Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
similar observations. Much of the problem centered on the uncertain availability
of the material related to work that was vital to the A-2 but over which the AAF
had no control. An excellent example of this type of report was the air OB
compilations, prepared by a small group of officers in Special Branch. In April
1944 this function became even more centralized and further from the AAF’s
control and understanding when preparation of the weekly Japanese air estimate
shifted from G-2’s air unit to Special Branch. Beginning in November, Special
Branch published and circulated to the Air Staff a combined Japanese Army-
Navy air strength list. The list had appended to it a detailed section on estimates
not only of Japanese air capabilities but also of intentions, based upon the
current situation. Other reports to the Air Staff from MIS contained information
on Japanese plans and operations, major changes in air dispositions, new types
of aircraft, weapons, defenses, tactics, supply, and aircraft production and
replacement. Much of the data on Japanese shipping that made possible the air
and submarine antishipping campaign came from the MAGIC Diplomatic
Summary and other military ULTRA assessments. Reference to the combined
Japanese Army-Navy air forces report was the only way in which planners in
Washington, Honolulu, and elsewhere could grasp fully the true state of
Japanese air power. The irony was that from early 1943 on, as air intelligence
improved, the Japanese became less and less able to carry on air warfare. The
heavy losses of their best pilots in the long and bitter Solomon Islands campaign
greatly reduced the overall experience of the flyers. The declining level of
Japanese capabilities was not clearly perceived everywhere. The issue at hand
was winning the war, and the A-2’s people chafed under their perception that
they were restrained from meeting the challenge and their frustration of
knowing that another air intelligence staff, whose size and sources they did not
fully comprehend, was doing the work that they should have been doing.27
Far East Target Analysis
At the time that the AAF organized the Eighth Air Force and Arnold sent
Spaatz to England, the AAF also delineated responsibility for studying potential
targets. Information for industrial objectives in Europe was to be handled by the
Eighth and the RAF. The Far East, and especially the Japanese home islands,
was the province of the A-2, although some European analyses would be done
by the Air Staff. Theater A-2s in the Pacific and CBI exercised their own local
authority on problems peculiar to their areas or operations. In March 1943, the
Air Staff received from the AIS its first target study of Japan, Korea, and
Manchuria, recommending fifty-seven key targets from a priority list including
aircraft production, nonferrous metals, naval bases and shipyards, iron and steel,
petroleum, chemicals, automotive assembly, and rubber processing. The basic
information supporting the intelligence services study came from the BEW and
364