Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

142 • Reversing the Decay of American Air Powerof this huge investment was initiated in October 1944 at the direction of PresidentRoosevelt. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) was to consist of asmall group of civilian experts. The Army quickly dominated the Survey team with850 military participants versus 300 civilians.The Survey’s summary report contains a wealth of information. Embedded deepin it were a few sentences that succinctly summarized the results of the U.S. ArmyAir Force/RAF strategic bombardment campaigns:“...City attacks by the RAF prior to August 1944 did not substantially affectthe course of German war production. German war production as a wholecontinued to increase. ...while production received a moderate setback aftera raid, it recovered substantially within a relatively few weeks. [Thoughunstated, the U.S. daylight raids had the same outcome.] In late 1944,there were so many forces making for the collapse of production ... that itis not possible separately to assess the effects of these later area raids onwar production. There is no doubt, however, that they were significant.” 49What is missing in the above summary is the fact that only 35 percent of bombermissions after March 1944 were strategic, that is, against cities, war production andother strategic targets, as opposed to against ground forces. Secondly, the Survey’sexperts did, in fact, document the effects of bombing on specific target systems suchas railroads, bridges, oil production and munitions production.The following data are extracted from the USSBS summary report:• 5.4 billion lbs. of ordnance were dropped.• 1,440,000 bomber sorties were flown.• 60,000 U.S. and 40,000 RAF bombers were manufactured.• On average, each bomber manufactured produced 15 sorties.• 60,000 U.S. fighters were manufactured.• 2,680,000 Allied fighter sorties were flown.• On average, per aircraft manufactured, fighters produced three times as manysorties as bombers.• 1,300,000 men were in the U.S. air combat commands.• 79,200 American airmen were casualties: 73,000 in bombers and 5,600 infighters.• Total Allied casualties for airmen were 158,500.• 18,000 U.S. planes were lost: 12,400 U.S. bombers and 5,600 U.S. fighters.• 22,000 British planes were lost for a total of 40,000 Allied planes lost.