Strategic Air Warfare

I
THE CONCEPT

Strategic warfare, I suppose, is as old as the naval blockade. Or perhaps we might view the city-burning expeditions of the ancient world as strategic warfare of a sort. Both took effect directly on the enemy’s civil economy; both were directed at destroying his general ability or desire to support war.

But strategic warfare, in its modern concept of attack on those non-military elements of an enemy’s power which directly support his military operations, was introduced by the German submarine campaign of World War I. In that war, by attacking the vital supply lines connecting the principal Allied producing center in the United States and the battle fields of Europe, the Germans came very close to attaining victory. They came perilously near to starving the Allied forces of the materials essential to continuing the war.

In World War II this identical situation developed again in the North Atlantic, bringing with it our major crises in the European theater.

In his recent volume, The Grand Alliance, Winston Churchill makes this comment on the second Battle of the Atlantic:

Amid the torrent of violent events one anxiety reigned supreme. Battles might be won or lost, enterprises might succeed or miscarry, territories might be gained or quitted, but dominating all our power to carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive, lay our mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports.

The German Navy was instructed to concentrate on our Atlantic traffic and the German Air Force on our harbours and their approaches. This was a far more deadly plan than the indiscriminate bombing of London and the civil population, and it was fortunate for us that it was not pursued with all available forces and greater persistence.

Likewise in the Pacific, although happily it was we who were on the offensive, the destruction of Japanese merchant shipping was a principal, if not the major, factor in reducing that enemy’s capacity to wage war. In both the Atlantic and the Pacific, although the submarine was the predominant instrument, air attack against sea-borne commerce developed into a substantial component of this form of strategic warfare.

The concept of strategic air warfare as a thing quite separate from other forms of employment of armed forces was to be expected when men began visualizing the increasing range, speed, and load carrying capacity of aircraft. Here lay the prospect of using the third dimension, and thus simply avoiding conflict with enemy armed forces while proceeding directly to attack on his sources of supporting strength, his raw materials, his manufacturing, and his distribution systems. This concept found its first noteworthy proponent in the Italian General Douhet. His book, The Command of the Air, in the early version published in 1921, best suggests the thinking on this subject in the years just following World War I.

His concept, which has come to be referred to commonly as the Douhet Theory, has three basic principles: First, that the Air Command devoted to this form of warfare should operate as a completely separate entity and would be the dominating part of a country’s military strength; second, that command of the air is essential; and third, that the object of attack should be the enemy’s population centers.

Over the period of years between the introduction of this concept and the start of World War II there has been continued adherence by followers of Douhet to his first major principle: namely, that the air forces involved should constitute a force quite distinct from ground forces and sea forces. The need for control of the air, at least as to the degrees or absoluteness of this control, has had numerous interpretations and varying support. Finally the proper nature of target objectives within an enemy country has undergone a development in thinking as the capabilities and limitations of aircraft were better understood and as the probable effectiveness of such air attack was more fully studied and appreciated.

In the United States the evolution of the Douhet Theory reached what we might call a positive position with the establishment in 1935 of the General Headquarters Air Force at Langley Field. This was a force intended primarily for long range independent action, without relation to operations and missions of ground or naval units. However, it was intended for employment against enemy surface forces, among other objectives, and enemy naval forces were rather specifically indicated. Its primary designation for use against non-military targets was not visualized at the time.

In the early part of World War II the principal Allied air forces in Europe held somewhat differing views on the employment of aircraft against the war-making capacity of an enemy. The Royal Air Force, for its part, considered itself committed to night air attack. Errors under night conditions were of a high order and precise objectives could not be hit. The RAF therefore elected to attack the area of the objective, or perhaps we should say objectives of large area— what we know as area bombing.

The United States Air Force, on the other hand, had determined on daytime bombing with highly developed visual bombsights, and consequently the objectives were specific elements of target systems. Both of these forces, however, within the limits of their individual capabilities, directed their efforts against those types of targets which appeared from time to time to be of predominating influence. Thus during the course of the war we see highest priority assigned in rotation to submarine assembly yards, oil production, air frame and engine plants, transportation, and like varied systems.

Over the period of some twenty odd years following the initial presentation of the Douhet Theory, the understanding as to the precise boundaries of strategic air warfare was somewhat fuzzy and uncertain. Immediately preceding and just after the start of World War II, there appears to have been no generally accepted definition. Air action quite independent of other armed forces seems to have been the crux of the matter. Post-war, however, we do have, at least in this country, a standard definition which appears in the Dictionary of United States Military Terms. This defines strategic air warfare as attack on a selected series of vital targets, to effect the progressive destruction and disintegration of the enemy’s war-making capacity to a point where he no longer retains the ability or the will to wage war. These vital targets are described as including “key manufacturing systems, sources of raw material, critical material, stock piles, power systems, transportation systems, communication facilities, concentrations of uncommitted elements of enemy armed forces, key agricultural areas, and other such target systems.”

Admittedly these comprise the major elements of enemy strength. Their very comprehensiveness, however, poses immediately the problem of selection and priority. Even if one had the air strength lo take on more than one target system, duplication of effect must be avoided. Certainly, also, they are target systems of very widely differing impact on enemy capabilities, both as to ultimate effect on his armed forces, and as to the time scale on which attack results might become effective. For example, the destruction of key agricultural areas would depend for its effect on the state of growth of crops and the importance to the country’s economy of the crops produced. Likewise, an effective attack on sources of raw material would be quite different in results and, again, in the time element, from an attack on the manufacturing systems which transform the raw material into finished products.

I think, therefore, it is essential that we try to find out just which of these are normally bona fide objects of attack. Particularly with respect to the early stages of a war, we need to place them in some sort of priority listing to see if perhaps the easier and earlier destruction of the one would not eliminate the need for the very costly and difficult destruction of another. It is only by such simplification and practical analysis that we can hope to view strategic air warfare in its proper light. For this purpose we have a very sound and practical store of knowledge in the experience of World War II, both in the European theater and in the Pacific. Let us then look to this experience for lessons which may be applied to the present and the future.

II
THE EUROPEAN THEATER

In the European theater World War II saw the initiation of two totally different concepts in the mass employment of aircraft against ground objectives, the one tactical, the other strategic. The first was the blitzkrieg, the second strategic bombing. The air component of the blitzkrieg was simply a means for adding the maximum of firepower from the air in an all-out strike against the enemy’s military power. It capitalized on sudden, precise, localized, and persistent destruction, closely timed and integrated with ground action for maximum effect, leaving the enemy disorganized, demoralized, badly hurt, and with little chance to organize a useful defense before the striking force had achieved a predominant advantage. It is apparent that this was the basic Nazi concept for the conquest of Europe, a series of these swift and highly effective thrusts against each opponent in turn.

Certainly it is true that the blitzkrieg did not win the war for Germany. Its major fault was that it was virtually the sole reliance for victory, and that when it was not quickly successful there was no well ordered provision for replacements or for other balanced forces to carry on the war. But in itself it must be admitted as being not only tremendously powerful but equally an obviously proper employment of forces to assure maximum concentration.

The blitzkrieg tactic demands, of course, that adequate air forces, both in number and in training, be built up and maintained in peacetime. Its method is one of complete unity of action, complete subordination of all elements to the one objective of defeating the military forces of the enemy.

The blitzkrieg concept had a fatal weakness, as history has so well shown. Designed as it was for quick and decisive victory, the planning did not envisage the tremendous training and production programs necessary to support wars on a conventional time schedule. It was a “one shot in the locker” thesis. When that shot was fired and the enemy remained capable of fighting, it became necessary to begin, and await the results of, a long period of preparing new pilots for battle and working up to quantity production of replacement equipment. Thus the initial advantage could not be followed up, and the enemy was given time to put his own defenses in proper order.

The blitz employment of air is, of course, simply tactical air warfare in its fullest sense. It is the air component of the military offensive.

In the light of post-war knowledge, it is generally accepted that Hitler’s major error was his failure to subdue England before taking on the Russian armies. Had Hitler had a tactical Air Force and a replacement capacity of sufficient strength to maintain control of the air over the English Channel and to deny ac9ess to that area to the Royal Navy for a relatively short time, he might well have effected a successful lodgment on the British Isles. We do not like to contemplate the possible eventual consequences of England being taken out of the war.

The second concept, the air bombing of non-military targets, likewise saw its origin in the early days of the war; but it was not then in any sense an important factor in the struggle. First, the defenses, primarily fighters, caused unacceptably high losses in deep unescorted penetrations in daylight. Secondly, the results were far less than had been anticipated with the relatively small bombing forces available, and particularly so when they were forced into night bombing with the gross errors which then ensued. But the nucleus of the independent or so-called strategic air forces of the Allies was born here. It remained to build up the strength of the bomber fleets with planes of higher load capacity, to provide for a steady replacement for loss, damage, wearout, and fatigue, to devise means of penetrating the enemy defenses without unacceptable losses, and to improve greatly the accuracy of attack.

There was a further requirement, in daylight operations, that at least local air superiority be assured during bombing missions. At the shorter distances this superiority might be secured by large scale escort of fighter aircraft. For deeper penetration, on the other hand, it was necessary that general control of the air over enemy territory should have been secured; in other words, the air battle must have been won. These requirements again called for a long delay in initiating effective bombing attack, both to build the essential numbers of fighter aircraft and to provide time for attrition to have its effect on the enemy’s defensive air power, particularly his pilot quality and training.

For these reasons it was well on into 1944, some four years after the start of the war, before the air bombing of urban and industrial areas began to show substantial results.

Both the RAF and the American Air Forces had identical objectives in their strategic air campaign, but the methods by which they sought to attain these objectives were rather widely apart. Stated in one sentence, the RAF carried out its attacks at night, in a highly concentrated stream of aircraft, operating against an area in which the desired objective was located, whereas the U. S. forces were directed toward precision attacks on specific objectives, operating in daylight in close defensive formations. We need to know a little more about these respective methods before we can independently review the results obtained and look into the future.

The British, in the early stages of the war, believed that bombers stood little chance of survival beyond escort fighter range. Accordingly their attacks were largely confined to what might be termed small scale night area raids. It soon became evident, however, that between the very large errors which were being experienced and the relatively few aircraft participating, the results were not paying off. Methods of greater accuracy had to be developed while the bomber force was being built up in numbers. The principal effort in this direction was the so-called Pathfinder groups, aircraft with highly trained and specialized crews, whose mission it was to precede the attack by marking the aiming point with appropriately colored flares. This resulted in marked improvement under conditions of night visual bombing. Attack through the frequent overcast was still ot little or no value. Later in the war various electronic aids were devised which insured bringing the bomber aircraft at least into the general target area regardless of weather, and other equipment permitted reasonably good area attack even under blind bombing conditions.

Coupled with the offensive features, the RAF constantly developed the defensive features of night penetration. There were numerous means of getting the enemy night fighters on to false or diversionary raids, and radar jamming and “window” were employed effectively. Perhaps the best defensive measure, however, came from the highly specialized planning of take-off and movement into the target area, a method which necessarily became extremely complex as the numbers of aircraft grew, since each single aircraft conducted an independent flight plan from time of take-off to landing. The purpose was to attain a bomber stream of maximum concentration or density while passing through the danger areas, and thus in effect to saturate the defenses. Thus in passing through an anti-aircraft barrage, for example, an increasingly large force might suffer a somewhat increased number of aircraft lost but this would represent a continually reduced percentage until eventually an acceptable loss rate was attained. In the late stages of the war, I think it must be admitted that this method of air bombing attained a very high degree of perfection in the planning and operation stages. Its results we will discuss later. It may be questioned, however, whether so complex a system could be operated in a more primitive advanced base area, or over longer ranges, or whether the advance of homing missiles and interceptor radar do not deprive night bombing of much of its defensive advantage.

The Americans, from initiation of the B-17 program some years before the war, had insisted on the feasibility of daylight precision bombing. This was based on the known accuracy of the Norden bombsight under test conditions, and the belief that formations could provide their own mutual and adequate gun defense against attacking fighters. Before we entered into the struggle the British had shown little interest in the B-17 as a daylight bomber, insisting on their own view that attack during the hours of darkness was a requisite of sustained bombing operations over enemy controlled areas. Our Air Force had confidence in its decision, however, and proceeded with the build-up of forces in Europe. When our bombers finally went into action on a scale larger than simple token raids, it soon became evident that the bomber force would take unacceptably heavy losses on anything approaching a major penetration of enemy territory. Even though relatively well armed with machine guns, the bombers were not a reasonable match for enemy fighters.

The first attempt at corrective measures was the introduction of the special gunnery B-17, a more heavily gunned and armored modification with no bombing provision. The thought was that each formation would have in it a few of these aircraft having the sole mission of furnishing heavy defensive gunfire. This, too, failed of its purpose and our bomber forces were thereafter limited in radius to that of escorting fighters. In late stages of the war, fighter ranges had been so increased that the bomber formations could be escorted throughout the deepest desirable penetration.

At the end of the war American bomber forces were successfully accomplishing daylight raids with fighter escort and with very much greater precision in attack on specific targets than was the case of the British.

Many efforts have been made to assess the effectiveness of strategic bombing in Europe. These have been made by official bodies, both British and American, and by numerous independent writers and commentators of greater or less authority. There have been some marked disparities in conclusions. In some cases there has been noticeable bias, one way or another, and frequently a lack of thoroughness in the studies conducted. But of one thing we can all be certain and in full accord. The urban and industrial areas of central Europe constitute one vast gigantic monument to the destructiveness of this form of warfare.

My own conclusions, based on study of such official publications and historical analyses as have been available to me, may be succinctly stated. They are these: first, that the combined attack on transportation by strategic and tactical air forces, and particularly when in direct support of “Operation Overlord” (the Normandy Invasion), was of immense importance to the success of the landing in France and the subsequent rapid deterioration of the German armed strength; second, that the destruction of oil processing requirements, although in good part a dividend from the chemical attack, was of far reaching value; and third, that the general attack on all other target systems, largely urban and industrial areas, was not decisive, was inordinately expensive, and imposed immense barriers of destruction against the reestablishment of the European national economies so essential to a stable peace.

Obviously there were numerous military benefits of very real value resulting from the strategic bombing effort in Europe. It immobilized large numbers of fighter aircraft for a purely defensive function. Night defense required an additional set of. planes and drew off the cream of the pilots. The combined offensives forced the assignment of large numbers of military personnel to man the ground defenses. It diverted to these defenses great amounts of military equipment, guns, electronics, search lights, and the like. It necessitated maintaining very sizable civilian labor forces to be engaged continuously in repair of damaged urban and industrial areas. All these add up to an appreciable part of the over-all military potential of Germany. But so far as concerns the basic purpose of destroying the ability or the will to wage war, only that part of the air campaign which was devoted to transportation and fuel targets was militarily and economically warranted.

III
THE PACIFIC THEATER

In approaching the investigation of strategic air warfare in the Far East, we find ourselves facing a situation almost the direct opposite of that in the European theater. In the Pacific we entered the war after crippling defeats at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, and, by reason of the greater immediacy of the European problem, we found ourselves with only small dispersed forces and no secure and effective bases within striking range of the enemy. In Europe our friends had already tested the enemy and could hold him while we built up our strength.

In the Pacific our opponent was an industrialized Island Empire, a nation almost completely dependent on outside sources for raw materials. These he had access to in the “Southern Resources Area,” over which Japan had quickly gained military control. It was necessary that he transport these raw materials by ship to the homeland to keep the industrial machine producing, and then, again by ocean shipping, to distribute the finished end products to his armed forces established on an extended outer defense line. It was a vital part of Japanese war strategy that they be able to exercise control of the seas in the entire western and south central Pacific while exploiting the newly acquired resources and while building up military garrisons in the forward areas.

In these circumstances there was obviously but one strategic target which we might effectively threaten initially, the enemy’s sea lines of communication. That target constituted the very life blood of Japan’s aspirations of Empire. If it could be destroyed, the nation’s military strength must inevitably disintegrate.

The U.S. Army and Navy were guided by two different concepts from the very start in their use of air power in the Pacific. Each held fundamentally different views on how best to employ the major elements of air strength to attain victory.

The Air Forces of the U. S. Army were committed to independent operations throughout. In the earlier stages of the war, with limited heavy attack aircraft available and with no bases from which effective attack could be made on the enemy’s war-making capacity, the air operations were necessarily confined to targets of immediate military importance. Particularly in the southwest Pacific the B-25s, the A-20s, and the fighters did a superb job in shooting up supply-carrying barges, advanced air bases, ground defenses, and supply dumps. All this certainly made things much easier for the Army and the 7th Fleet. But the concept was clear that the air commander must operate as a separate entity rather than being integrated with, and used primarily in support of, the Army ground forces. Every effort was made to stretch out the range of heavy aircraft at the earliest possible date, to reach, for example, the oil installations in the Netherlands East Indies. Similarly, when B-29 aircraft first became available, they were installed and operated from bases in India in token raids on Japanese steel mills in Manchuria and in northern Kyushu.

None of these early strategic bombing attacks was in useful strength, both because of lack of actual numbers of aircraft and the inadequate bomb tonnages consequent to the extreme ranges involved.

It must be acknowledged, of course, that the high level heavy bombers with which the Army Air Forces were equipping themselves did find much useful employment in strictly military operations. I refer particularly to long range reconnaissance of ocean zones and island positions, and to attacks on supply ports and air base areas in forward areas, the latter occasionally directly coordinated with the tactical air units previously referred to. There was also some considerable success against the shipping target, especially after adoption of the tactic of low level approach followed by so-called “skip” bombing.

The Marianas were captured in the summer and early fall of 1944, almost three years after the start of the Pacific War. Here, for the first time, bases could be provided within range to permit strategic air warfare against the enemy homeland. Here also, when the great base establishments had been completed and strategic air forces began their work, the command itself was exercised on a completely independent basis.

Naval aviation for its part had long been developed as an integrated part of sea power. Accordingly its aircraft were designed predominantly for precision attack on naval and shipping targets and on strictly military objectives. In a vast area where shore bases were very few and very far apart, naval carrier air permitted the projection forward of air power whenever and wherever control of the sea could be attained.

The results of the war in the Pacific have been evaluated with the same care and detail that were given in Europe. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, with much the same personnel who did the job in Europe, also carried out this work in the Far East. There has also been the same wide variety of presentation by individual historians. Perhaps there has been somewhat less in the way of critical military analysis, but this may in part be due to the fewer and simpler problems with which a student was faced in the Pacific theater. The area was vast indeed, but the process of gaining victory was much the same from beginning to end.

I think it is conclusive that merchant shipping was the vital element of Japanese strength, that its destruction was the decisive element in her ultimate defeat, that this came about primarily because we were able to command the seas and thus gradually to destroy her sea transport. As a result of the shipping offensive, Japan’s industry was starved for materials from which to make the weapons of war, and her military outposts were left to wither and die through lack of supply and reenforcement.

Air power had an important part in the attack on this principal strategic target, although the submarine was by all odds the predominant factor in its eventual success. Land based planes of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and of our Allies in the Pacific, all contributed their part when useful targets could be brought in range. Naval carrier forces, with their ability to reach out into desirable target areas, were particularly effective in this campaign. Finally, in the late stages of the war, the Army Air Force mining campaign in the Inland Sea contributed most substantially to the ultimate disintegration of Japan’s sea borne commerce.

It should be noted that Japan’s oil resources were handed to us as a principal dividend of the shipping offensive. Her oil had to be brought to the homeland and distributed to her far flung empire by tankers, and these fell to the torpedo and the bomb equally with other types of vessels.

The result of the campaign against sea lines of communication was such that when strategic bombing was first initiated on the homeland from the Marianas in November of 1944, Japan’s war machine was already critically weakened for want of raw materials and oil. Defeat was inevitable, no matter how long the fatal hour might be staved off.

Anyone who has visited post-war Japan must be in hearty accord that the bombing campaign was a huge success so far as concerns destruction. The vast open spaces of Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya are adequate proof of this. But as for its accomplishment from the military standpoint, one reaches quite different conclusions. Perhaps the following quotes from the Summary Report of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey are most descriptive of what I mean:

By March 1945, prior to heavy direct air attack on the Japanese home islands, the Japanese air forces had been reduced to Kamikaze forces, her fleet had been sunk or immobilized, her merchant marine decimated, large portions of her ground forces isolated, and the strangulation of her economy well begun.

Even though the urban area attacks and attacks on specific industrial plants contributed a substantial percentage to the over-all decline in Japan’s economy, in many segments of that economy their effects were duplicative. Most of the oil refineries were out of oil, the alumina plants out of bauxite, the steel mills lacking in ore and coke, and the munitions plants low in steel and aluminum. Japan’s economy was in large measure being destroyed twice over, once by cutting off of imports, and secondly by air attack.

One major target in Japan was left untouched by all the great air power available to the Allied forces. Here again it was lines of communication, the railroads connecting those major urban areas of Japan which I have already mentioned. Forced by the shipping campaign to carry an immense overload, inadequately maintained, incapable of reasonable protection or repair, with no adequate highway system to share the burden, they offered an ideal target, the destruction of which must necessarily have caused the early and utter collapse of Japan’s internal economy. I quote again briefly from one of the reports of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey:

The weakest point in Japan’s economic structure and the one which was already most nearly disposed of was her transportation. A combination of accelerated and intensified assault against shipping by the naval and air arms, coupled with the type of railroad attack discussed above [the interdiction of certain key routes] should have been ample to complete the destruction of the nation’s war-making potential.

It is a cause of regret to me that when naval carrier forces were ranging the seas adjacent to the main islands, they employed some part of their air strength against industrial targets, for which with their limited load capacity they were poorly suited, and failed to direct their principal asset of precision attack against the railroad system of southern Honshu. This unfortunate misapplication of naval forces was necessary in order to adhere to a relatively inelastic global system of target priorities.

IV
LESSONS OF WORLD WAR II

It is no mere coincidence that lines of communication should have been the vital strategic targets on opposite sides of the earth and in geographical situations so widely differing. Lines of communication, whether they be sea transport, railroads, internal canals, or highways, are indeed the life lines of modern existence. They are the basis of the movement of men and things which are the very essence of modern war. They are the obvious target of strategic attack by any force, land, sea, or air.

There are certain other features of the transport target which should be noted. Initially, it cannot be hidden from attack: vast tonnages and great distances force travel on the surface of land or sea. Next, the mere fact that movement is involved over large distances renders any attempt at fixed defenses hopeless: the transportation target must carry with it such defense as it is to have. Finally, its importance, that is to say, its volume, can be closely predicted by the scale of operations in a theater of action: there is no requirement for reliance on possibly unavailable intelligence—such as what product does this factory make, and how critical is its output?

Something must be said of the type of aircraft employed against transportation targets. It was true in World War II, in both major theaters, that aircraft of all types from the single seat fighter to the heavy bomber were employed with good effect against shipping and rail and road transport. But essentially the transportation target is one requiring precision attack at low altitude, with a high degree of maneuverability, whether against the moving ship, train or truck, or the narrow bridge, roadbed or highway. These are all qualities of the tactical airplane—the fighter, the fighter- bomber, and the light bomber. The heavy high altitude strategic bomber is quite out of its element when employed against transportation, except such limited and heavily defended targets as harbors or large marshalling yards.

The oil target proved highly desirable in both theaters, although, as I indicated, in the Pacific its successful attack was part and parcel of the shipping campaign.

Other than these two systems, transportation and oil, the attacks on all other urban and industrial targets, both in Europe and in Asia, resulted in vast destruction of property without military benefit comparable with the, wartime costs and the disastrous post-war results.

This is not to say that there can be no other target systems in the future the destruction of which might have decisive effect. The difficulty is in the field of intelligence, in knowing precisely what the vital targets are, in locating the essential elements of these target systems, and then in being able to destroy them and their probable replacements. Experience of World War II shows that this calls for an order of intelligence well beyond what the Allies knew of Germany and Japan.

V
CONCLUSIONS

The primary requirement in holding an enemy in Europe, beyond the efforts of the foot soldier who is in actual physical contact, is quickly to destroy the enemy’s ability to move, to destroy his lines of communication. This means air power capable of effective attack on railroads and highways, reaching from the battle line itself and as far to the rear as may be possible. This is the only augmenting force that can possibly hold vastly superior ground forces in their initial positions. Additionally, of course, we must be able to destroy enemy planes in the air and on the ground; we must be able to gain at least local control of the air in vital areas.

These fundamental requirements, if they can be met, are the only insurance against defeat in Europe. To meet them, however, will call for very large and competent tactical air forces far beyond those which can be provided in the foreseeable future by the French and British, whose responsibility this would appear to be under current planning in the North Atlantic Alliance. If the line is to be held, we ourselves must supply that large added increment of tactical air which is essential. It must be ready to go at the start of hostilities, and there must be replacements in sight sufficient for the period until our wartime build-up can reach the front.

Certainly there are other immediate requirements for air: the antisubmarine campaign makes big demands, we may have to protect shipping against air attack, certain key sea areas may have to be kept open, long range reconnaissance and photography is necessary, air transport has a considerable call, and small numbers of aircraft of perhaps unusual design and size may be necessary for the delivery of particular weapons. But beyond such specialized requirements all possible air forces must be prepared for use against the enemy’s military machine.

Just where does strategic air warfare fit into this scheme of things? Frankly, it doesn’t fit with the concept of long range heavy bombers designed for deep penetration of enemy territory. The transportation target which I have stressed here does indeed become a strategic target at some distance from the front line—but at just what point it will be difficult to establish. In any case this particular strategic target requires tactical types of aircraft to achieve effective results.

Let me summarize the major conclusions which I reach with relation to strategic air warfare:

(1) Destruction of urban and industrial areas of the enemy is in itself a proper objective of war only when it contributes directly to the war aims. It should be the purpose to attain victory with a minimum destruction of the enemy peacetime economy.
(2) Primary attention should be given to the transportation attack, to the development of means and weapons which will provide the greatest effectiveness.
(3) Strategic air forces, as currently conceived and constituted, do not “pull their weight” in the specific war situation with which we are faced. The bulk of the current funds allocated to strategic air establishments, should be channeled into tactical air forces.
(4) The only legitimate military requirement for so-called strategic types of aircraft is for the comparatively small forces needed to deliver a limited number of special weapons to highly selective critical targets.

We have come perilously close to losing the last two World Wars. Make no mistake about it, we can lose the third; someone has to, and this may be the last one. No pride of service, no unfounded predictions, no wishful decisions must be allowed to interfere with a correct evaluation of the grave responsibility which faces us.