Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
Wing (Prov.), Col. Elliot Roosevelt, son of the American president, decided to
stick with American-made F-5s supplemented by F-6s (P-5 1 s).
In the Pacific, aerial photography of enemy-held areas routinely required
aircraft with greater range than any converted fighter could provide. On the
night of March 26/27,1944, two F-7s flew a 20-hour, 2,500-mile night mission
to photograph Japanese installations in the Palau island^."^ The F-7 and F-10
(B-25) dominated aerial photography in the Southwest Pacific and were used
extensively in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater to reach into southern
Burma and to overfly the east China coast and islands to the south. Because
these planes could not rely on speed and maneuverability and because distances
were too great for fighter escort, long-range reconnaissance aircraft were almost
always armed. American forces did use field-modified fighters where
appropriate, including P-~OS, P-39s, P-38s, and eventually P-5 1 s.
Another difference between the European and Pacific theaters was that most
of the enemy-held territory in western and central Europe was accessible to
some degree of aerial photography relatively early in the war, whereas the
Japanese home islands remained out of reach much longer. Early B-29 missions
flown against Japan from China lacked current photographs of their targets. Not
until November 1, 1944, did the AAF fly the first reconnaissance mission over
Tokyo and Nagoya from Saipan. Each of the seventeen photomissions flown
between November 1 and the first B-29 attack of November 24, 1944, as well
as those that followed, involved a 1,500-mile flight to the target area, a one-hour
run (period of active photography), and a 1,500-mile return leg. Initially flown
with field-modified B-29s, these missions were later conducted by factory-
converted F-13s (B-29s) which carried an exceptional array of different
camera^."^
Photoreconnaissance missions were flown for various reasons, which can
be grouped into a few categories: area (overview) coverage, point (static)
objectives, coverage of enemy activities (movements), damage assessment, and
photographic support for land operations. Each required specific equipment,
mission profiles, and photographic coverage. Overview coverage of an area
provided a basic knowledge of what targets, activities, or other intelligence
clues might be available in a designated area. In the Pacific and CBI theaters,
where maps were often outdated or nonexistent, many of the early missions
involved photomapping. In all theaters, broad-sweep coverage provided the
background upon which to build more detailed pictures when necessary. In the
fall of 1943, Col. George C. McDonald, then chief intelligence officer for
Northwest African Air Forces (NAAF), ordered coverage of some 60,000
square miles in southern Germany, Hungary, and the Balkans when it appeared
the Germans were beginning to shift or develop industry in these region^."^
Photointerpreters would review the initial overviews to identify the existence
and location of a broad range of possible targets or key facilities including
airfields, transportation centers, troop concentrations, supply dumps, gun
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