worked on this case with attorney Charles H. Houston , who argued it successfully in front of

522-479: The school when she was admitted in 1956. On the third day of classes, a hostile mob assembled to prevent Lucy from attending classes. The police were called to secure her admission but, that evening, the University suspended Lucy on the grounds that it could not provide a safe environment. Shores' campaign in 1963 to integrate the Birmingham public schools brought violence to him and other residents. Shores' home

551-423: The second larger raid that involved more than one RAF bomber Group, one every three seconds. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) officially only bombed precision targets over Europe, but for example, when 316 B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden in a follow-up raid at around noon on 14 February 1945, because of clouds the later waves bombed using H2X radar for targeting. The mix of bombs to be used on

580-500: The shortest time possible became standard in the RAF as it was more effective than a longer raid. For example, during the Coventry Blitz on the night of 14/15 November 1940, 515 Luftwaffe bombers, many flying more than one sortie against Coventry, delivered their bombs over a period of time lasting more than 10 hours. In contrast, the much more devastating raid on Dresden on the night of 13/14 of February 1945 by two waves of

609-638: The start of gunpowder warfare, World War I saw the first use of strategic bombing from the air to damage the morale and economy of the enemy, such as the German Zeppelin air raids conducted on London . The Chinese wartime capital of Chongqing was firebombed by the Imperial Japanese starting in early 1939 during the Second Sino-Japanese War . London, Coventry , and many other British cities were firebombed during

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638-812: The state party, many of the ADC activists, such as John L. Cashin, Jr. , later left the Alabama Democratic Party . They formed the National Democratic Party of Alabama in 1968, which was modeled after the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party , and ran Cashin for governor against George Wallace in 1970. It was designed to enable African Americans to participate in local and state politics, and to develop and elect their own candidates for office. The ADC continues to make endorsements in statewide races and has many county chapters. Dr. Joe L. Reed ,

667-448: The use of high explosive bombs and air-mines coupled with thousands of incendiary bombs intended to set the city ablaze. The first wave of follow-up bombers dropped high explosive bombs, the intent of which was to knock out the utilities (the water supply, electricity network and gas mains), and to crater the road — making it difficult for the fire engines to reach fires started by the successive waves of bombers. The follow-up waves dropped

696-505: The war: In the early days of bombing our notion, like that of the Germans, was to spread an attack out over the whole night, thereby wearing down the morale of the civilian population. The result was, of course, that an efficient fire brigade could tackle a single load of incendiaries, put them out, and wait in comfort for the next to come along; they might also be able to take shelter when a few high explosives bombs were dropping. ... But it

725-444: Was fire-bombed on August 20 and September 4 in retaliation for black parents registering their children at white schools. The bombings—and demonstrations outside Birmingham schools—were used by Gov. George Wallace as a pretext to close the schools in defiance of the federal court desegregation order and to deploy state troopers in the city. Eleven days later a bomb killed four girls at 16th Street Baptist Church . He argued before

754-434: Was 92. Firebombing Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area , through the use of fire , caused by incendiary devices , rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary device is used to initiate a fire is often described as a "firebombing". Although simple incendiary bombs have been used to destroy buildings since

783-534: Was another high altitude daylight incendiary raid against Tokyo on 25 February when 172 B-29s destroyed around 643 acres (260 ha) of the snow-covered city, dropping 453.7 tons of mostly incendiaries with some fragmentation bombs. Changing to low-altitude night tactics to concentrate the fire damage while minimizing the effectiveness of fighter and artillery defenses, the Operation Meetinghouse raid carried out by 279 B-29s raided Tokyo again on

812-520: Was observed that when the Germans did get an effective concentration, ... then our fire brigades had a hard time; if a rain of incendiaries is mixed with high explosives bombs there is a temptation for the fireman to keep his head down. The Germans, again and again, missed their chance, as they did during the London blitz that I watched from the roof of the Air Ministry, of setting our cities ablaze by

841-401: Was the most destructive raid on London during the war with much of the destruction caused by fires started by incendiary bombs. During the Coventry Blitz the Germans pioneered several innovations which were to influence all future strategic bomber raids during the war. These were: the use of pathfinder aircraft with electronic aids to navigate, to mark the targets before the main bomber raid; and

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