Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

The European Theater of Operations
training and barracks areas; panzer reequipment depots; headquarters; and
traffic concentrations and routes.=’
In November 1944, the question of transportation as a valid strategic target
surfaced again. Largely at the insistence of Tedder, the entire German
transportation network assumed second priority for American strategic air
operations. Spaatz issued a new directive to his air forces commanders to this
effect, but USSTAF intelligence vehemently opposed SHAEF’s insistence on
transportation, which continued into the new year?60 The issue was not whether
the transportation system was critical, but whether strategic air forces could
achieve measurable results by attacking it. An overwhelming portion of those
agencies that provided data to USSTAF intelligence agreed that the transporta-
tion system simply was too big and had too much excess capacity and reserves
to be attacked effectively.26’ The minutes of a meeting of civilian and military
railroad experts in late October concluded, “No railroad expert present offered
any system of rail transportation targets which he considered, if attacked, would
produce the effect desired by the Deputy Supreme Commander, i.e., the
isolation of the armies from their sources of supply.” In January 1945 the
communications working committee of CSTC determined even heavy attacks
on a limited portion of Germany would not be profitable.262
Earlier that month, McDonald had forwarded a memorandum to General
Anderson offering “an Intelligence appraisal of the immediate Strategic Air
aims of the U.S. Air Forces.” According to McDonald, the direction that the
SHAEF staff was providing American strategic air power “is not showing the
results which might be expected of the expenditure of such a huge force,”
rather, it was detracting from the more important oil program. Asserting “the
Air Forces are faced currently with deciding the length of this war,” McDonald
“strongly” recommended “overriding priority” be given immediately to
successful attacks on active gasoline producers and jet engine manufacturing
The urgency that McDonald placed on jet aircraft production reflected the
most serious concern of American airmen in the winter of 1944-1945. The
imponderable factor in the assessments of the GAF in the fall of 1944 was the
impact that large numbers of jet fighters might have on the enemy’s potency.
The Allies had long been aware of German efforts to develop revolutionary new
aircraft. British intelligence reports from agents in Germany as early as the
summer of 1940 referred to work on gas-turbine engines. By late 1942 the
British knew from POW interrogations and agent reports forwarded by the air
attache in Berne, Switzerland, that both Messerschmitt and Heinkel were trying
to develop jet- or rocket-powered aircraft. Photointerpreters at Medmenham had
discovered an aircraft matching the description of a prototype at a Heinkel
factory?M In June 1943, advised to be on the lookout for “something queer,” a
photointerpreter had spotted four small tailless aircraft at Peenemunde which
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