Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Building an Air Intelligence Organization
ated the old OCAC and the Air Force Combat Command into HQ AAF.
Accordingly, the intelligence functions of both these groups were transferred to
the office of the AC/AS, Intelligence, also referred to as A-2.*’* To perform his
responsibilities to collect, evaluate, and disseminate air intelligence, the AC/AS
was provided an A-2 staff and a subordinate Air Intelligence Service (AIS)
which reported to the AC/AS through its director. The A-2 staff was to
establish policy and provide overall guidance on air intelligence functions
within the AAF. AIS would serve as the operating agency to collect, evaluate,
and disseminate tactical and other air intelligence, develop training programs
for air intelligence people, and operate air security services. By June 1942,210
officers were assigned to air intelligence duties under the AC/AS, Intelligence.”
Despite pressures on all agencies to reduce the number of people in the
Washington area, AC/AS, Intelligence continued to expand. Upon his
assignment as the A-2 in June 1942, Col. Edgar P. Sorenson argued for an
additional 58 people. It was not enough, he explained, for his organization to
depend upon intelligence sent to it; his staff also had to seek out information
from the many agencies in Washington that had useful data. In the summer of
1942, A-2 officers made a weekly average of 437 contacts with 25 different
Washington agencies. In the Informational Intelligence Division, for example,
only 25 percent of the products it prepared came from information automatically
sent to it. At the same time, Sorenson noted, manpower shortages prevented the
accomplishment of tasks vital to the operating commands. The Operational
Intelligence Division had completed only half of a schedule calling for 361
objective folders for all theaters. Under the threat of a severe impairment in
targeting at acritical juncture, Sorenson got the 58 additional officers (including
4 officers for an AAF Historical Section added to A-2 in June 1942).”
The division of responsibilities between the A-2 staff and AIS reflected the
then-current AAF approach of separating policy and operating functions. This
philosophy proved more appropriate in theory than in practice, and shortly the
decentralized structure evolved into a much more centralized one. The division
proved especially burdensome for air intelligence; the A-2’s office was with the
Air Staff in the Munitions Building, and the AIS was at Gravelly Point, near the
Washington, D.C., municipal airport. As part of yet another AAF reorganiza-
tion, in March 1943 all air intelligence functions were telescoped into the office
of the AC/AS, Intelligence, where they fell into five principal divisions:
Operational Intelligence, Informational Intelligence, Counter Intelligence,
Combat Training and Liaison, and Historical.” The March 1943 reorganization
also established a Special Projects section supposedly to focus on the develop-
ment of amore professional and realistic intelligence staff operation. Under the
*During the four years of war there would be eight different Assistant Chiefs
of Air Staff for Intelligence.
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