Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

NORTHWEST AFRICA
84. 612.606-1, Weekly Intelligence Summary, No. 25, Period from 0001 Hours May 1 to
2400 Hours Apr 30, 1943.
85. Playfair and Molony, Mediterranean and Middle East, vol IV, pp 442-43.
86. A. B. Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey: The Autobiography of Admiral of the Fleet
Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope (New York, 1951). p 529.
87. PRO, AIR/41/33, ff. 112-13.
88. Playfair and Molony, Mediterranean and Middle East, vol IV, p 460.
89. Memo by Spaatz, May 3 and 4, 1943, Box 11, Spaatz Papers, LC; Beam to Kuter,
Apr 28, 1943; Kuter to Beam, May 6, 1943; Training Memorandum Number 33, Air Support;
Senior Air Staff Officer, Northwest African Tactical Air Force, May 6; Kuter Papers,
USAFA; Candee quoted in Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts and Doctrine (Maxwell
AFB, Ala., 1971), p 69.
90. Stratemeyer to Arnold, May 7, 1943, Box 11, Spaatz Papers, LC.; also Memorandum
for the Chief of Staff by Lt. Gen. Lear, May 17, 1943, Kuter papers, USAFA; Kuter to
Commanding General, Army Air Forces, May 12, 1943, Kuter Papers, USAFA. Enclosed
with Kuter letter were:
1) 18th Army Group Operational Instructions No. 1, May 20, 1943.
2) Coningham’s General Operational Directive to the Northwest African Tactical
Air Force, Feb 20, 1943.
3) Coningham’s Outline of Operational Plan for Northwest African Tactical Air
Force, Mar 8, 1943.
4) Coningham’s T.A.F. Operational Plan for the Final Assault on Tunis, Apr 16,
1943.
5) British 1st Army’s Operational instructions No. 37, Apr 19, 1943.
6) Text of talk given by Coningham at Tripoli, Feb 16, 1943.
7) B. L. Montgomery, Some Notes of High Command inWar (Tripoli, 1943).
8) Alexander to Coningham, May 1943.
91. 614.505, Statement made by Brig Gen Laurence S. Kuter at a Press Conference at
the Pentagon, May 22, 1943, AFCHO; PRO, AIR/23/7439, Kuter to Coningham, Jun 26, 1943.
92. Memorandum for the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, by the Chief of Staff, OPD 384
(4-24-43). Kuter Papers, USAFA; Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, pp 69-70; U.S. War
Department, Field Service Regulations, Command and Employment of Air Power, FM 100-
20, Jul21, 1943, pp 1-2; Kohn and Harahan, Air Superiority, p 34.
93. FM 100-20, pp 3.9-10.
93. Ibid.. p 11.
94. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, p 69.
Bibliographical Essay
There is a large amount of manuscript and printed materials on the campaign in
Tunisia. In the United States the logical place to begin is the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA), but when inquiries were made by this author,
NARA officials advised that the records of the AAF during the Tunisian campaign
were closed because they are intermixed with intelligence records concerning the
Balkans. This situation is not as great a setback as it would first appear, for four
major collections of manuscripts exist on the operations of the AAF during World
War I1 in Tunisia in Washington, D.C. In the Office of Air Force History at Bolling
AFB, there is a large collection of AAF records on microfilm containing orders,
reports, and intelligence summaries on the AAF in Tunisia. In the Library of Congress
there are the papers of Generals Arnold, Doolittle, and Spaatz. For Tunisia,
the Spaatz papers are the most useful. There is also a small collection of Kuter
papers in the Library of the U.S. Air Force Academy; also the U.S. Army’s Military
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