Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

The European Theater of Operations
Lt. Gen. Earle E. Partridge
more appropriate.” General Norstad was not listening to his intelligence
analysts. Against the Zuckerman thesis were ranged not only Norstad’s own
target section at HQ MAAF but also the intelligence sections of Twelfth Air
ForceMATAF and of AFHQ. One month before Norstad sent his letter, a
Twelfth Air Force A-2 study of operations since the Sicily campaign (which it
considered a special situation) had concluded, “Marshalling yards must now be
conceded to be poor targets for the ends sought in the Italian Theater of
operation^."^' In early February adetailed OSS report on air operations between
October and December 1943 reinforced the value of attacks on bridges: “The
efficiency of bridge attacks in creating total blockage is . . . six to seven times
greater than that of yard attacks.”’’
Nor were Allied assessments the only source for such conclusions. In mid-
November, a captured member of the German General Staff in Italy stated
during interrogation, “Bombing of communications in northern ITALY has had
little effect on the supply situation.” According to the report on this interroga-
tion, except for two specific key yards “source does NOT believe that rail traffic
in ITALY could be paralyzed by the bombing of selected marshalling yards”
since trains were formed up in Germany and sent directly to Tenth Army units,
without the need to be reformed or marshaled in Italy. Even after heavy attacks
at rail centers, one or two military lines were generally reopened quite rapidly.
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