The First Daylight Operations

The U. S. Army Air Forces entered the European war with the firm view that specific industries and services were the most promising targets in the enemy economy, and they believed that if these targets were to be hit accurately, the attacks had to be made in daylight. A word needs to be said on the problem of accuracy in attack. Before the war, the U. S. Army Air Forces had advanced bombing techniques to their highest level of development and had trained a limited number of crews to a high degree of precision in bombing under target range conditions, thus leading to the expressions "pin point" and "pickle barrel" bombing. However, it was not possible to approach such standards of accuracy under battle conditions imposed over Europe. Many limiting factors intervened; target obscuration by clouds, fog, smoke screens and industrial haze; enemy fighter opposition which necessitated defensive bombing formations, thus restricting freedom of maneuver; antiaircraft artillery defenses, demanding minimum time exposure of the attacking force in order to keep losses down; and finally, time limitations imposed on combat crew training after the war began.

It was considered that enemy opposition made formation flying and formation attack a necessary tactical and technical procedure. Bombing patterns resulted -- only a portion of which could fall on small precision targets. The rest spilled over on adjacent plants, or built-up areas, or in open fields. Accuracy ranged from poor to excellent. When visual conditions were favorable and flak defenses were not intense, bombing results were at their best. Unfortunately, the major portion of bombing operations over Germany had to be conducted under weather and battle conditions that restricted bombing technique, and accuracy suffered accordingly. Conventionally the air forces designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area. A peak accuracy of 70% was reached for the month of February 1945. These are important facts for the reader to keep in mind, especially when considering the tonnages of bombs delivered by the air forces. Of necessity a far larger tonnage was carried than hit German installations.

Although the Eighth Air Force began operations August 17, 1942, with the bombing of marshalling yards at Rouen and Sotteville in northern France, no operations during 1942 or the first half of 1943 had significant effect. The force was small and its range limited. Much time in this period was devoted to training and testing the force under combat conditions.

In November and December of 1942, the U-boat attack on Allied merchant shipping was in its most successful phase and submarine bases and pens and later construction yards became the chief target and remained so until June 1943. These attacks accomplished little. The submarine pens were protected and bombs did not penetrate the 12-foot concrete roofs. The attack on the construction yards and slipways was not heavy enough to be more than troublesome.

In January 1943, at Casablanca, the objective of the strategic air forces was established as the "destruction and dislocation of the Germany 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." Specific target systems were named.

In the spring of 1943, Allied naval and air power scored a definite victory over German submarines. Surface craft teamed with long-range patrol bombers equipped with radar raised German submarine losses to catastrophic levels in the spring of 1943. Interrogation of members of the High Command of the German Navy, including Admiral Doenitz, has confirmed the scope of this victory. When the Combined Bomber Offensive Plan was issued in June of 1943 to implement the Casablanca directive, submarines were dropped from first priority and the German aircraft industry was substituted. The German ball- bearing industry, the supplier of an important component, was selected as a complementary target.