A Pattern for Joint Operations: World War II Close Air Support, North Africa

The Interwar Years

In the interwar years (1919-38) the United States Army Air Corps considered general air support of ground forces a prime mission function. Air support aviation underwent dramatic changes in these years as airmen and other military and civilian thinkers offered new ideas on the application of air power to warfare. Students and faculty, thinking about air doctrine at the Air Corps Tactical School, Maxwell Field, Alabama, represented the air arm's greatest effort to project aviation into modern warfare. Because of their concern with air support, the scholars at Maxwell outlined battlefield tactics that combined aircraft, tanks, trucks, and mobile field artillery. By 1935 the close air support facet of air support became diffused in a broader, multipurpose conceptualization of air support for the ground, one that included interdiction and air defense roles. The Maxwell scholars began pointing to some revolutionary changes in control of air support aviation: airmen centrally controlling air assets in support of the ground; the air commander not necessarily auxiliary to the ground force commander; and the air force as a full combat arm, coordinate with the Army. With the rise of deadly antiaircraft fire, airmen began to discount their ability to provide close air support. ¹

New mission potentials for aviation, especially coastal defense and long- range bombing tasks, promised further absorption of air support resources. Quite of ten Air Corps ideas, especially those dealing with independent strategic missions, ran counter to concepts developed at the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Army War College, then in Washington. One idea explored by the airmen at Maxwell and credited to William Mitchell was that bombers alone could stop a naval force. Another, attributed to the famed Italian prophet of the air Giulio Douhet, suggested that fleets of bombers, air power alone, could force an enemy nation to surrender. ²  

As with air arm officers, the ground officers thought about the new mechanization of war. Vigorous debate occurred between air and ground officers, one time in public, as in the Billy Mitchell case. Occasionally the discussion suggested to other branches of the Army that the Air Corps was reluctant about air support in general, not close air support alone. For the most part, ground leaders firmly held to the traditional concept that a ground army was necessary to defeat a n enemy force and capture territory; the air arm was primarily an auxiliary force to further the ground force mission. Through the mid-thirties ground officers, having the advantage of tenure, held the leadership mantle in the General Staff and in the field. Although some of these ground staff officers understood the changes in aviation and although some air doctrine that Air Corps leaders regarded as progressive was published, ground-oriented sensibilities controlled the publication of War Department doctrine. Generally, combat arms schools chose not to include even the most elementary new air power thinking in their curriculum, forestalling the education of ground officers at a time when air force roles were gaining importance in military forces worldwide. By the mid-thirties leaders of the Army General Staff, intent on preparing an army for quick mobilization in case of invasion, gave the Air Corps responsibility to organize a combat ready air force. In 1935 the Air Corps organized the General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force to carry out the function.³

In the minds of some ground officers, giving airmen greater command and control authority for a long strike or bombing force only sharpened their desire to control all air functions. But the formation of GHQ Air Force did not include independence comparable to that of the Royal Air Force. GHQ Air Force was subordinate to the Army chief of staff, o r his field commander in case of overseas activity.⁴   A new training regulation, TR 440-15, Employment of the Air Forces of the Army, 15 October 1935, codified the new Air Corps mission, but also showed how a compromise had been worked out between extreme air and ground views on air arm operational independence. If the air forces might conduct air operations in an independent manner against an invading force before ground armies made contact, TR 440-15 reaffirmed Army doctrine that "air forces further the mission of the territorial or tactical commander to which they are assigned or attached."⁵ 

More important to understanding the changing concept of close air support, publication of TR 440-15 represented clear concessions to the air doctrine developed over the years at the Air Corps Tactical School. Employment principles discussed in the manual included: emphasis on offensive action, need for central coordination of resources, constant and primary attention to destruction of the enemy's air force, priority for preparation of air forces that would usually precede ground forces into battle, and expectation that air forces would be concentrated against a primary objective "not dispersed or dissipated in minor or secondary operations."⁶  

So that the strength of the air forces would not be frittered away, the regulation contained a corollary principle, long promoted by the air forces, cautioning against operations over the battlefield. Enemy troops would be securely fortified and protected against enemy air with effective anti aircraft guns. Ground support operations could be conducted rather in an air defense mode, protecting troops against enemy aircraft . Air operations could interdict concentration of enemy forces, attack communications and ammunition dumps, and harass the enemy's retreat. A primary concern of the ground commanders, to have bombing forces available to attack a dug-in enemy or an enemy artillery piece, was not addressed. Even observation operations in the immediate battle areas were not stipulated in the regulation. That commanders in the field would have to interpret the regulations was clearly intended. The Air Corps' unofficial doctrine had not won full acceptance; but, for the first time, the War Department had opened the door. ⁷ 

In the late thirties the subject of close air support continued to be secondary to more important problems of national war planning. For example, the attention given to the rise of Adolf Hitler's power in Germany and the close association among Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1938 pointed doctrinal thinking towards a different defense concern. War planners feared that an unfriendly foreign power would use Canada or a South American nation as a jumping board to an invasion of the United States. The air arm began to concentrate offensive planning for operations against such an enemy force in the Western Hemisphere. The Air Corps Tactical School instruction increasingly emphasized the importance of long-range bombers, independent strike forces, and industrial targeting. 

Air planners worried about close air support aircraft , and directed their concern towards finding an aircraft that would be compatible with modern European war practices. The main experimental attention was given to bigger and faster  "attack" types. New models would carry more munitions and have greater speed and defensive armament. This kind of aircraft meant obsolescence of the traditional close support role--flying low and slow to find precise targets, yet still avoiding enemy guns. In the new operational parameters, the latest attack aircraft would not be able to hit the precise targets usually associated with close support aviation. The Air Corps could find no satisfactory airplane type to provide that close-in service desired by the infantry commander on the battlefield.⁸