Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
perhaps even could not) attack the Hawaiian Islands. Such fundamental
misconceptions would have been hard to shake until the bombs began to fall.
Perhaps the greatest single difference between the European theater and the
Pacific from the point of view of the American air intelligence effort lay in the
very size of the latter. In Europe one can talk of one theater, even though
operations were conducted in two distinct areas: the Mediterranean and western
Europe. In both, the nature of the enemy and hence the intelligence-gathering
efforts remained quite similar throughout the war. From both, the Allies would
launch major strategic bombing efforts onto the European continent with similar
targets as their objectives. Both areas supported ground and amphibious efforts
that struck against enemy land forces able to draw from the resources of the
continent. The efforts from the Mediterranean and from England confronted
tenacious and effective air defenses on the continent. So one sees a combined
intelligence effort which evaluated the same kinds of information. Airmen
would transfer from one area to the other with ease; the most famous example
is the transfer of Ira Eaker to the Mediterranean and his replacement in Europe
by Spaatz and Doolittle from the Mediterranean.
The intelligence situation confronting American airmen in the Pacific was
radically different from that which existed in Europe. In the Central and South
Pacific, AAF units remained under the control of the Navy; their intelligence
organizations consequently were dependent on their sister service. In the
SWPA, General Kenney’s efforts occurred in an Army theater of operations. In
the CBI, the American effort involved considerable interallied difficulties with
the British and a clash in strategic goals between American interests that aimed
at keeping open the link to China and British interests that aimed at regaining
the southeast Asian empire lost so disastrously in the first months of the Pacific
War. American airmen in China waged a valiant effort to support a weak and
corrupt Chinese nationalist regime as they prepared the base for long-range
strategic bombing attacks with B-29s against the Japanese home islands. Within
China, a nightmare of conflicting interests, the incapacity of the nationalist
government to work with Stilwell, unseemly squabbles between Stilwell and
American airmen, and Japanese capabilities combined to make this theater one
of the least successful American undertakings of the war. The differing natures
and demands of the four Pacific theaters resulted in substantially different
organizations as well as substantially different requirements from intelligence.
Points of comparison were fewer in the Pacific than they were in Europe.
Of all the American airmen in World War 11, George Kenney displayed the
greatest adaptability and flexibility in difficult and challenging circumstances.
From the tactics of low-level skip bombings against ships to a brilliant
operational employment of his resources against the Japanese air base structure,
ground forces, and sea lines of communications, Kenney showed himself to be
a master of operational art. Crucially important to his success was how he
employed intelligence.
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