Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
economy. . . .”2wI The COA also accepted submarine yards as a suitable target
over the long haul, but it placed the yards in seventh position because it
believed an operational impact on the yards would require at least a year’s
worth of substantial attacks. In these areas, then, the COA report reflected the
demands of operations affecting intelligence assessments, rather than the other
way around.
Perhaps most important in assessing differences between AWPD-42 and
the COA report was the inherent uncertainty of the whole intelligence process,
especially at the strategic level. Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, authors
of the official British history of the strategic air war against Germany,
underscored precisely this point in their own discussion of the committee’s
recommendations and its critics: “Those criticisms show how much of the
economic planning always depended on assumptions which could not be
verified in the circumstances of the time.”’”
Although the committee had been unable to provide Arnold the date by
which a strategic air campaign would make possible an invasion of Europe, it
nonetheless played an important role in the development of that campaign.
While the subcommittees had struggled to identify the proper objectives for air
operations against Germany, Allied military and political leaders meeting at
Casablanca in January had addressed the broader issue of the place of that
campaign within the Grand Alliance’s overall strategy. As a result of the
persuasive arguments of Ira Eaker, the conferees agreed that Eighth Air Force
should continue its daylight bombing program in conjunction with RAF night
operations. VIII Bomber Command would operate independently of, but in
close coordination with, RAF Bomber Command. The CCS would themselves
determine the overall priority of targets, with the RAF Chief of Staff acting as
their executive agent.
The combined policy paper that these decisions produced, the Casablanca
Directive, defined the objective of strategic air operations in Europe as “the
progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial, and
economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to
a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.” The
directive called for a comprehensive plan to accomplish these objectives. In the
interim, it established the following target priorities, ranked as before: German
submarine construction yards, German aircraft industry, transportation, oil, and
other elements of the German war industry.”’
For air power, the decision to continue the American experiment with
daylight precision bombing was the most significant aspect of Casablanca. In
planning the execution of such operations, however, the Casablanca Directive
provided only general guidance. Translation of this broad direction into
operational objectives and plans would, especially on the American side, come
through Eaker’s plan for the CBO prepared in the spring of 1943 (see Chapter
156