Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Tools of Air Intelligence
that included ULTRA intelligence for briefing the commander and indoctrinated
staff officers; the other, without ULTRA information, was for visitor^."^^ At the
other extreme was the A-2 at XI1 Tactical Air Force in Italy. According to one
cleared officer, “Maj. Corning operates out of his shirt pocket, merges all
sources in his mind and is not given to pat statements about what part of his
total knowledge is supplied by special intelligen~e.”~~
Few American air commanders read the signals from BP on a regular basis,
preferring to rely on the SSO or senior intelligence officer. Maj. Gen. Elwood
R. Quesada, commander of the IX TAC, for example, expected his SSO to
compare ULTRA with other sources and to evaluate it in the light of their
mission at the commander’s evening intelligence briefing.47 Similarly, while the
commander of XXIX TAC and his directors of operations and intelligence
readily accepted and used ULTRA, they rarely read the raw The
commander of Eighth Air Force, Maj. Gen. James H. Doolittle, and his deputy
for operations, Brig. Gen. Orvil A. Anderson, were such avid adherents of
ULTRA that they insisted on maintaining an SLU at headquarters. The SSO
presented ULTRA at the morning briefing, and he attended the evening targeting
meeting as well. Both Doolittle and Anderson frequently asked what ULTRA had
to offer on subjects under discussion!’
The SSO’s most frequent contact was not always with the commanding
general. As SSO at HQ USSTAF, Lt. Col. (later Colonel) Lewis F. Powell, Jr.,
saw Spaatz only occasionally, but he discussed ULTRA daily with the deputy
commander for operations, Maj. Gen. Frederick Anderson.” While the SSO of
XIX TAC maintained an excellent relationship with Maj. Gen. 0. P. Weyland,
he briefed the general only periodically. His routine contacts were with the A-2,
who fused ULTRA with other sources and briefed Weyland and Third Army
commander Lt. Gen. George Patton.” Even within a single headquarters,
procedures differed over time. At Ninth Air Force, one director of intelligence
instructed the SSO to prepare written summaries and appreciations. His
successor, Col. Richard Hughes, preferred that the SSO annotate the signals and
then discuss them personally with him. Both directors of intelligence briefed
Maj. Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, the Ninth Air Force commander?2
At most headquarters, SSOs presented ULTRA at a daily briefing to the
commanding general and indoctrinated officers, most often in the morning.
These daily briefings generally lasted fifteen to thirty minutes and covered the
past twenty-four hours’ activities and signals, as well as offered reports on
special topics such as jet aircraft de~elopment.5~ At HQ USSTAF, the chief of
operational intelligence blended ULTRA into his overall intelligence situation
briefing without indicating the source of any piece of inf~rmation?~ At the
TACs, the daily briefing was often conducted jointly with the commander and
staff of the supported army, and included both air- and ground-oriented ULTRA.
An SSO briefed Weyland and Patton together almost every morning.55
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