January-February - Air Defense Artillery

L'aisoJ' \\ as established \\"ith other troops In the area
Ith ~ inth •\rmy reserves.
C'i\ di.ms living within the boundaries of the fence
FROi\ I THE FlGHTI~G FRO~TS
e\'acuated.
The AAOR was designated as the battle headquarters
he Ar\ communications svstem used for coordination
ntml of Defense Forces ..
e defense of airfield Y-94 as described above was a
I departure from established tactical principles. Such
ense is obviously not the best procedure for an A1\
se. bo\\'e\'er the fact that the field was not seriously
attacked from the air after the arri\'al of the 1\1\(\ \\"Ould
seem to justify the risk taken in this respect.
The area in \\'hich the field was located was thickly populated
with German civilians and displaced persons of all
nationalities. At the time the field was occupied these
people were wandering all over the countryside. wearing
nondescript dress and parts of uniforms. thereby making
local security very difficult to attain. The type of defense
established proved effective in pre\'enting unauthorized
entrance to the field, and. under the circumstances. appears
to have been a sound employment of AAA troops.
Flak Analysis. ETO
By Major John B. B. Trussell, Jr., Coast Artillery Corps
s . \\'ell known that t1uOUOh()lIt 0 t1w 'ate war Antiaircraft
erymen were called upon to display their versatility by
nnino
o
a wide variet\' of duties which were unrelated
0
eir own ann-at various times :ll1d in various theaters
acted as Infantry, Field Artillery, Engineers and as
laborers. The work they did as I\ntiaircraft Artillery
en better known. But there is still another dutv.
liar to the I\ntiaircraft but completely unpublicized,
h \\as performed-flak analysis.
ak analysis is a specialized type of Intelligence work
for the Air Force. It came into being when, during the
bomber operations over Europe, flak was beginning to
I its full proportions as a threat to our Hiers. Some
(IUS attempts to counter the effects of antiaircraft fire
been made by the Air Force during the African ~am-
1S. when ofllcers of neighboring 1\1\ units were asked
dvice on approaches to certain important targets, but
s not until the summer of 1943 that Antiaircraft Artilfficers
were attached to the Air Force with the primary
of analyzing enemy.AA defenses. The efforts of these
Flak Officers met with sufficient success to warrant the
'al training and assignment of Antiaircraft officers as
advisers to all Air Force echelons down to and includ-
Wings. Before June 6, 1944, all the Air Forces in
pc had been supplied with Flak Officers.
he new Iv assioned Flak Officer was faced with a cono
0
able number of problems, not the least being a precise
ition of his duties. He knew that his purpose was to
cc losses from flak. For this he was ec)uipped with a
nical knowledge of antiaircraft tactics and technique,
with instruments with which to compute the probabildamage
to an aircraft approaching a target on any
heading, provided the location and strength of the
's AA defenses were known. Fortunatelv, in most
this information was already available; part of Air
igence had long been devoted to the determination of
data. \ Vithout going
::es of these data, the
into too much
primary method
detail as to the
of learning the
IOn of each enemy 1\1\ battery was by the interpretaf
aerial photographs. Systems for the rapid interpre-
tat ion of photographs and dissemination of the findings.
then, were already set up.
The Flak Officer had still, however, to determine the best
uses to be made of the data at his disposal. But before he
could do anything, he was faced with the necessity of convincing
the Air Force officers with whom he worked that he
had any sort of solution to the Hak problem, for despite the
fact that the higher commanders believed in flak analysis.
man\' of the lower echelons still had to be sold on it. For
this ~eason. and also for the reason that one of the best \\'avs
to understand a man is to share his difficulties, most FI~k
O/licers made a point of Hying combat missions as soon as
possible.
An additional approach to the problem was made by careful
stud\' of all details of each loss to Ilak. In most cases
these sn;dies merely verified what a knowledoe of the capa-
. 0
bilities of AA fire would have led the Flak Officer to consider
bad tactics, but some new facts were revealed. 1\ lore
important, many instances of the existence of misunderstandings
of AA potentialities were also revealed. For example,
the belief was widespread at one time that if a flak
burst missed a plane, the pilot should fly to the place where
the burst occurred, as that was the one place in the sky where
the enemy, having missed, was certain not to shoot again.
No account was taken of the rounds which were still on the
wav!
this research naturally led to the propagation of the best
methods of evasive action and the instruction of pilots in the
least vulnerable tactics. Thus, one dUl\' of the Flak Officer
came into being. -
Another duty was to advise the commanding generals in
the writino of field orders. so that the most flak-free routes
o
from base to target and back could be selected. As field
orders were normally written at headquarters of division or
higher level, this duty devolved only on the Flak Officers at
the hioher o
importance,
echelons; there, however,
and in some units the
it was of considerable
Flak Officer's opinion
was regarded so highly that he had, in effect. the final say
in whether or not a gi\'en target would be attacked.
The third dut\, of the Flak Officer was to make a detailed.
17