Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
for the photo squadron. For the photointerpreters, Chennault noted an especial
need, as “photo interpretation is particularly valuable in this area as it is the only
unbiased source of available inf~rmation.”~’
When Chennault’s organization joined the AAF in July 1942, there came
with it a widespread, unsophisticated but very effective intelligence function,
the air-raid warning net. Devised by Chennault when he served as Chiang’s air
advisor between 1937 and 1941, it was patterned on the British observer corps
system used during and after World War I. The Chinese air warning net
comprised hundreds of people across thousands of miles of territory facing
Japanese-occupied China who, when they heard aircraft overhead, called in by
radio or telephone with their reports. By plotting the locations of the calls, the
Americans tracked the enemy’s approach. If the aircraft had been sighted and
counted, so much the better. The warning notice was the important fact,
however, for it gave immediately useful tactical intelligence and allowed the
pilots to scramble their aircraft to meet the incoming attack in time to break up
the formation and reduce bombing accuracy. Bissell considered the warning
system so important that on September 25,1942, he wrote Chennault from India
telling him to keep it operating “without interruption or decrease in efficiency.”
With Tenth Air Force approval, the warning net became a special fighter control
squadron and a formal, integral part of the CATF.38 Despite having formal
status, the air warning service aided only air defense; it could do little to
influence the Fourteenth’s offensive mission.
Early in 1943, Chennault’s chief of intelligence, Colonel Williams, noted
that much work had yet to be done to make the Fourteenth’s intelligence
analysis information truly supportive of air operations. Aerial photography
continued as the primary source, but Williams wanted trained U.S. Army
intelligence officers assigned to Chinese forces along the Burma and Indochina
borders to sort out good reports before requesting air support. He wanted to
strengthen his technical intelligence ability to correctly assess recovered
Japanese aircraft and equipment. At the same time, Williams asked once again
for authorization and assignment of group and squadron air intelligence officers
so that they could prepare adequate target objective material and properly
prepare aircrews for combat mission^.^'
Some of the problems that Chennault and his commanders faced in China
were simply not amenable to solution. Air technical intelligence always suffered
because many of the areas where Japanese airplanes crashed were distant,
isolated, and hard for the few recovery teams to reach. The local natives prized
the aircraft metal and would carry it away almost as soon as it was cool enough
to touch. Even by the end of 1943, with at least the formal support of the
Chinese government, air technical intelligence teams still had difficulty
recovering parts of downed airplanes.40
Japanese military authorities had been aware from as early as the April
1942 Doolittle raid that Allied airfields in China were a threat not only to their
314