Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Retrospection
extensive failures in mineral oil production and a considerable reduction
in the June allocation of fuel oil, etc., were to be expected:’
By early June, after a second series of strikes had done an even more thorough
job of disrupting the German petroleum industry, BP forwarded another ULTRA
decrypt from the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffe high command:
To assume defense of Reich and to prevent gradual collapse of readiness
for defense of German air force in east, it has been necessary to break into
OKW (Oberkommando des Wehrmachts-armed forces high command
[oil]) reserves. Extending, therefore, existing regulations ordered that all
units to arrange operations so as to manage at least until the beginning of
July with present stocks or small allocation which may be possible. Rate
of arrival and quantities of July quota still undecided. Only very small
quantities available for adjustments, provided Allied situation remains
unchanged. In no circumstance can greater allocations be made. Attention
again drawn to existing orders for most extreme economy measures and
strict supervision of consumption, especially for transport, personal and
communications flights.”
The special security officer at Eighth Air Force Headquarters underlined
after the war ULTRA’S contribution to the success of the offensive against oil.
His claim that intercepts proving that petroleum shortages resulting from raids
were general and not local convinced “all concerned that the air offensive had
uncovered a weak spot in the German economy and led to exploitation of this
weakness to the fullest e~tent.”~’ For the remainder of the war, ULTRA and
photoreconnaissance allowed the Allies to keep close tabs on German repair
efforts; follow-on air raids destroyed the German efforts to reconstruct
petroleum production facilities. This consistent focus kept the German
petroleum industry from recovering from the lethal blow that it had received
over the summer.
In the war’s last year, intelligence, particularly photoreconnaissance, made
major contributions to the waging of the two great transportation plans executed
by Allied strategic and tactical air forces.52 The first isolated the Normandy
battlefield and enabled Anglo-American forces to win the logistical race of the
buildup. The second was even more successful and led to a general collapse of
the German railway system over the winter of 1944-1945; this success
prevented the German anns industry from resupplying the weary, badly battered
Wehrmacht during the winter of 1945. As German defenses rapidly collapsed
in spring 1945, fanatical Nazis were unable to wage a last-ditch, desperate
struggle on the ruins of the Reich. The execution of the transportation attacks,
as well as the intelligence contribution, suggests much about the difficulties in
using intelligence effectively and the problems in integrating intelligence into
operations.
The first of the transportation campaigns was largely limited to the tactical
and operational arena. It sealed off the coastal areas of France from reinforcement
and made German logistic difficulties so great as to prevent a rapid
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