Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

The Reorganization of 1945
Planning the Defeat of Japan
By the end of April 1945, the A-2 office in Washington had begun preparing
for peace, even as they laid out targets for the final assault on Japan. Although
many believed that the AAF’s accomplishments and the position of air power
in modern war portended an independent air arm for the United States, when
this would happen was uncertain. The A-2’s survey of the responsibilities and
authority of his office, done to answer Assistant Secretary Lovett’s questions,
reported that authority for air intelligence in the Army remained firmly under
the control of the War Department’s G-2, with the A-2 operating either as G-2
directed or with G-2’s tacit approval because G-2 could not undertake
everything it wanted to. The general legal authority for A-2’s existence was
Army Regulation 95-5, which established the AAF as a major command and
authorized Arnold as Commanding General to create the agencies he needed to
perform his mission. Despite Arnold’s authority, the G-2’s office retained
virtually all control of intelligence activity, approving very little independent
AAF intelligence work, and then only with the understanding that A-2 first
determine if the War Department could provide the services and information
requested. Theoretically, this was an efficient, logical position for the Army to
adopt, but since the G-2 could not hope to do all the work, it hampered the
AAF’s development to independence and frustrated the A-2’s staff. An example
of the quandary in which the air intelligence office found itself was liaison with
the Navy and other agencies.
During the war, the A-2 had established extensive contacts with the other
services. To continue these contacts, A-2 had requested, at G-2’s insistence,
approval by G-2 of the arrangements, but it had never received a reply. No
authority existed for motion-picture production, something in which Hap
Arnold believed strongly and which he promoted effectively before and
throughout the war years. Nor were the extensive historical analyses begun
under the A-2’s direction authorized to the depth and scope that the AAF was
pursuing them. Air attach6 activity remained so tightly under G-2’s control that
the air intelligence staff questioned whether the AAF could maintain necessary
and productive foreign contacts with the return of peace. Other areas of concern
remained a lack of radio and radar analysis capability for the air headquarters
(as opposed to the gathering of information in the field to be processed by
others) and the AAF’s ability to control the overall gathering of air intelligence
in generaLx5
The ambiguous position of AAF intelligence at the headquarters in
Washington stemmed very much from General Arnold’s own ambiguous
position as a member of the JCS and from the general attitude surrounding the
AAF’s more or less autonomous position within the American military and
naval structure. Since Arnold sat on the JCS, his A-2 served as a member of the
JIC along with the other services’ chiefs of intelligence. The A-2’s position on
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