Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
African Strategic Air Force (AFHRA Gp 615), and Northwest African Tactical
Air Force (AFHRA Gp 614). Particularly useful in understanding the role of
ULTRA in North Africa was Group Captain Humphreys’s “The Use of ‘U’ in the
Mediterranean and Northwest African Theaters of War,” in the National
Security Agency’s SRH-037, Reports Received by U.S. WarDepartment on the
Use of ULTRA in the European Theater, World War II.” Volume 2 of Hinsley’s
British Intelligence in the Second World War also provided essential material
on signals intelligence, including ULTRA, especially with regard to the
antishipping campaign which occupied so much of the strategic air forces’
efforts.
The intelligence files of the Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Air Forces contain
varying amounts of relevant material about the AAF in the Pacific and CBI, due
largely to the difficult conditions and the widespread nature of the war in that
region. The operations records of the three numbered air forces usefully
supplement the intelligence files. Other records, such as those of AAF
Headquarters, provided valuable data, especially in the case of B-29 operations,
where many of the general mission objectives were reached based upon the
predeployment work of the COA and the Air Staff. The contents of the records
of the Seventh and Thirteenth Air Forces are distinctly less productive than
those of the Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth. This reflects the Navy command
structure under which these two organizations worked for much of the war.
Most operational decisions of the air units subordinate to the Navy were not
taken by the air commanders, and no commander of either Air Force reached the
prominence of either Kenney or Chennault. The records reflect the reactions to
task force directives, not the extent of or reasons for Air Force planning.
The best single source to trace the thoughts and actions of specific
commanders of the Far East region is the collection at the AFHSO known as the
George C. Kenney Papers. This aggregate of letters and of diary and journal
entries covers events from 1941 through the end of the war. It was supplemented
by General Kenney in the months after the war as he incorporated some
of it into his book, The General Kenney Reports. Used with an understanding
of its origin and purpose, this book is almost unmatched among the legacies of
America’s Pacific air generals for judging the influence of information upon
plans and operations. The papers of Generals Nathan Twining and Curtis E.
LeMay in the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division proved a most helpful
resource, as did the oral histories and individual collections at AFHSO.
Especially useful for an understanding of ULTRA and the air-ground relationships
in the SWPA is Edward J. Drea’s MacArthur’s Ultra.
Libraries in the Washington, D.C., area, the Library of Congress, Army
Library, and the Air Force History library provided a great deal of information
about the war. Much of it is operational, with few accounts of intelligence work.
In part this is so because of the wartime and postwar strictures on revealing
sensitive information. Probably this also reflects the less glamorous aspect of
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