A Concise History of the US Air Force - Air Force Historical Studies ...

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Principal American participants at the Casablanca Conference in French Morocco. Planning meetings on Allied war strategy between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff in January 1943 included Lieutenant General Henry Arnold, Commanding General, USAAF. Seated, leji to right, General George Marshall, President Roosevelt, and Admiral Ernest King. Standing, left to right, Harry Hopkins, General Arnold, General Brehon Somervell, and Averell Harriman. These initial steps toward organizing air power as an independent, unified force also led Army Chief of Staff George Marshall to issue Field Manual 100-20 in 1943. This document, the USAAF’s “declaration of independence,” recognized “land power and air power” to be “coequal and interdependent forces.” In the Mediterranean, the Twelfth Air Force neutralized the Lufcwaffe when Allied forces invaded Sicily in July and the Italian peninsula in September. Tough fighting slowed Lieutenant General Mark Clark’s forces as they pushed northward, forcing him to rely increasingly on US AAF assistance to break through German lines. Since the bombing of the abbey at Monte Cassino failed to break the stalemate on the ground, US AAF units focused their attention on inter- diction. Operation STRANGLE hoped to cut the flow of supplies to German defenders in Italy. The Twelfth Air Force learned how difficult that could be. Downing bridges, strafing trains and trucks, and bombing supply dumps contributed to eventual victory in 1945, but the protection of darkness gave the enemy opportunities to supply its forces. 25
AWPD/I had called for a strategic bombing campaign against the sources of Germany’s power as the most efficient and effective means of achieving victory. With the United States on the defensive in the Pacific and Allied units bogged down in North Africa, the Eighth Air Force in England joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the largest strategic bombing campaign ever attempted. Progress was slow through 1943. Airfields had to be built, crews trained, aircraft modified. Circumstances diverted Eighth Air Force units to pressing needs elsewhere in the world. The first official bombing mission did not come until August 17, 1942, when twelve B-17s of the 97th Bomb Group, accompanied by Eighth Air Force commander Ira Eaker, attacked a marshalling yard in France. The Eighth Air Force, along with the RAF and the Italy-based Fifteenth Air Force (beginning in late 1943), would be the only Allied forces attacking targets inside Germany’s borders until late 1944. Missions through the summer of 1943 were trial and error, as the Eighth Air Force slowly pushed deeper into German-occupied territory. Prewar doctrine dictated that unescorted self-defending bombers could fight their way through air defenses to destroy targets in an enemy’s heartland. Attacking in small numbers (AWPD/l had called for a force of 6,834 bombers), the US AAF was severely tested by poor weather, bombing inaccuracy, diversions of bombers to North Africa and against sub- marine pens, and stiff enemy defenses as it attempted to get at Germany’s industrial web. While the Eighth Air Force labored to overcome these chal- lenges, the Air Staff, the AWPD, and the Committee of Operations Analysts worked to identify for destruction chokepoints in the German war economy. Although RAF Bomber Command’s Arthur Harris wanted the USAAF to join him in a night campaign of area bombing to destroy Germany’s cities, the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Casablanca Con- ference gave its support for daylight precision strategic bombing. AWPD/I had identified 154 targets. A new plan, AWPDf42 found 177. In late April 1943 at the Trident Conference, the Combined Chiefs approved a list of 76 targets as Eighth Air Force objectives. The Eighth Air Force, with the RAF, was to win air superiority, an “intermediate objective sec- ond to none in priority,” and weaken Germany enough to allow an inva- sion. Its undertaking was to be known as Operation POINTBLANK, the Combined Bomber Offensive. The pace of operations intensified for the 17 groups General Eaker had available in July 1943. Brigadier General Laurence Kuter and Colonel Curtis LeMay worked out combat formations at the wing and group levels to maximize the number of defensive machine guns to be 26
Page 2 and 3: A Concise History of the U.S. Air F
Page 4 and 5: The Genesis of American Air Power T
Page 6 and 7: vivid contrast to aerial achievemen
Page 8 and 9: For sale by the US. Government Prin
Page 10 and 11: In the United States an outpouring
Page 12 and 13: commander, General John Pershing, c
Page 14 and 15: Early Military Aviation Leaders The
Page 16 and 17: served him well at St. Mihiel in Se
Page 18 and 19: No one in the Air Service was parti
Page 20 and 21: direct or indirect support of other
Page 22 and 23: Interwar Aircraft In amazing techno
Page 24 and 25: AF) on March 1, 1935. This first Am
Page 26 and 27: World War 11-Global Conflict Despit
Page 28 and 29: 35 percent of America’s total inv
Page 32 and 33: ought to bear against attacking fig
Page 34 and 35: scheduled by the Allies for late sp
Page 37 and 38: Despite heroic efforts to restore p
Page 39 and 40: Molding the Line in the Pacific Top
Page 41 and 42: America’s Air War in Asia Right,
Page 43 and 44: Hansell’s XXI Bomber Command, the
Page 45 and 46: nance, radar, jets, rockets, and a
Page 47 and 48: The newly independent U.S. Air Forc
Page 49 and 50: In addition, vast distances to targ
Page 51 and 52: Principal American air commanders a
Page 53 and 54: Korean War fighters. North American
Page 55 and 56: Air Force attacked 78 cities and to
Page 57 and 58: Atlas, lef, and Titan I, right, int
Page 59 and 60: off at a moment’s notice; another
Page 61 and 62: Union. A more capable SR-71 Blackbi
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Page 65 and 66: Vietnam-based Viet Cong, the other
Page 67 and 68: ombed, the two most famous were the
Page 69 and 70: Transport Aircraft in Vietnam The U
Page 71 and 72: The Tet offensive proved a military
Page 73 and 74: The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird strate
Page 75 and 76: meant that warheads could be smalle
Page 77 and 78: Beginning in March 1985, Soviet Com
Page 79 and 80: on an enemy army to isolate it on t
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America’s Air War in the Gulf
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tionally-televised attack by two F-
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2 percent of combat sorties. Their
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in the next. An innovator behind fi
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Hallion, Richard P. Rise of the Fig
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