Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
tactical value and generally had greater applicability to ground and naval
operations. This was so because enemy army headquarters were more likely
than air corps headquarters to relocate frequently, and fleets at sea were often
moving or preparing to move. For airmen, DF also came to be used to determine
the location and signal characteristics of radar, which allowed commanders to
judge AA defenses and fighter control capabilities and then to adapt mission
planning. The primary purpose of traffic analysis (TA) was to secure at least
some information about the enemy’s presence and possible organization when
deciphering the messages was not possible. This method of intelligence
involved analyses of communications frequencies and message patterns (length,
volume, and direction), and it could provide information on the location and
size of an enemy headquarters and the level of potential activity by forces under
its command. SIGINT was the method for tracking and analyzing enemy aircraft
navigational beams and for analyzing enemy radar development and employment.
SIGINT reflected a modern adaptation to a traditional objective of military
intelligence-trying to intercept the enemy’s communications. In the same
sense, aerial photography represented a modern application of the traditional
intelligence role of the cavalry, marking as it did the effort to find a higher hill
from which to observe the enemy. More precisely, photographic intelligence
consisted of two distinct but intimately related tasks, each requiring unique
skills, equipment, and organization. The first-photoreconnaissance-consisted
of the operational missions to take the photographs. The second-photointerpretation-involved
making military sense from the photos’
content.’ Despite the lack of emphasis placed on this method of intelligence
collection in the U.S. Army between the wars, photointelligence would prove
essential to the planning, conduct, and evaluation of nearly all aspects of air
combat operations. In the strategic air war in Europe, accurate and current
photographs were so essential for target folders that, for much of the war,
missions were not flown unless they were available.*
The most closely guarded secret of the war was ULTRA. Despite the number
of individuals who dealt with or knew about this intelligence tool, not until
almost three decades after Germany’s surrender did it become public knowledge.
The breaking of the Enigma encryption machine and the use of intelligence
thus acquired represented one of the greatest coups in the history of
military intelligence. A certain irony lies in the fact that the supposedly ndive
and soft democracies of the West were the most successful in one of the most
subtle but most difficult aspects of the war-cryptanalysis.
Yet this success did not come overnight, nor was its impact uniform in time
or place. Not until mid-1943 did it begin to influence the strategic air war
against Germany, and almost another year passed before it made amajor impact
on strategic planning decisions in that campaign. In the tactical air arenas,
ULTRA would be useful in North Africa and subsequent operations in Sicily and
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