Volume One PLANS AND EARLY OPERATIONS JANUARY 1939 TO AUGUST 1942 THE ARMY AIR FORCES I n World War I1 PREPARED UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF WESLEY F R A N K C R A V E N Princeton University JAMES LEA GATE University of Chicago New Imprint by thc Office of Air Force History Washington, D.C., 1983 .- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Oface Washington. D.C. 20402 THE UNIVERSITYO F CHICAGOP RESS, CHICAGO8 LONDON The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada Copyright 1948 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1948. Manufactured by the VANR EESP RESS,N ew York. Fifth Impression 1964 by THE UNIVERSITYOF CHICAGOP RESS, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Copyright registration renewed 1975 This work, first published by the University of Chicago Press, is reprinted in its entirety by the Office of Air Force History. With the exception of editing, the work is the product of the United States government. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title : The Army Air Forces in World War 11. Vol. 1 originally prepared by the Office of Air Force History; v. 2, by the Air Historical Group; and v. 3-7, by the USAF Historical Division. Reprint. Originally published : Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1948-1958. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: v. 1. Plans and early operations, January 1939 to August 1942-v. 2. Europe, torch to point- blank, August 1942 to December 1943-[etc.]-v. 7. Services around the world. 1. World War, 1939-1945-Aerial operations, American. 2. United States. Army Air Forces- History-World War, 1939-1945. I. Craven, Wesley Frank, 1905- . 11. Cate, James Lea, 1899- . 111. United States. Air Force. Office of Air Force History. IV. United States. Air Force. Air Historical Group. V. United States. USAF Historical Division. D790.A89 1983 940.54’4973 83-17288 ISBN 0-912799-03-X (v- 1) 11 TO THOSE WHO DID NOT COME BACK United States Air Force Historical Advisory Committee (As of May 1, 1983) Lt. Gen. Charles G. Cleveland, Maj. Gen. Robert E. Kelley, USAF USAF Superintendent, USAF Academy Commander, Air University, ATC Dr. Joan Kennedy Kinnaird Mr. DeWitt S. Copp Trinity College The National Volunteer Agency Mr. David E. Place, Dr. Warren W. Hassler, Jr. The General Counsel, USAF Pennsylvania State University Gen. Bryce Poe 11, Dr. Edward L. Homze USAF, Retired University of Nebraska Dr. David A. Shannon (Chairman) Dr. Alfred F. Hurley University of Virginia Brig. Gen., USAF, Retired North Texas State University iv FOREWORD to the New Imprint N March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget ordering each war agency to prepare <<a n accurate and objective account” of that agency’s war experience. Soon after, the Army Air Forces began hiring professional historians so that its history could, in the words of Brigadier General Laurence Kuter, “be recorded while it is hot and that personnel be selected and an agency set up for a clear historian’s job without axe to grind or defense to prepare.” An Historical Division was established in Headquarters Army Air Forces under Air Intelligence, in September 1942, and the modern Air Force historical program began. With the end of the war, Headquarters approved a plan for writing and publishing a seven-volume history. In December 1945, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, Deputy Commander of Army Air Forces, asked the Chancellor of the University of Chicago to “assume the responsibility for the publication” of the history, stressing that it must “meet the highest academic standards.’) Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Frank Craven of New York University and Major James Lea Cate of the University of Chicago, both of whom had been assigned to the historical program, were selected to be editors of the volumes. Between 1948 and 1958 seven were published. With publication of the last, the editors wrote that the Air Force had “fulfilled in letter and spirit” the promise of access to documents and complete freedom of historical interpre- tation. Like all history, The Army Air Forces in World War 11 reflects the era when it was conceived, researched, and written. The strategic bombing campaigns received the primary emphasis, not only because of a widely-shared belief in bombardment’s con- tribution to victory, but also because of its importance in establish- ing the United States Air Force as a military service independent of the Army. The huge investment of men and machines and the effectiveness of the combined Anglo-American bomber offensive against Germany had not been subjected to the critical scrutiny they have since received. Nor, given the personalities involved and the immediacy of the events, did the authors question some of the command arrangements. In the tactical area, to give another example, the authors did not doubt the effect of aerial interdiction on both the German withdrawal from Sicily and the allied land- ings at Anzio. Editors Craven and Gate insisted that the volumes present the war through the eyes of the major commanders, and be based on information available to them as important decisions were made. At the time, secrecy still shrouded the Allied code-breaking effort. While the link between decoded message traffic and combat action occasionally emerges from these pages, the authors lacked the knowledge to portray adequately the intelligence aspects of many operations, such as the interdiction in 1943 of Axis supply lines to Tunisia and the systematic bombardment, beginning in 1944, of the German oil industry. All historical works a generation old suffer such limitations. New information and altered perspective inevitably change the emphasis of an historical account. Some accounts in these volumes have been superseded by subsequent research and other portions will be superseded in the future. However, these books met the highest of contemporary professional standards of quality and comprehensiveness. They contain information and experience that are of great value to the Air Force today and to the public. Together they are the only comprehensive discussion of Army Air Forces activity in the largest air war this nation has ever waged. Until we summon the resources to take a fresh, comprehensive look at the Army Air Forces’ experience in World War 11, these seven volumes will continue to serve us as well for the next quarter century as they have for the last. RICHARD H. KOHN Chief, Ofice of Air Force History vi FOREWORD * * * * * * * * * * * I T HAS become a truism that no war in history was so well reported as that which the United States entered on 7 December 1941.T he reference is, of course, to the legion of correspondents, radio broadcasters, and feature writers who chronicled its daily progress. With equal appropriateness, the judgment might be referred to less widely publicized efforts to provide a more permanent historical record. Surely no such concerted effort has ever been made by the historical profession in America as that which was carried out under the auspices of the various armed services and of civilian governmental agencies during the war years. Of the appropriateness of such an effort the editors of this history, whether as professional historians or as citizens, can have little doubt. Twice within a single generation the country has been forced into a world conflict; in each case the major enemy was the same, but, as the second war opened, no adequate record of the experiences of the first had as yet been provided for either official or public use. The need for a history has seemed especially urgent in the case of the Army Air Forces. Younger than the other military arms, it had in 1941 barely outlived its growing pains. It had no tradition of historical scholar- ship within or without the service-no Mahan or Freeman. Much of what had been written about the Air Service in World War I had been episodic, personalized, apologetic. Authors who popularized the idea of air power were not trained historians: between the wars they wrote of the future; during the recent conflict they had no choice but to draw their conclusions from incomplete evidence. Today a consider- able portion of the American public is air-minded, but amid discussion of the role of air power in plans for national security there exists no balanced synthesis of available knowledge of modern aerial warfare to which that public can turn. It is in an attempt to satisfy this want that the present work has been undertaken. One of the better histories of the Air Service, AEF, is prefaced with the statement that “the primary purpose of this book is to Vii THE ARMY AIR FORCES IN WORLD WAR I1 demonstrate the necessity of a preparedness program for our air force.” * The present history has no such dogmatic aim. Its authors believe with one of the wisest military leaders of our generation that “in our democracy where the government is truly an agent of the popular will, military policy is dependent on public opinion” and that the historian can render “the most essential service in determining the public policy relating to National Defense.” But they have taken to heart also his warning that historians “have been inclined to record victories and gloss over the mistakes and wasteful sacrifices” and that <ci* t is very important that the true facts, the causes and consequences that make our military history, should be matters of common knowl- edge.” t The present authors make no claims to have succeeded in following this counsel of perfection, but they have tried to set down as they have understood it the story of the Army air arm for the people to whom that arm belongs. This book, then, may be considered as a final report to the American public on the activities of the AAF in World War 11. It is not an official report in the ordinary sense of that term-one to which the Air Staff necessarily subscribes in all its details and final conclusions. Rather it is the report of a group of professionally trained historians who during the war enjoyed an unusual opportunity for access to the files of the AAF while those files were still active, and who since the termination of hostilities have received the co-operation of Head- quarters, United States Air Force, in plans to provide for the American public a comprehensive account of their findings. It is pertinent, there- fore, to include here a brief account of the historical program of which this history is an end product and to tell something about the back- ground of the book and its authors. After the United States entered World War 11, the Army Air Forces was among the first organizations to display an active interest in maintaining a historical record. The first hectic months after Pearl Harbor left little time in a military headquarters for consideration of anything beyond the ways and means of meeting each successive emergency call. But in June 1942 the Chief of the Air Staff directed that a professional historian be secured for the preparation of “a run- * H. A. Toulmin, Air Service, AEF, 1918 (New York, 1927)~F oreword,. p. v. +‘‘National Organization for War,” an address before the joint meeting of the American Military Institute and the American Historical Association, Washington, 28 Dec. 1939, in Selected Speeches and Stntements of General of the Army George C. Marshall, ed. Maj. H. A. DeWeerd (Washington, 1945), pp. 35-39. viii FOREWORD ning account of Army Air Forces participation in all military actions in all theaters.’’ The implementing directive contained the judgment of a young Air Corps general: “It is important that our history be recorded while it is hot and that personnel be selected and an agency set up for a clear historian’s job without axe to grind or defense to prepare.” * This action was followed in July by a directive from the War Department calling for the appointment by AAF Headquarters of a historian in accordance with the President’s express desire for an ad- ministrative history of all war agencies. To the Historical Division, established during the summer in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Intelligence, there consequently was assigned a twofold responsibility for the preparation of an organizational and an oper- ational history of the Army Air Forces. Responsibility for decisions involving professional questions fell initially, and indeed throughout the war chiefly, on Col. Clanton W. Williams,t who reported in September 1942 for duty with the His- torical Division on military leave from the University of Alabama. Under Col. Clarence B. Lober as military chief until January 1944 and from the spring of 1945 under Col. Wilfred J. Paul, Colonel Williams served in a capacity at first officially described as that of Professional Executive, later of Chief, and still later of AAF Historian. Whatever the official designation, he rightly saw his job to be that of interpreting professional needs and standards for the guidance of his military superiors in order to assure continuing and intelligent support for a type of operation that fell into no familiar category of military func- tions. In the academic world he would have been called a dean, for he undertook to build a staff of professionally qualified men and to provide for them conditions favorable to work that would meet the highest professional requirements. And though, like most deans, he found little time for scholarly work of his own, to his administrative skill and courage the accomplishment of the AAF Historical Program must be largely credited. At the time of Colonel Williams’ assignment to the Historical Divi- sion, Maj. Harold J. Bingham was already engaged in the organization of a program for the coverage of AAF activities within the Zone of * R&R, Brig. Gen. L. S. Kuter, AFDAS to AFMOP, 19 July IWZ. t For the ease of the reader the highest-attained rank of military personnel is used in this Foreword. ix T H E A R M Y AIR FORCES IN WORLD W A R I1 the Interior. The Administrative History Branch, which he headed throughout the war, would retain in its title the emphasis fixed by the President’s directive for the preparation of administrative histories by war agencies, but the responsibility of the branch actually included comprehensive study of all phases of the AAF’s continental, as distinct from its overseas, activities. It was Colonel Williams’ hope that he might himself assume the major responsibility for coverage of over- seas operations, and in the fall of 1942 he spent two months on tem- porary duty in England, where, in addition to studying the practical problems to be met in covering an overseas air force, he drew heavily upon the experience of the well-established historical section of the British Air Ministry. To Mr. J. C. Nerney on this and other occasions, and as well to historical officers of the Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force, with whom AAF historical personnel were associated in the study of combined air operations, there is due an acknowledgment of a variety of courtesies extended. After returning to Headquarters at the close of 1942, Colonel Williams found the pressure of a growing administrative burden such that in the fail of 1943 he turned over to a newly established Operational History Branch, headed by Lt. Col. Wesley F. Craven, much of the responsi- bility for coverage of overseas operations. In August 1945 the His- torical Division was removed from Intelligence and given the status of a special staff office. The proportions of the task which had been assigned to it were staggering. By the close of 1942 there were already twelve air forces, eight of them engaged in widely scattered overseas operations, while in this country the training and service commands alone dwarfed most organizations theretofore known to American military history. Even- tually there would be sixteen separate air forces whose several oper- ations extended literally around the world, not to mention the Air Transport Command, which pioneered in the development of the first world-wide system of air transport. The rapidly accumulating records of this varied activity were not only massive; they were also scattered. The basic problem was to devise some scheme of selection that would permit the assembly in usable form of that part of the record which had clear historical significance and at the same time, paradoxically, to supplement the record by capturing and recording experiences that otherwise would be lost. Basic also was the factor of X