Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
sance and ULTRA, provided incontestable evidence of the validity of concentrating
on the petroleum industry. The decrypt of a GAF operations staff message
the day after the‘May 12 attack on the refinery at Leuna revealed the transfer of
flak batteries from aircraft production facilities at Oschersleben, Wiener
Neustadt, and Leipzig-Erla to various synthetic oil plants. That the enemy was
willing to reduce protection of his aircraft factories provided the clearest
possible indication of the importance he attached to oil.ZZR
By June 10,1944, USSTAF had prepared its plan for the employment of the
strategic air forces, which Spaatz personally carried to Eisenhower and Tedder
on the 13th. The drafters of this plan, among them operations and intelligence
officers, argued that events of the past sixty days had demonstrated tactical air
forces could effectively support operations in France. Spaatz’ s people stated,
“the German Air Force is no longer able to prevent the destruction by our air
forces of any system of targets which we may now select.” The key now was to
determine on which system to concentrate. After reviewing the list of possible
target systems, the planners concluded that attacks on the petroleum industry,
with emphasis on gasoline, would most dramatically affect the enemy’s combat
capability across the board.’”
Within weeks of the May attacks on oil targets, intelligence organizations
outside USSTAF supported Spaatz in redirecting American strategic air efforts.
As part of an analysis of the Allied interdiction program and recommendations
for future operations, Eisenhower’s own SHAEF G-2 identified oil as the
strategic target that would most decisively affect the enemy’s combat capability.
While not totally ignoring the interdiction campaign, this report, based on an
earlier EOU study, recommended that American heavy bombers also be directed
against refineries, synthetic oil plants, and fuel dumps throughout western
In Washington, the COA was more emphatic. Directed by the
AC/AS, Plans, to reassess their original March 1943 report in the light of the
changed situation in Europe, the committee opined in June 1944, “Oil is clearly
the most important strategic target after the policing of air~raft.”’~’
Although Eisenhower issued no formal directive, he and Spaatz obviously
had reached an agreement by the middle of June. Eighth Air Force conducted
four major attacks in both June and July against the German oil industry. In
August, it increased this number to nine assaults on refineries and other
facilities in addition to extensive fighter-bomber attacks by Ninth Air Force
against fuel depots in Germany, France, and Belgi~m.*’~’ To provide targeting
recommendations and to monitor the effectiveness of this expanding oil
*Between May 1,1944, and March 31,1945, Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces
and RAF Bomber Command conducted 555 separate attacks on 133 oil industry
targets, plus numerous raids on reserve oil depots and POL dumps. Nevertheless,
Eighth Air Force’s 222 oil-related attacks constituted only 13 percent of its total
tonnage dropped in this period.
238