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

LESSONS BEFORE WORLD WAR I1
homefront through aerial bombardment. By 1939, however, this earlier goal
became subordinated in some countries to a vision of war in the air almost
exclusively directed against enemy production and the will of the populace,
following suppression of an enemy’s air force. Aviation as a handmaiden to
ground forces had become anathema to most airmen, despite the respectable
tactical performance of aviation in World War I. The central thread
running through interwar military aviation was strategic air power. And, by
the destruction of an enemy’s resources, strategic air power could bring air
superiority to build and field air forces. Unfortunately, by 1939, subtle
nuances governed implementation of that doctrine.
In peacetime, air superiority could be seen as something different than
in wartime. It was more a game of numbers and production base, as well as
psychological intimidation in anticipation of war. When war came, the
notion of a floating pocket of air superiority surrounding the independent
strategic offensive seemed possible. Even general or overall air superiority
throughout a war zone or theater of operations for a longer duration than
just a single sortie or mission also had to be considered. Of course, air
superiority impinged upon those unavoidable missions like close air support
of ground combat operations, interdiction campaigns, and use of aircraft
in resupply. Also, there remained hope for a defensive means to win
air superiority through interception of enemy aircraft escaping the bombardment
offensive. All of these facets of air superiority would undergo the
test of practical experience in a Second World War.
The cauldron of actual combat would resolve fundamental air superiority
questions beyond the “given” that it was absolutely indispensable to
any and every air operation. German, Italian, Russian, and Japanese airmen
received tactical lessons and experience in the little wars of the 1930s
which provided them with some answers. But, mere observer reports from
those conflicts could not substitute for actual combat experience among the
western democracies that sat on and watched from the sidelines the conflicts
in Spain, Ethiopia, China, and Manchuria. This fact created a doctrinal
vacuum in peacetime. It stunted the growth of air superiority
doctrines in Great Britain, France, and the United States.
The true impetus for doctrinal adjustment emerged from the first two
pivotal years of the Second World War, 1939 and 1940. Whether or not
Japan learned anything from the aerial campaigns over western and eastern
Europe in this period is not clear. Even the Americans seemed not to derive
definite air superiority lessons from the battles for France and Great Britain.
U.S. airmen did learn lessons about the value of interception through
radar, ground control networks, and superior pursuit as they affected
defensive counterair operations. These factors enabled American writers
of FM 1-15, Tactics and Techniques ofAir Fighting (September 1940 edition),
to suggest that pursuit had the priority mission of denying “the hostile
air force freedom of the air.” But American aviators generally remained
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