Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Building an Air Intelligence Organization
tion systems (rail, road, water), refineries and synthetic oil plants, and, more
generally, the morale of the German people. AWPD-42 identified as “overriding
intermediate objectives” aircraft assembly plants and engine factories,
followed by submarine construction yards, transportation, electric power, oil,
aluminum, and synthetic rubber, collectively grouped as primary targets. A brief
comparison of the two lists confirms that, with the exception of the submarine
yards, the changes were not significant. The flip-flopping of electric power and
transportation merely reversed their previous order, and oil retained its position
relative to both. In AWPD-I, aluminum had appeared as a subset of targets
selected to “neutralize” the Lufhvuffe. In the new plan aluminum was now one
of “three of the major commodities required by Germany in the prosecution of
her war effort.” The addition of synthetic rubber reflected current thinking in the
British MEW that this was a bottleneck industry. With the RAF now concentrating
on German morale, that target priority disappeared from AWPD42.’”
The most significant difference between the two plans-the inclusion in
AWPD-42 of submarine construction yards-reflected broad strategic
considerations rather than intelligence analyses. The major air intelligence
studies available at the time had stressed both the difficulty of permanently
damaging submarine yards and the nine- to twelve-month period that would
elapse before such attacks would impact significantly on the battle in the
Atlantic.’” According to Hansell, inclusion of the U-boat yards was “testimony
to the terrible toll of Allied shipping by German submarines in 1942. It also
recognized the concern, interest, and power of the naval leaders whose authority
would influence the adoption of the plan by the Joint chief^.""^ In view of the
opposition of senior air leaders to the diversion of heavy bombers to the
antisubmarine campaign, it is fair to suggest the yards’ inclusion as priority
targets stemmed from an awareness that any plan that did not include them was
doomed from the start.
The operational assumptions that underlay AWPD-42 reflected the still
incomplete intelligence available to air planners as well as their still limited
base of experience. The prevailing interpretation of the German economy as
already strained to the breaking point and incapable of further expansion-and
the inability to foresee the steps a nation engaged in a total war might take to
continue that struggle-is at least implicit throughout. In addressing transportation,
for example, the planners concluded this “vital link” was “at present taxed
to its maximum ~apacity.”~’~ Within six months, several more complete
analyses of the German rail system would indicate that some 30 percent of the
traffic it carried was “not essential” to the war eff~rt.’’~ Both the operational
assumptions and their strategic conclusions were predicated, moreover, on a
schedule of force development and operations that did not occur. Despite the
efforts of Hansell and others, AWPD-42 failed to resolve the issue of what
strategic air power could and should do in the fight against the Axis powers.
Within the new organizations supporting the JCS, the other services questioned
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