Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

The European Theater of Operations
ers evaluated the Lufnyufse. It necessitated a subjective weighing of a variety of
factors, such as combat experience, training levels, serviceability, and morale.
This increasingly sophisticated approach explained in part why senior airmen
such as Spaatz and Anderson would watch GAF fighter strength increase in the
summer and fall of 1944 without diverting their primary attention from the oil
campaign.
In a teletype conference between HQ USSTAF and HQ AAF on February
27, General Anderson, repeating almost verbatim a paper prepared by the
directorate of intelligence, suggested Big Week had cost the Germans 60
percent of their single-engine and 80 percent of their twin-engine fighter
production. The German high command had only two choices: either defend
high-value targets and watch combat losses rise even higher, or withhold forces
to reduce wastage and suffer the destruction of industrial capacity and hence
military capability. Allied objectives could best be attained by continuing to
assault the enemy's vital production centers to draw defensive fighters into the
air.113
Within a week a more detailed USSTAF intelligence analysis not only
confirmed this assessment, but it provided further impetus for a new approach
to strategic air operations. The air intelligence summary for March 5, 1944,
concluded that Big Week had cost the enemy 50 percent of his replacements. An
EOU study completed at the same time concluded that Big Week had reduced
the production of single-engine fighters from 950 to 250 per month and that of
twin-engine fighters from 225 to 50 a month; ball-bearing production was at 45
percent of the pre-Big Week 1e~el.l'~ The GAF had lost some 300 fighters in
combat, estimated to represent a tenth of the Luftwufle's fighter strength. The
recognition that the GAF was suffering heavy attrition in the air produced in
March a fundamental shift in operational planning. Instead of seeking routes to
avoid German defenses, operational planners deliberately set out to directly
engage them. On the basis of these intelligence assessments, Spaatz and his
chief staff officers also turned to other targets, most notably oil.
Ironically, while the decision to shift from the German aircraft industry to
oil proved correct, it was based on intelligence assessments that were too
optimistic. The Big Week assaults had destroyed 75 percent of the buildings in
the target areas. As in the previous October, however, significant portions of the
critical machinery proved salvageable. Big Week accelerated the dispersal of
industrial facilities begun some six months earlier. As a result of salvage
operations, previous dispersal, and failure to reattack the dmaged factories, the
massive assault in February actually delayed German production less than the
lighter and more sporadic raids of August and October had."5 The decision to
draw the GAF into combat in the spring of 1944 proved strikingly successful.
Luftflotte Reich, responsible for the air defense of the Fatherland, lost 225
aircraft in February, 236 in March, and 343 in April, to which must be added an
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