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

Operations: Kasserine and a New Look at Close Air Support 

In mid-February 1943 the Axis attacked in central Tunisia again.³³  This time Rommel, who had been retreating westward across Tripolitania, running from Montgomery and the British Eighth Army, gathered enough forces to hit the center of the Allied line in Tunisia. The forewarned II Corps forces were just then preparing a defense. Rommel attempted to split Eisenhower's Allied forces in Western Tunisia while protecting his flank from Montgomery's forces. Counterattacking, French and British forces, as well as II Corps units in the region, took heavy losses, even though commanders concentrated the bulk of the Allied air support resources and ground forces in the central region. Troops could not protect airfields and artillery brigades, which were overrun. Tanks, half-tracks, and mobile artillery were captured and destroyed by the hundreds. Strengthened with British armor, Fredendall tried to maintain a defense in Kasserine Pass on 18 February, but German units overcame Allied defenders and poured through the pass on the nineteenth. 

The XII Air Support Command ordered missions, but the effort was diminished because the forward bases were lost and aircraft were forced to fly greater distances for fuel and munitions. The Allied Air Support Command in Constantine reinforced the defense by calling in additional Twelfth Air Force resources, including medium and heavy bombers, fighters, and transports. Light bomber and fighter units tried to furnish defensive cover over retreating Allied troops. Success was mixed with failure. On one occasion fighter-bombers had appreciable effect bombing and strafing enemy infantry, guns, and tanks. On another occasion friendly ground fire was deadly to the air forces--on 21 and 22 February, Combat Command B antiaircraft fire turned back American flights, destroying five planes and damaging other friendly ground attack aircraft. 

On the twenty-second British Tommies and Churchill tanks stopped a German Panzer unit near the border of Tunisia and Algeria, an event which seemed to take the spirit out of Rommel's offensive. On the twenty-third, with great effort, the Allies counterattacked and pushed the Germans back through the pass. Hoping to conserve his tanks for the continuing fight against the British Eighth Army, Rommel pulled his forces into defensive positions in the next range of mountains to the east. The battle around the Kasserine turned out to be the last serious Axis offensive effort in Africa. 

The Allied debacle at Kasserine exposed some structural as well as technological failings and underestimations about necessary force strength to battle the Axis powers. Allied forces in Tunisia were not as experienced in mobile warfare as the Axis or Allied forces in the Western Desert. Both air and ground force leaders assessed air support as ineffective. As usual, the ground forces commanders got less air support than they wanted. Some crippling problems, common to battle, limited the effectiveness of air operations. Like many ground units, air squadrons had been overrun by Rommel's attack. Forward bases, fuel, bombs, and supplies had to be abandoned or destroyed. Disrupted communications caused by the retreating defense hampered interaction. A more dramatic limitation resulted from bad flying weather from 18 to 21 February. Even heavy bombers, called in for the occasion, could not find targets through the overcast. Not until the twenty-second, during the repulse, could the Allied air forces help significantly. The Allies were not alone in blaming the weather for their performances. Rommel attested to the bad weather. He blamed his failed offense on weather that grounded the Luftwaffe. 

Complaints and commentary about air support came from every direction. The attack by enemy aircraft was intense enough to cause many ground troops to shoot at any plane in sight. Pilots complained about fire from friendly forces, and the situation was desperate enough to cause Combat Command B Commander Robinett to order that his troops not fire on any aircraft until after an attacker showed national colors. Doolittle suggested, unsuccessfully, that the Allies should stop ground operations and undertake an intensive air campaign to destroy the enemy air forces before continuing the Tunisian campaign. Even Churchill complained about the air support operations, blasting the failure of the Allied forces to build up satisfactory air superiority when so many first-line aircraft and large numbers of support personnel had been committed to aviation in Tunisia. The prime minister also suggested that the apparent inadequacy of allocated resources pointed to the need for an even greater allotment of war materials for Tunisia. Americans had been expected to provide the quantity necessary to win the war, and military leaders could be rightfully embarrassed when these battles in Tunisia pointed to a failure of their arms. The airmen began to realize that a tough enemy required even more resources than originally conceived and that greater intensity and commitment were needed to defeat the Axis. 

Of all the critics, none was more influential than British Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, who replaced Kuter as commander of the centralized Allied Air Support Command during the Kasserine operation. While Eisenhower was opposed to the British "committee system"" of command, he also advocated a commander having the flexibility to organize forces to suit national proclivities, and he gave Coningham the freedom to operate by his own style. Coningham now helped convince Eisenhower and other high-level Allied leaders that close air support forces must be organized on a basis of scarcity and that, in particular, ground commanders could not expect as much close air support as they heretofore thought necessary. In the context of military reversals, such as Kasserine, the senior leaders of the Tunisian campaign found the economy-of-force principle more acceptable. 

Coningham ultimately discontinued several other Tunisian cooperative practices, some first seen when he took over the Western Desert Air Force. He criticized the defensive air cover flying mode, then used by the XII Air Support Command and No. 242 Group. With the scarcity concept accepted, he promoted the centralization of all tactical air resources under his control as air specialist on the staff of the highest field commander. Division and corps commanders would have to request close air support through the highest army commander. Although they were primarily associated with their national force, the XII Air Support Command and No. 242 Group would be commanded by Coningham rather than by the II Corps or British First Army commanders. Coningham condemned the former employment practice of having fighters on call and assigning them piecemeal to a variety of targets that were not critical to the battle. He proclaimed that, henceforth, air support missions would be offensive, with fighters seeking out the enemy's air force at or near Axis bases. For ground attack missions, enemy concentrations and soft-skinned vehicles, rather than tanks, would be appropriate targets. Centralized control was a fundamental premise of Coningham's air support concept. In view of limited air resources, all aircraft units should be used in the highest priority missions. None could be held in reserve for the future use of a currently inactive ground unit. Coningham, or another air commander fully conversant with air capabilities, would determine allocation and employment upon the ground commander's determination of objectives. 

Coningham's opinions were important because the Combined Chiefs of Staff saw him as a natural to command all tactical air resources in the new Mediterranean Theater organization arranged at Casablanca in January 1943. He was the primary choice for tactical command because of his success in combat operations. Coningham saw a need to reform and remodel Allied forces in Tunisia, like the successful Western Desert Army and Western Desert Air Force combination that was, just then, destroying Rommel's forces in Libya. Allied leaders in Casablanca endorsed his plan of operations when they gave him control over American and British air support forces in the Mediterranean, forces which were renamed as "tactical" air forces at that time. 

The Casablanca reorganization resulted partially from a need to unify or centralize command of all forces converging around Tunisia, to prepare for the next strategic offensive, and to answer some of the weaknesses apparent in the Tunisian command organization. Instead of separate commands in the western and eastern sides of North Africa, forces were centralized under Eisenhower's command. Instead of close air support commanded directly by an army, corps, or task force commander, a tactical headquarters filtered requests and requirements. Centralization of air resources, including the centralized tactical forces under Coningham, followed substantially the British model of organizing equality between air and ground commanders in field operations, with the exception of a single commander at the theater level. The Combined Chiefs of Staff appointed Eisenhower commander-in-chief of all Mediterranean forces and gave him three British deputy commanders, one each for air, ground, and sea. They appointed General Sir Harold R. L. C. Alexander as the overall ground force commander with the title of chief of the 18th Army Group. The British First and Eighth Armies were the two principal ground force subordinates of this new group. The U.S. II Corps, commanded by Fredendall, Patton, and then Maj. Cen. Omar N. Bradley, in succession, represented the smaller American contingent reporting to the 18th Army Group. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder became the chief of all air units, excepting naval aviation, in the Mediterranean Air Command, with its three regional air forces: Northwest African Air Forces, Malta Air Command, and Middle East Command (Chart 2). 

The Northwest African Air Forces (NAAF), commanded by Spaatz, was the largest and most important air organization in the Tunisian campaign. Although Allied leaders divided NAAF into functional units--strategic, tactical, and coastal air forces; service and training commands; and a photographic reconnaissance wing--the primary purpose of NAAF was almost exclusively tactically oriented. The mission was to cooperate with the land force. Either directly or indirectly, the forces were dedicated t o furthering the advance of the land campaign. Along with the indirect interdiction missions, the tactical forces had a specific charge t o provide close air support. Under Coningham, the No. 242 Group worked with the British First Army; the Western Desert Air Force worked with Montgomery and the Eighth Army; and the XII Air Support Command worked with the US. II Corps. The Combined Chiefs of Staff gave Coningham the title of commander of Northwest African Tactical Air Force (NATAF), the new organization providing air support to the forces in Africa. NATAF ''coincided" with the Army group level controlling all air support units dedicated to the ground forces. Programmed to be implemented at the end of February, when Montgomery's forces were scheduled to e n t e r southern Tunisia, Allied leaders precipitated an early reorganization because of the German Kasserine offensive. The mixture of American and British officers on theater and field staffs served to give the more experienced British greater influence. Certainly, in the case of air support doctrine, Coningham's methodology, learned in the Western Desert, was pressed on American air support units. For example, Eisenhower had already centralized army command under Anderson and had directed Spaatz to coordinate air support through the Allied Air Support Command formed in January.³⁴

Many of Coningham's ideas were not unique to British air support. Coningham had the reputation to sway the debate on some of the fine points On the separating ground and air force versions of ground support doctrine. concept of central control, airmen were pleased. Many ground commanders in Tunisia, including the two major British and American army field generals, Anderson and Fredendall, sought to use close air support aircraft to protect the ground troops from enemy air attacks through constant air cover; to attack targets immediately in front of the ground forces (like flying artillery); and, as observation platforms, to watch close-in and more distant troop movements. Anderson had not yet absorbed the doctrine of the Western Desert force; Fredendall had not agreed with some of the points regarding organization, selective mission assignment, and centralized command of air support, as expressed in contemporary War Department publications or in Eisenhower's directive published before the TORCH landings. 

Air leaders in Tunisia had been generally disappointed with Fredendall's practices, especially when combat had shown that air cover and constant alerts could not be carried out without an extraordinarily large air support force. Indeed, Allied leaders recognized that more aircraft were needed in North Africa. Before Kasserine and before Coningham's arrival in the Tunisian sector, the argument between Spaatz and Kuter on one side and Frendendall and Anderson on the other was more of a political tussle, with compromises that pleased no one. Ideas were bent, but the distinctive air and ground perspectives remained philosophically intact. 

Coningham instituted subtle but important changes that challenged the previous way of doing business and gave air leaders greater control and influence in wartime air tactics.  The air marshal divided tactical units into fighter and fighter- bomber organizations--the latter for close air support.  He removed the light bombers from the air support units and put them under a tactical bomber organization that was centralized at a higher level, under Coningham at NATAF.  Planning for air operations would be "determined by the air commander within the framework of the Army-Air plan approved by the Army commander."  The air plan was as important as the ground plan:  "The conception of making an army plan and then asking what air assistance can be provided for it will result in air power being overlooked during the important preliminary phases. . . ."³⁵ 

Coningham boldly promoted the idea of independent air support with an endorsement from the successful Eighth Army commander, Montgomery. The British commander wanted other ground commanders to appreciate some basic aspects of air warfare. Coningham distributed to all air and ground commanders a Montgomery-inspired pamphlet that was aimed directly at the subject of control of close air support by ground generals. The pamphlet, illustrating many aspects of a complex air warfare, proclaimed successful British principles: 

Any officer who aspires to hold high command in war must understand clearly certain basic principles regarding the use of air power. 

The greatest asset of air power is its flexibility . . . the flexibility inherent in Air Forces permits them . . . to be switched quickly from one objective to another in the theatre of operations. So long as this is realized, then the whole weight of the available air power can be used in selected are a s in turn. This concentrated use of the air striking force is a battle-winning factor of the first importance. 

It follows that control of the available air power must be centralized and command must be exercised through Air Force channels. Nothing could be more fatal to successful results than to dissipate the air resources into small packets placed under command of army formation commanders, with each packet working on its own plan. The soldier must not expect or wish, to exercise direct command over air striking forces. 

Two adjacent HQs will provide the associated military and air commanders with the best opportunity of working together successfully. Physical proximity by itself will not produce the answer, unless it carries with it close individual contacts, a constant exchange of information and a frank interchange of views. ³⁶ 

On 16 February, in a presentation to Eisenhower and other Allied senior officers, Coningham briefed the leaders on the major ideas of duality in modern combat concepts, where air and ground leaders must recognize the difference, the coequality, and the need to cooperate as one united entity, as was evident in the Montgomery-Coningham team: 

The Soldier commands the land forces, the Airman commands the air forces; both commanders work together and operate their respective forces in accordance with a combined Army-Air plan, the whole operations being directed by the Army Commander. 

The Army fights on a front that may be divided into sectors, such as a Brigade, Division, Corps or an Army front. The Air front is indivisible.

The Army has one battle to fight, the land battle. The Air has two. It has first of all to beat the enemy air, so that it may go into the land battle against the enemy land forces with the maximum possible hitting power. 

The fighter governs the front, and this fact forces the centralization of air control into the hands of one air commander operating on that front.

 You will notice that the Army Commander does not use the word "co-operation."  I submit that we in Eighth Army are beyond the co-operation stage, and that work is so close that we are, in effect, one unit. ³⁷

While most Allied airmen found Coningham's program acceptable, Coningham knew he had a difficult task to convince Allied field generals, especially if they would see fewer friendly aircraft over the battlefield. Coningham sent propaganda material to all leaders in the theater. The success of Montgomery and failure of Allied forces in western Tunisia helped sell the point. When Eisenhower and Alexander gave their approval, the implementation followed regardless of opinions of the field commanders. Some ground commanders disagreed and continued the debate.³⁸

Coningham tried to serve the needs of the ground forces. During the Allied counteroffensive against German forces in Kasserine, Coningham issued a directive to all airmen in NATAF: Maximum effort would be provided to support land operations; achieving and maintaining a high degree of air superiority would achieve that aim; and, with ground forces unhindered by enemy air attack, the air forces could give greater assistance to objectives in the rear battlefield area.³⁹

As commander of NAAF and as Coningham's superior, Spaatz quietly supported the new changes for tactical aviation. He reported that ground troops were encouraged to support themselves, using antiaircraft guns against dive bomber attacks. If fighters developed an offensive against enemy air, then: "Fighter forces can be used with economy not only to protect our ground forces against dive bombing attacks . . . but also effectively to engage the enemy in the struggle for air superiority." But Spaatz was also sensitive to the occasional cross- directions of air and ground leaders. He was very busy in the next few months keeping peace between irritated air and ground leaders. He ordered that greater effort be given to develop many close air support functions, including tactical reconnaissance and fighter-bomber and level-bombing attack techniques. He saw the great need for training and perceived the importance of personality in "the proper coordination of air effort with ground effort. " ⁴⁰

Back in the United States, Arnold's staff closely watched Coningham's activities and examined his doctrinal statements. Many air and ground staff officers had studied reports about close air support in the Western Desert. Some argued against the Casablanca decision to divide forces into strategic and tactical forces because it implied the very thing they were trying to avoid, namely, division of forces into separate inflexible entities. Arnold continued to advocate continuance of the radical strategic mission, dividing the air forces into tactical and strategic combat roles to ensure that division. Kuter, fresh from the front, became the chief spokesman for the new air support concept. In mid-May, Arnold called Kuter from his assignment as deputy commander of NATAF and made him assistant air chief of staff for plans. ⁴¹ 

Marshall and the War Department agreed that the North Africa campaign pointed to a revision of doctrine. Eisenhower authorized formation of a committee of air and ground officers to work with the General Staff, C-3 Division, and in short order the committee produced a newly formulated FM 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power. Approved by Marshall and the War Department, the manual was published on 21 July 1943. The new doctrine acknowledged Coningham's emphasis on the flexibility of air power and need for centralized control under a knowledgeable air force commander, and that the theater commander would exercise command of air forces through the air force commander . 

In some ways FM 100-20 was not especially innovative compared to prewar doctrinal statements in field manuals and directives, especially the 1942 FM 31-35, Aviation in Support of Ground Forces. The contents suggested that the aviators' expertise should carry weight in employment of air resources; that the theater commander still made the final decisions on the disposition of ground and air resources, as in FM 31-35; and, paralleling Eisenhower's pre-TORCH directive, that "aviation units must not be parceled out as the advantage of massed air action and flexibility will be lost." Finally, FM 100-20 argued that close air support must be used prudently because "in the zone of contact, missions against hostile units are most difficult to control, are most expensive, and are, in general, least effective. Targets are small, well-dispersed, and difficult to locate. In addition, there is always a considerable chance of striking friendly forces. . . "⁴²

What was new about FM 100-20 was its frank proclamation of air power equality in joint warfare: "THE AIR STRIKING FORCE IS A BATTLE WINNING FACTOR OF THE FIRST IMPORTANCE?' It stated explicitly that "LAND POWER AND AIR POWER ARE CO-EQUAL AND INTERDEPENDENT FORCES; NEITHER IS AN AUXILIARY OF THE OTHER." The manual asserted that a theater commander would exercise command of ground forces through an air force commander and command of ground forces through a ground force commander. Since the greatest asset of air power was its flexibility, "CONTROL OF AVAILABLE AIR POWER MUST BE EXERCISED THROUGH THE AIR FORCE COMMANDER (caps in original). . . "⁴³

 It continued to argue, in bold type, that the first priority of tactical aviation was gaining air superiority. TORCH planners had recognized the importance of air superiority, but the new manual suggested that without i t victory was unlikely: "LAND FORCES OPERATING WITHOUT AIR SUPERIORITY MUST TAKE SUCH EXTENSIVE SECURITY MEASURES AGAINST HOSTILE AIR ATTACK THAT THEIR MOBILITY AND ABILITY TO DEFEAT THE ENEMY LAND FORCES ARE GREATLY REDUCED (caps in original)." The manual implied that air components must have overwhelming strength relative to opposing enemy air capabilities.⁴⁴ 

More problematic to the establishment of good joint relationships and cooperative feelings, the manual established air interdiction and close air support as second and third priorities, respectively. The manual clearly implied that close air support had been subordinated, even though it emphasized positive goals of closely coordinating the air and land elements: "The destruction of selected objectives in the battle are a in furtherance of the combined air-ground effort, teamwork, mutual understanding, and cooperation are essential for the success of the combined effort in the battle area." The document directed that cooperation would be carried out by "timely planning conferences of pertinent commanders and staffs, and through the exchange of liaison officers," and that air and ground liaison officers would be "well versed in air and ground tactics."⁴⁵ 

Some ground force proponents in Washington and field commanders in North Africa were astounded. FM 100-20 had been approved without consulting McNair and the Army Ground Forces planners. However, the new doctrine was instituted immediately in Army ground school teachings. For example, in June 1943, a month before 100-20 was published, the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, ran a lead article on the new air-ground doctrine in its monthly journal, The Mailing List. (See illustrations from the journal on following pages). 

In Africa Eisenhower's headquarters accepted and promoted the new air- ground relationship. In a sense, field commanders felt that they were forced t o cooperate, in contradiction to Coningham's theme of a team spirit between ground and air forces. Eisenhower told Arnold that he agreed with the changes made with the air forces and that he had great faith in his chief air adviser, Spaatz, although the British charge that the "Air Force is subordinate to the Ground Forces" alarmed him. He implied that the battlefield in North Africa was bigger than doctrinal statements when he suggested that in a theater "where the character of the problem makes it predominantly air, we try to put an airman in charge; where the immediate problem is operations of Ground Forces, we make the top boss the Ground." After Kasserine, air and ground commanders, taking the new doctrinal statement with a grain of salt, immediately began to work out more practical, real-world solutions for close air support in joint operations.⁴⁶