Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
these earlier estimates had been too optimistic and that repairs to the yard had
progressed more rapidly than projected.’”
A more tragic example of the difficulties in the collection and assessment
of air intelligence was the VIII Bomber Command strike against a Focke-Wulf
factory at Bremen on April 17, 1943. Motive for the attack was an assessment
that this facility was producing 80 FW 190s and 35 FW 135s a month,
supposedly 34 percent of Germany’s total Focke-Wulf output. The 107 B-17
attackers met the stiffest opposition to date; 159 men and 15 aircraft were lost,
twice the total of any previous day. Alleviating the pain of these losses was the
initial assessment that the force had destroyed or damaged half of the factory.’”
When the CIU studied poststrike photographs over a period of several weeks,
it became obvious the Germans had not taken steps to repair the supposedly
valuable plant. This warning flag led to an extensive analysis that provided,
according to the EOU history, “incontrovertible evidence” that the primary FW
190 production facility was at Marienburg, far to the east, and that whatever
capability had existed at Bremen had been moved several months before the
raid.lZ3
Eighth Air Force: Early Operations
What made the development of air intelligence organizations and capabilities
at once so demanding and so critical was the fact that it was occurring in the
midst of combat operations. As a result, the relationship between intelligence,
planning, and operations was reciprocal from the start. While intelligence
contributed to the planning and successful execution of air operations, the
demands of the air war affected the organization of intelligence, defined the
types of intelligence required, and shaped the manner in which it was employed.
In his instructions to the commanding general of Eighth Air Force,
European theater commander Maj. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower stated, “The
mission of the Eighth Air Force, in collaboration with the Royal Air Force, is
to initiate immediately the maximum degree of air operations with a view to
obtaining and maintaining domination of the air over Western France by 1 April
1943, and [to] be prepared to furnish the maximum support to the forward
movement of U.S. Ground Forces by late summer 1943.”’” Spaatz’s directive
to Ira Eaker was more comprehensive, and presumptuous: “The Eighth Air
Force bomber effort will be aimed at the destruction of the enemy’s will to fight
and to eliminate his means of continuing the str~ggle.”’~~
Recognizing the requirement for a break-in period for the fledgling force,
in the summer of 1942 American and British air leaders identified an initial
group of twenty-nine targets in occupied territory. These were selected
primarily because they were “within short range and consistent with the
requirement of remoteness from built up areas and freedom from excessive
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