Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Retrospection
danger. The estimate of the assistant naval attach6 in Tokyo underlined these
deeply ingrained prejudices:
Originality is certainly not a trait of the Japanese and this quite evidently
applies to their aviation equipment. Everything is basically of foreign
origin-planes, engines, and instruments. They do build well, however,
and the results are creditable, but being copied from foreign developments
their equipment must necessarily be at least a couple of years behind that
of the leading occidental powers. . . . I believe that there is no doubt that
we are markedly superior to the Japanese in the air-in piloting skills, in
material, and in ability to employ our aircraft effectively on the offense
and defen~e.~
The information on the other Axis powers was almost the opposite: too
much information of uncertain origin and value. In the 1930s the Germans,
through skilled manipulation of observers, proved to be masters in persuading
foreign intelligence services that they possessed extraordinary capabilities and
potential. The most famous example involved the visit of the chief of staff of
the French Air Force, General Joseph Vuillemin, to Germany in August 1938.
The aerial display made such a frightening impression on him that he returned
to Paris to advise his government that the French Air Force would last barely
two weeks against the LufnYuffee4 Such assessments led the Foreign Minister,
George Bonnet, hardly a strong reed himself, to beg the German ambassador in
early September 1938 that Germany not put France in a position where she had
to honor her treaty obligations-this, at the same time he was delivering a
“warning” that a Nazi attack on Czechoslovakia would result in a French
declaration of war? The British were no less confused by German claims! One
should not be surprised, therefore, that the minimal American effort to estimate
the German potential was similarly in error; but the damage was considerably
less, for in the long run it had the beneficial impact of speeding up American
rearmament, especially in the air, the one arena where a potential enemy might
strike directly at the United States.
While the world situation steadily deteriorated in the late 1930s, American
airmen, particularly those at ACTS, had evolved a complex theory of air power.
That theory strongly influenced the development and conduct of the later
American strategic bombing offensives against first Germany and later Japan
in the Second World War. American air doctrine rested on two basic premises.
The first was that unescorted, large formations of heavily armed bombers could
fight their way deep into enemy territory, without suffering exorbitant losses,
and then drop their bombs on selected targets with precision. The second, and
arelated premise, was that the bombers could attack certain specific target sets,
the destruction of which would lead to such widespread dislocations that the
enemy’s economic system would collapse. It was an attractive theory that
promised not only justification for an independent air force, but it would also
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