Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
that no modern air force could operate without it. That meant the AAF needed
its own photoreconnaissance organization, if for no other reason than to avoid
dependence on another service or country for this critical intelligence. That
conviction grew among Eighth Air Force leaders, a conviction later conveyed
to Washington: the service had to develop its own photointelligence resources
to support an eventual, separate air force.
In Washington, the air intelligence function had its first reorganization in
March 1943. To focus and concentrate intelligence under a single officer, the
AAF disbanded the Air Staff intelligence operations unit-the Air Forces
Intelligence Service-subsuming much of their work in an expanded A-2.
General Arnold soon changed the direction of air operations intelligence studies
and air operations planning when he created the Committee of Operations
Analysts (COA). The COA, as it became known, drew on intelligence
information from many sources, including A-2, to determine target priorities
for Germany and, later, for Japan. That these priorities, in hindsight, were not
always the most appropriate ones does not gainsay the times when they were
correct nor the importance of a focused attempt to seek the most effective
answers to the most difficult questions involving the employment of strategic
air power.
The COA, although independent of A-2, became one of the primary users
of air intelligence material as it drew up target category recommendations aimed
at destroying German industry and Hitler’s military. Despite the efforts of the
COA and the OSS’s Enemy Objectives Unit (EOU) in London, unforeseen
technical difficulties associated with high-altitude precision daylight bombard-
ment and German air defenses forced changes in the strategic bombardment
planning. In 1944 the COA turned its attention to a similar effort directed at
Japan. In the Orient, persistently inclement weather and high winds aloft (i.e.,
the jet stream) over the Japanese home islands likewise prompted changes in
strategic bombing tactics.’ These unanticipated problems only intensified air
intelligence efforts; among many AAF leaders, strategic bombing doctrine
remained virtually an article of faith.
General Arnold’s decision to organize the COA marked a significant
change in the AAF’s recognition and acceptance of air intelligence. The AAF’s
commanding general realized the importance of a target plan that would ensure
the best use of American strategic bombers to destroy an enemy’s capacity to
wage war. Creation of the strategic bombardment forces had, after all, rivaled
or exceeded the investment in thg Manhattan Project. Arnold drove his people
relentlessly throughout the war; he knew that the fortunes of a postwar air force
rested on how well he and his service met the war’s demands, and on demon-
strating air power’s importance in ending the war as rapidly as possible.
Enlisting experts from outside the AAF-using businessmen, scholars, and
engineers to analyze prospective target systems-was typical of Arnold. He did
much the same thing for AAF scientific research, enlisting scientists first under
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