Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
latecomer, initially lacking the experience and resources of the RAF in India,
but by late in the war it had built a sizable SIGINT analysis center in Delhi.
Each of the British units worked independently, covering all of central Burma,
an obvious and wasteful duplication of effort. In October 1944, the Director of
Signals Intelligence, Air Command South East Asia, created the Tactical Air
Intelligence Centre (TAIC), a cover name for a radio intercept central operation
along much the same lines as the theater’s central photographic and technical
intelligence units. The TAIC had a CB at Comilla (probably inspired by the Far
East CB that intercepted high-grade ULTRA traffic) for cryptanalysis, evalua-
tion, and collation. The units at Imphal and Chittagong, relieved from other
responsibilities, performed aircraft search and frequency monitoring. Comilla
also became the center for direction finding. Daily and weekly reports of
Japanese Army Air Force operations went from the CB to Air Command South
East Asia, to EAC, to the Strategic Air Force, and to the 3d Tactical Air Force.
The overall effect of this organizational change, even though late in the war,
was to concentrate work by specialty area, increase the effectiveness of the
Allied air forces’ radio intercept intelligence capability, and raise the general
understanding of the Japanese air OB and Japanese Army Air Force operations
and capabilities in Burma.33
The constant Allied air attacks in Burma, supported by a well-honed
intelligence-gathering and analysis structure, placed mounting pressure on the
Japanese defense line and reduced enemy air operations. By May 1945,
Stratemeyer could write to Arnold that so far into the year there had been “. . .
no escorted daylight [Japanese] bomber missions” against Allied targets and
that “. . . attacks on our forward fields and positions have steadily decreased
both in strength and effect.” Because Stratemeyer could not watch every
Japanese airfield nor read the minds of enemy air commanders, he remained
cautious as to the overall abilities of the Japanese to strike at his own bases and
other Allied positions.34
China and the Fourteenth Air Force
North and east of the Himalayas, the Allies fought a different war in China.
Mostly an air operation, the U.S. Navy also had a substantial presence in the
form of guerrilla teams and a far-flung intelligence organization. The Fourteenth
Air Force kept an intelligence operation that usually complemented the Navy’s.
In China, as opposed to India-Burma, air intelligence was not fragmented; all
of it, Chinese and American alike, flowed to General Chennault, as his was the
major air command in the country. From the very beginning of AAF operations
in China, Chennault faced two problems that always dictated his use of
intelligence: his air force was and remained very small, and logistics were such
312