Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
circle that surrounded the general and played endlessly on MacArthur’s
weaknesses. Kenney’s well-known clash with Sutherland within hours of
assuming command of AAF not only caused Sutherland to stop what Kenney
believed was his meddling in air operations, but it also left Kenney free to
employ information to its best combat advantage, both within his theater and in
joint operations with the neighboring South Pacific (SOPAC).”
Although Vice Adm. William F. Halsey commanded the SOPAC as part of
Admiral Nimitz’s POA, the geographic proximity of the SPA and SWPA made
them interdependent. Air and naval forces from the two commands participated
in joint efforts to destroy the Japanese. Despite the fact that the AAF’s
commanders in the two areas enjoyed a close relationship, the operational and
command structures and the intelligence offices serving in each demonstrated
distinct differences. The Thirteenth Air Force, activated in the Solomons in
January 1943, was operationally subordinate to the regional naval air com-
mander, COMAIRSOPAC, as had been all the AAF units in the area. The
Thirteenth was less an integral, operating air force than the Fifth or those in
Europe. Immediately upon assuming command of the Thirteenth, General
Twining established a small intelligence office on his staff.m
In the SOPAC the AAF had little to do with combat intelligence, since
virtually all such material for the Solomons came from the Commander, South
Pacific (COMSOPAC), Air Combat Intelligence Center at Noumea, New
Caledonia. This office received and disseminated all combat intelligence, and
it prepared maps, target charts, and objective folders for both Navy air and the
AAF, to include the 5th and 1 lth Bombardment Groups (H) operating from
Espiritu Santo before they moved to Guadalcanal in January 1943. The Air
Combat Intelligence Center was, to a great extent, a joint intelligence center,
with the COMAIRSOPAC Intelligence Officer serving as the 5-2. In this
arrangement, Col. L. C. Sherman, who was G-2 of the U.S. Army Forces in the
South Pacific Area (USAFISPA), became a member of the 5-2 committee. The
Americans created an interrogation and interpretation section as a theater
language pool; it too belonged to the Air Combat Intelligence Center. The
Marine air wing at Guadalcanal ran combat intelligence operations, with Army,
AAF, and Australian liaison officers attached, to which the AAF contributed the
12th Photo Interpretation Detachment. The Thirteenth Air Force A-2 staff did
produce tactical target intelligence, based largely on its own and Navy aerial
reconnaissance. One of the primary sources of operational air intelligence for
the Thirteenth came from the G-2 of Lt. Gen. Millard Harmon’s headquarters,
USAFISPA, as a result of a close and continuing relationship?’
Harmon commanded all Army forces in the region and was himself an air
officer. It was through his efforts to centralize control of AAF air resources in
the theater that the War Department had created the Thirteenth. Harmon felt an
affinity for the flying units, and he encouraged Sherman, his G-2, to do all that
he could for the airmen. Sherman greatly expanded the intelligence support
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