Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
tions on the mix of high-explosive and incendiary bombs to be dropped and the
fuze sensitivities to be considered for each type target.38
There were in the handling of Japanese target intelligence by the JTG and
the AAF both similarities and significant differences over the work that had
been done in Europe. In 1943, when Ira Eaker received the COA’s recommendations
for attacking Germany, he, as the Eighth Air Force’s commanding
general, chaired a board in London that approved the COA’s work and then
prepared an estimate of the forces needed to accomplish the progressive
destruction of the targets. Late in April 1943, Eaker flew to Washington and
made his recommendations to the CCS. In May, the CCS approved the Anglo-
American CBO. In 1944, when the JTG began work, the operations analysts’
previous recommendations relative to Japan carried the weight of the committee’s
prominence and reputation, even though its work had been done from an
admittedly poorer base of intelligence data. Although the COA was by now
largely out of business, it retained its influence within the JTG by virtue of its
stature in Arnold’s eyes, the past quality of its work, and the presence of a
number of its members on the JTG’s panel of consultants. Arnold in this case
stood as Eaker had previously done, except that Arnold commanded both the
AAF and the Twentieth Air Force and he was determined to see air power
through to success in the war. The fragmented air effort in the Pacific also
figured prominently. The U.S. Navy (and through it Nimitz and the Seventh Air
Force), Marine Corps air, Kenney’s FEAF, and the China Theater’s Fourteenth
Air Force could all be reasonably expected to play an important part in the
attack on the Japanese homeland. Sheer logic, if not Arnold’s determination,
demanded first-rate air intelligence and an effective unit to produce it. Thus the
JTG became the prime agency and the AC/AS for Intelligence, the most
important player in the eff~rt.~’The lack of understanding of Japan was to cause
continuing difficulty for target analysis. Nowhere was the air intelligence need
greater than in the requirement for adequate target photography.
Of all the varied sources of information used by the AAF headquarters
intelligence staff, none came in larger amounts than photography from aerial
reconnaissance. In the summer of 1945, one of the A-2 officers described it as
“probably the most important source or form of air information that came to the
headquarters during this war.’” The officer, Maj. A. W. White of the Air
Information Division, speaking to the senior intelligence officer course at the
AAF School of Applied Tactics, went on to say that some of the people in the
A-2 office were of the opinion that 90 percent of the intelligence used in
planning the war against Japan came primarily from AAF and Navy combat
yhotography, with some from the OSS. Estimates such as White’s were highly
subjective, influenced greatly by the visible volume of material. The piles of
photographs did not translate directly into high-quality analysis; in fact, White
himself pointed out that the staff spent a great deal of time in sifting and
scrutinizing, yet it could not keep up with the growing collection. Clearly, for
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