Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Early Intelligence Organization
Information Section received the additional task of preparing an elaborate Air
Service AEF history, a function thought necessary to capture all the lessons
learned during the war.’
“Before our entry into the war,” General Pershing wrote, “European
experience had shown that military operations can be carried out successfully
and without unnecessary loss only in the light of complete and reliable
information of the enemy.”” The invention of the aeroplane provided another
means by which to obtain this information. In preparing for war, European
armies had expected to use observation balloons, dirigibles, and airplanes for
aerial scouting, The conflict was only weeks old when events proved the value
of the new machine in this capacity.
Reconnaissance by the British Royal Flying Corps in August 1914 provided
timely and accurate reports of German dispositions. These, according to the
British field commander, “proved of great value” and helped “to avert danger
and disaster” in the Battle of Mons.” In September, the Royal Flying Corps’
discovery of a gap between German armies and the exposed right flank of the
advancing forces set the stage for the Battle of the Marne, which prevented an
early German victory. According to the official British historian of World War
I, the senior Allied commander, Marshal J. J. Joffre, owed British aviators “the
certainty which had enabled him to make his plans in good time.”’*
Nor were French or German aviators less active. French flyers flew more
than 10,000 reconnaissance missions in the first months of the war, especially
to provide aerial fire adjustment for the mobile French 75-mm field guns. Aerial
observation became a specialty of the French Air Force. According to Field
Marshal Erich Ludendorff, German artillery also achieved “better shooting by
means of aerial ob~ervation.”’~
During the period of trench warfare between the winter of 1914 and the
German spring offensive of 191 8, aerial observation became increasingly
sophisticated, to include aerial photography of enemy trench systems and troop
concentrations. To blind the enemy’s reconnaissance while preventing him from
doing the same to one’s own capability led to the rapid evolution of aerial
combat. In the last phase of the war Allied aviation again provided timely
information on German troop dispositions and movements as they retreated. It
also supported ground offensives, including tank operations, with fire support
and immediate reconnaissance. Recalling this experience in a lecture in 1930,
the future commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) during the
Normandy invasion, Air Marshal (then Wing Commander) Trafford L. Leigh-
Mallory, observed, “The vital importance to an armored force commander of air
information cannot be emphasized too highly. . . .”14
Senior U.S. Army leaders recognized the vital role aerial observation had
played in the war. Referring to intelligence in his posthostilities report, General
Pershing noted that “warfare with battle lines separated by short distances only,
makes possible the early acquirement of information. . . .” While there were
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