Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Building an Air Intelligence Organization
enemy aircraft, 161 of them caught on the ground.261 Although German records
identify about half that number, even this lower figure would represent a major
blow to an air force already reeling. Nor was this the only coordinated strike of
its kind. NASAF executed smaller versions of FLAX the next week. Meanwhile,
the Western Desert Air Force had established a radar net over the Cape Bon
Peninsula and relied on it to vector fighters against Axis air transports, which
suffered heavy losses several days’ running. When the tactical air forces
downed all 21 Me 323s in a single convoy on April 22d, the Germans ceased
daylight air transport operations.262
Air power had been a decisive factor in the Allied victory in North Africa, and
intelligence, in its several forms, had been critical to that success. At command
levels, ULTRA offered insights into the enemy’s perspective of the invasion and
then enabled Allied leaders to monitor enemy responses. Throughout the
campaign it provided information of enemy capabilities and vulnerabilities
attainable in no other way, and it was instrumental in guiding the interdiction
and counterair campaigns of the NASAF and the NATAF.
While ULTRA was indispensable to command decisions, in tactical
execution, other forms of intelligence came into their own and, as the campaign
progressed, were used more effectively. Among these, photoreconnaissance was
the most obvious; its development illustrates the interrelatedness of ULTRA with
other sources. Intercepted messages might reveal movement times and general
locations of targets, but mission planners and operators needed precise
configurations of target facilities and exact locations (e.g., of ships in harbor)
if they were to achieve maximum results with each mission. Similarly, the
tactical and technical information on enemy tactics and capabilities provided by
crash investigation and POW interrogation were essential to effective air-to-air
combat.
One of the most overlooked but important evolutionary steps in air
intelligence in North Africa involved the mechanics of the collection,
evaluation, and dissemination processes. The shift in targeting from AFHQ to
NAAF and its commands, like improvements in the dissemination of intelligence
to combat groups and squadrons, reflected growing awareness of the
importance of intelligence in air operations at all levels. How this new
understanding would translate into operations over the Continent remained to
be seen.
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