Читать книгу The Combined Bomber Offensive 1943 - 1944: The Air Attack on Nazi Germany - L. Douglas Keeney - Страница 4

The history of the combined bomber offensive (CBO) in Europe is, in the main, an account of strategic air warfare. In a letter written to the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces in January 1943, Maj. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, Commanding General of the United States component of the CBO forces, made a significant distinction between two of the most important military applications of air power. In the course of a comment on the enemy he said:

The Germans never had an Air Force. They had a great Air Support Command. Goering designed and built their airplanes to support ground armies in continental conquest. They never had an Air Force of long range bombers with a defensive fire power to carry destruction outside the continent … . They had not the means, perhaps, to build the overpowering Air Force and the overpowering Air Support Command. Quite rightly, therefore, by their lights, they built the latter …

War Department doctrine on the employment of air power makes the same distinctions of mission and composition in more conventional terms. According to this doctrine the over-all mission of a strategic air force is the defeat of the enemy nation, the implication being that such a force can wage war on an enemy independent of the action of other forces. The strategic air force comprises bombardment, fighter, and photographic aviation, but heavy bombardment aircraft constitute its backbone. Its objectives are to be found in the vital centers of the enemy’s communication lines and his economic system. The tactical air force, on the other hand, lacks the emphasis on heavy bombardment aircraft and normally functions in a theater where ground forces are operating. Its missions are principally to gain air superiority within the theater, to prevent movement of hostile troops and supplies, and to participate with the ground forces in a combined effort to gain objectives on the immediate front.

The joint and separate U.S. and British planning for the defeat of Germany contemplated from 1941 forward the strategic application of air power as one of the means of bringing that end about. The British-United States Staff Conversations held in the first quarter of 1941 and reported on 27 March of that year proposed “a sustained air offensive against the German homeland and all territories under her control” as one of the measures against Axis Europe. The War Department plans, which followed these staff conversations and provided for the defense of the Western Hemisphere and action in the Pacific ad European theaters, proposed the conduct of “offensive air operations from bases in the British Isles … against German military power at its source.”

The AAF plan APD-1, drafted in August 1941 in pursuance of a presidential directive dated 9 July and in consonance with the United States-British Staff Conversations of 1941 and RAINBOW NO. 5, stated clearly a strategic doctrine for the defeat of Germany I these words: “The center of the Axis system is Germany … . The basic conception on which this plan is based lies in the application of air power for the breakdown of the industrial and economic structure of Germany. The purpose was further elaborated in a “Plan for Initiation of U.S. Army Bombardment Operations in the British Isles.” 20 March 1943, which stated that after our bombardment force had been built up sufficiently it would “commence operations against the strategic objectives, facilities and establishments which support the operations of enemy forces and the enemy national, economic, and industrial structure.

The air plan known as AWPD-43, dated 9 September 1942 and prepared by the Army Air Forces in compliance with a letter directive from the President to the Chief of Staff, declared that our air force must depleted the German Air Force and undermine the economic structure that supported the surface forces of the enemy. The accomplishment of these tasks was to be through the combined efforts of the U.S. AAF and the British RAF. The AAF would conduct precision bombing in daylight and the RAF would make mass area attacks at night for the purpose of cutting down production and weakening morale.

It is thus quite evident that the strategic air force mission was understood and clearly stated well in advance of the drawing up of the final Combined Bomber Offensive Plan.

Strategic warfare with heavy bombardment aviation involves three phases: the preoperational or planning phase, operations and attack, and the assessment of results. The planning phase is considerably different from that for other types of warfare and even unlike that required for other applications of air power. The strategic plan calls for two essential stops – the selection of targets and the calculation of the force necessary to destroy these targets. It is primarily in the selection of targets that planning for strategic air war differs most from other types of war planning. Since the strategic force aims to destroy the economic sources of military cover, the selection of target systems is of paramount importance. Their selection requires a kind of intelligence of the enemy and a type of personnel different from other military preparations.

The air planning for war against Germany that preceded the CBO Plan paid a great deal of attention to the matter of target selection. AWPD-1, mentioned above, selected a set of industrial system for destruction and arranged them in order of priority. The plan called for:

1 Disruption of the German electric power system

2 Disruption of the German transportation system

3 Destruction of German oil and petroleum supplies

4 Undermining morale by attacks on centers of population

To aid in the accomplishment of these objectives it would be necessary to neutralize the German Air Force by attacks on

1 Its bases

2 Engine and airframe factories

3 Aluminum and magnesium factories

The “Plan or Initiation of Air Force Bombardment Operations in the British Isles” selected some 144 targets within four categories in the following order of priority:

1 Munitions industry

2 Electric and water-power industry

3 Petroleum and fuel industry

4 Rail and water transportation

AWPD -43, mentioned above, went into considerable detail in selection of systems and individual targets, and in the calculation of the forces and munitions necessary for achieving the destruction of these targets. The size of the forces planned was based upon the bombardment accuracy that had been observed in early Eighth Air Force operations. The plan provided seven target systems for the attention of the Eighth while the RAF bombers were to be engaged in mass area attacks. The systems for the AAF bombers included:

 First priority, the facilities supporting the GAF – including eleven fighter factories, fifteen bomber factories, and seventeen engine plants.

 Second priority, twenty submarine building yards.

 Third priority, transportation system – Individual targets (36) were to be found among building shops, repair works, marshaling yards, and canals.

 Forth priority, electric power – including some thirty-seven major plants.

 Fifth priority, oil – which required destruction of twenty-three plants.

 Sixth priority, fourteen aluminum plants.

 Seventh priority, rubber – The destruction of the two principal plants was called for.

Since during the course of 1943 the German submarine had become a serious threat to our successful waging of the war, the facilities supporting underseas craft were moved to top priority in a list of target categories given to the U.S. Eighth Air Force by the theater commander in October 1942:

 First priority, five submarine bases

 Second priority, aircraft factories and fields

 Third priority, twelve railroad “marshaling yards”