fires and Hurricanes should have given Goering ample warning that he could not win the Battle of Britian with aircraft he possessed or with the plan he had devised. But warning or no, the Luftwaffe fumbled its great opportunity to bring the war in Europe to an early end and absorbed the first decisive defeat it had ever known.

There are six reasons why the Luftwaffe failed in its attempts to smash Britain from the sky. First, the lightly armed and armored Heinkels, Dorniers, and Messerschmitts were unable to provide any semblance of self defense against the eight gun fighters of the RAF. Designed as tactical aircraft, they were incapable of carrying the heavy bomb load called for by strategic operations, and they were not equipped for precision bombing. Second, the German fighters failed to evolve adequate escort tactics. Ignoring one of the valid lessons of the Spanish War, the Luftwaffe fighters flew in mass close support rather than in general support in units of three or four aircraft. Third, the Germans failed to evaluate the defensive strength of the RAF and thought that aerial supremacy over Britain could be gained through aerial combat, the bombing of airdromes, and a few scattered attacks on British aircraft factories. What worked in Poland and Holland ought to work against England, reasoned the Germans. Events proved how wrong they were. Fourth, Goering, having devised what might be called a tactical plan to achieve a strategic end, failed to carry out properly his inadequate scheme. The objectives of the three phases of the Battle of Britian (knocking out the perimeter airdromes along the eastern and southeastern coast of England, knocking out the interior airdromes centering around London, and the destruction of London) were not achieved at the time called for by Goering's timetable, yet, leaving unfinished business, he attempted to

proceed according to plan. Fifth, the German Air Force, by attacking convoys and port installations, diverted a substantial portion of its strength from its main task: the defeat of the Royal Air Force. Sixth, the Luftwaffe was not organized to carry on a sustained air offensive. After the brief Polish campaign it had been given time to regroup and to replace equipment and personnel. The same was true after the Flanders campaign. But the Battle of Britain lasted for over three months, and when the German Air Force withdrew, it was exhausted.

Air Power Disregards Perimeter Defense

The strategic air concept, kept alive by British and American air leaders despite widespread opposition during the years which preceded World War II, is both simple and profound. Before the advent of modern air power the destruction of the enemy's armed forces was the foremost objective of military and naval action. Beyond this primary objective, attrition was the main concern of naval forces while the capture of enemy territory and matériel concerned the land forces. Air power, when it came, provided a weapon able to disregard a nation's perimeter defenses and to strike at the very heart of its military strength-its war industry and its war economy. When the enemy's heart action stops, his military power dies.

Strategic bombardment is the most powerful weapon of war thus far produced, because it embodies three of the principles of war to a uniquely high degree. The first of these principles, the principle of mass, is fulfilled by air power's ability to focus its total strength, which may be based over a wide area, upon a single target. The 1500 plane attacks on Berlin, flown by the Eighth Air Force in 1944, illustrate this quality. The second principle, the principle of objective, is actualized by air power through its capacity to select for destruction those targets most vital to the enemy's war economy. The ability of Allied strategic bombardment in Europe to select and destroy a substantial portion of Germany's aircraft production facilities, synthetic oil plants, and armament factories clearly demonstrates the embodiment of this principle. The third principle, the principle of economy of force, is incorporated in air action through air power's ability to bypass targets of secondary importance and strike at those objectives which give the greatest military reward in return for the force expended. The Eighth Air Force's having the option to neglect the rail yards at Erfurt, for example, and to fly on and hit the oil plants in the Leipzig area exemplify this third principle which is, in effect, a corollary of the second.

In America, the strategic concept dominated Air Force thinking throughout the two decades between the two world wars. In 1921 General "Billy" Mitchell struck the keynote with his prophecy: ".. the only way that a war can be brought to a successful conclusion in case of determined resistance is to carry the war into the enemy's country; and in modern times this may mean attacking his whole population, means of production and subsistence." In the 1930's the weapon with which to execute the strategic concept came into being with the first model of the B-17. This aircraft, which was to undergo extensive modification in the years immediately preceding World War II and during the war itself, was designed for daylight precision bombardment from high altitude.

When war came, the American doctrine of daylight bombing was looked upon with some misgivings by our British allies who had abandoned daylight bombing early in the conflict and turned to night operations. But the Royal Air Force was in basic accord with the U.S. Army Air Forces on the matter of strategic bom

bardment despite divergence of method. This very difference in bombardment technique worked to our mutual benefit when the Casablanca Directive of 1943 established the full scale strategic bombing program. Round-the-clock operations were possible with a British air force trained in night tactics, and an American air force able to attack by day.

Request for Massive Air Offensive On 10 June 1943, as a result of the Casablanca Directive, "The Combined Bomber Offensive Plan" was approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and the tremendous effort which had forged the American air weapon began to pay military dividends. Although on 17 August 1942, twelve B-17s had struck the Eighth

Air Force's first blow with an attack on an enemy objective in occupied France, the need to use what aircraft were available against German submarine pens and in the crucial "Torch" operation in North Africa had left German industry practically immune from bombardment. The Casablanca Directive, implemented by "The Combined Bomber Offensive Plan." enlarged the scale of the air offensive and called for the "destruction and dislocation of the German military industrial and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the German people to the point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened."

The first task was the destruction of the German fighter defense. This vicious battle began in July, 1943, and culminated with "The Big Week" of 20 February 1944, when six days of perfect weather permitted a continuous assault on the widely dispersed German airframe factories and assembly plants. Although the German aircraft industry recovered from the effects of this massive blow, the Allies controlled the air over Europe during the remaining fourteen months of the war, and German industry and transportation were exposed to a series of air attacks During the first four months of 1944, the attacks on the German aircraft industry were continued, and in May and June the forces which could be spared from the attacks on communications and transportation in preparation for the invasion of continental Europe began the offensive against German nitrogen and oil plants. Once the troops were securely established in France the campaign against the German chemical industry began in strength, and, within six months, the output of aviation gasoline and nitrogen was cut ninety per cent. By January 1945, five months after the initiation of the offensive against Germany's transportation system, carloading had been reduced in volume by seventy-five per cent, while the Ruhr's output of steel decreased fully eighty per cent as a result of a ninety-day campaign begun in October.

Strategic Bombing Forecast End

of Germany

From December, 1944, on, the German war economy declined in all its departments. Albert Speer, Reichsminister of Armaments Production, interpreted the handwriting on the wall when he reported

on

15 March 1945 that "The German economy is heading for inevitable collapse within 4-8 weeks." Unfinished components in the production pipe-lines had permitted the emergence of finished munitions up to that time, but when inventories were exhausted further production was almost impossible. Although formal hostilities did not end until 8 May, the strategic bombing effort was concluded on 16 April. The validity of the concept which held air power's independent mission to be capable of contributing decisively to victory had been demonstrated.

Although air power is, of course, a continuing and dynamic force in world affairs, the evolution of air power reached its culmination in World War II when Japan

mies undefeated in major engagements and in control of nearly three million square miles of land populated by 500,000,000 people. The six months which preceded VJ-day were characterized by low level incendiary attacks by B-29s on the Japanese homeland. Our supremacy in the air, which had been achieved by the end of 1943, and maintained continuously from that time onward, was exploited so thoroughly that Japan's war economy was paralyzed. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey calculated that both area and precision bombing were responsible for reducing the pre-attack capacity of Japanese oil refineries eightythree per cent. Similarly, aircraft gine plants suffered a seventy-five per cent production loss; airframe plants, sixty per cent; electronics and communications plants, seventy per cent; army ordnance plants, thirty per cent; naval ordnance plants, twenty-eight per cent; merchant and naval shipyards, fifteen per cent; light metals, thirty-five per cent; ingot steel, fifteen per cent; and chemicals, ten per cent.

en

The Japanese populace suffered a severe lowering of morale as a result of the realization that the Japanese armed forces had lost their ability to defend them from the impact of the aerial attacks which were demonstrating, before their very eyes, the hopelessness of further confidence in victory. So strongly did the B-29 attacks effect the Japanese people that just prior to VJ-day sixty-four per cent of the populace felt personally unable to go on with the war.

In our victory over Japan, air power was unquestionably decisive. That the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands was unnecessary is clear evidence that air power has evolved into a force in war co-equal with land and sea power, decisive in its own right and worthy of the faith of its prophets.

The emphasis which today is being placed on research and development by the Army Air Forces points to the fact that air power continues to change and progress. Certainly the operational application of air power will change. It may be, for example, that massed bomber formations will soon be as obsolete as the Macedonian phalanx. But as long as air power remains the vehicle for some sort of destructive missile, the strategie concept as it is now understood will remain valid.

The strategic concept is so obviously a vital consideration in the formulation of national defense measures, that air power and its primary vehicle, the Army Air Forces, must be given whatever support is necessary to maintain strategic offensive readiness with which to answer the actions of any future aggressor. It is a conviction widely held among military thinkers that if there is to be another war, it will begin with a strategic aerial attack launched in as great strength as the aggressor dares commit to achieve his objective. The United States has twice thrown its military might into a world struggle to help decide the issue in favor of the forces of freedom. Since America is today the leading power in the world, any first class nation which shatters the peace will do so by first attacking us in an effort to eliminate at the outset the participation of our armed forces. The grave responsibility that is placed upon the Army Air Forces is readily apparent.

An Air Force Second to None

If the Army Air Forces is to be able to meet this responsibility it must possess an air force in being capable of immediate actions with weapons second to none. An air force thus constituted must have adequate personnel thoroughly trained in the

use of air weapons procurable as the result of a vigorous program of research and development, and the existence of a strong, readily expansible aircraft industry. Present planning indicates that a minimum of 400,000 officers and men is needed for our proposed air force in being. The Air Training Command together with the Air University, the Air Institute of Technology, the School of Aviation Medicine, civilian academic institutions, and training units within the operational organizations themselves can provide the necessary training and maintain the acquired proficiency. The Office of Research and Development is monitoring a program which is being carried out by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the Navy, the Ground Forces, the aircraft industry, the laboratories of academic and technical institutions, the research and development facilities of the Army Air Forces itself, and, in the case of certain aspects of guided missiles research, the Signal Corps and the Ordnance Department. In addition to its activity, in aerodynamics and allied subjects, the Army Air Forces is keenly interested in furthering a program for industrial mobilization which is currently under discussion.

It is obvious that a program to provide for national air defense such as that envisioned by the Army Air Forces is expensive, but the events which highlight the evolution of air power have convinced a great many thinking Americans that air power provides the greatest amount of defense procurable for their tax dollar. The realization of this truth must be spread so that the Army Air Force will receive the support it needs, for in the evolution of air power, as in the evolution of man, an unstable world permits only the survival of the fittest.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the War Department. Policies regarding the Logistical Division have not been firmly established or indorsed by the War Department.

W

Need for a Logistical Team HAT would you think of the chances of a college which started the varsity football season with a team which had never been together on the practice field, and whose members had never met until

they gathered together on the forty yard

line at kick-off time? The answer is obvious. It might have the best players in the world, but it would certainly have a tough time and lose a lot of ground initially.

Yet nevertheless, that is precisely what our Army has done with regard to its great logistical team in every war we have fought to date, including World War II.

First, let's look at the players-the various service headquarters that call the logistical plays and the service units which carry them out. In peacetime there are no communications zone or section headquarters either active or in the mobilization plan. Routine operations show little resemblance to wartime problems. There is no T/O&E service unit higher than the regiment. Most service units are of battalion, company, detachment and team size who never get a chance to train as part of a big team. In maneuvers, even the minor logistical problems are often omit

ted and furious combat attacks are launched with blithe disregard of actual logistical support. So during the practice season our players never play the game. They seldom work together, and they often do not even have a quarterback or a coach to put on skull practice, to figure out a line up or to plan a few plays.

What do we do when game time approaches-the big game where one good licking puts you out of the league? You know the answer. We improvise. We hastily draw up a table of organization (or maybe we don't worry about a line-up). We man the headquarters with whoever happens to be available, without too much regard to experience or prior training. We dump several hundred unbalanced service units in the lap of this group of strangers. There is little coordination, little standard operating procedure, and little time to do much about it. The game must go on.

And does this so-called team lose ground initially? It most emphatically does. The record of those early landings in both the Atlantic or the Pacific tell the story. The confusion, the lost motion, the misplaced supplies, the wasted transportation, the lack of service units to do things. the lack of plans, were appalling. Vitally needed support was missing while fate hung in the balance, because the logistical team was trying to get its feet on the ground. Trying desperately, as men will try only when their lives depend on it, but struggling under the terrific handi