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

AIR SUPERIORITY
January 10, 1942, the President repeated his wish for an attack on Japan
and pressed Admiral King and Generals Marshall and Arnold to “keep their
respective staffs thinking of ways and means to carry the fight to the enemy
and bolster public morale.”20
It is not surprising that Roosevelt’s high command had not yet devised
a concrete plan. Not only had overseas air superiority been lost to the Japanese,
but Anglo-American planners, as will be noted, had also accepted a
Europe-first main strategy. How to reach the Japanese homeland at that
early stage of the war, with the short-range surviving aircraft? The British
staff, particularly Chief of the Air Staff Sir Charles Portal, advised the
Americans that air strikes on Japan should be the purview of the Navy,
using aircraft carriers to surprise the homeland, just as Japanese carriers
had surprised Hawaii. Among the reasons for General Arnold’s failure to
be impressed by the British rationale was his belief that “it would be suicide
for the Navy to bring their carriers within range of Japanese landbased
aviation.”2t After all, the radius of action of carrier planes did not
exceed 300 miles.
When the President conferred with his advisers on January 28, he reiterated
the urgency of striking Japan from the air as soon as possible. General
Arnold discussed the possibility of operating from North China or
Russia. Roosevelt directed that the China alternative be explored, especially
after being told that the distances involved in a strike from the Aleutians
were too great. Unmentioned at the meeting was the fact that, of those
present, Arnold and King had begun working on a daring plan spawned
after the discussions on January 10. They proposed launching modified
long-range U.S. Army medium bombers from an aircraft carrier deployed
within striking distance of Tokyo.22
Already, however, by the last day of 1941, the most important decision
in initial wartime grand strategic planning had been reached: to discard
the widely held notion of abandoning Europe and Great Britain as lost
and of launching an early counteroffensive against Japan. Instead, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) accepted, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff
(CCS) formally adopted, the concept of a strategic defensive against Japan.
Only after the Germans had been defeated would maximum strategic
offensive operations be mounted against Japan. It was the considered
opinion of the CCS that, despite Japan’s entry into the war, Germany
remained the primary foe, whose defeat was the key to victory; “once
Germany is defeated, the collapse of Italy and the defeat of Japan must
~OIIOW.”~~
The U.S. Navy understandably pressed for a more positive role in the
Pacific, euphemistically termed “limited active defense,” envisaging the
commitment of a U.S. Army strategic air force in support of the Navy.
Army Air Forces planners, in the person of Ma;. Haywood S. Hansell, Jr.
(supported by Lt. Col. Albert C. Wedemeyer), argued that the diversion of
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