T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
bomber groups, and eventually to base two groups of very long-range
bombers in Alaska.
It is apparent, however, that the air planners were less interested in
the problems of the defensive in the Americas or the Pacific than in
the war in Europe. The basic feature of their plan lay “in the applica-
tion of air power for the breakdown of the industrial and economic
structure of Germany.” This involved “the selection of a system of
objectives vital to continued German war effort, and to the means of
livelihood of the German people, and tenaciously concentrating dZ
bombing toward destruction of those objectives.” The objectives were
predominantly precision targets, and it was not intended to resort to
area bombing of civilian concentrations until German morale began
to
The main target objectives should be the electric power grid in
Germany, the transportation network (rail, inland water, and high-
way), and the oil and petroleum industry-with final attacks on urban
areas. It was accepted that this program might not be accomplished
without some serious diversions. As an “intermediate objective” pre-
requisite to successful long-range bombardment operations, it would
be necessary to neutralize the German Air Force by attacking its
bases, the aircraft factories which nourished it, and the light metals
industries upon which those factories depended. And to protect the
security of bases and the sea lanes which connected them with Amer-
ican production centers, it might be necessary to attack submarine
bases, surface craft, and “invasion” bases on the
T o calculate the force required to accomplish these missions, esti-
mates were made as to the number of individual targets which must
be destroyed to disrupt each of the target systems enumerated, as to
the bomb weight required for each, as to the total bomb lift required
according to computed coefficients of aiming errors under combat
conditions, and finally, as to the number of planes required to deliver
that total bomb load within the accepted time ~chedu1e.l‘~T h e
resultant requirements, in terms of tactical groups, were: medium
bombers (B-25, B-26)--10; heavy bombers (B-17, B-24)-20; [very]
heavy bombers (B-29, B-32)-24; VLR heavy bombers (4,000-mile-
radius type)-#; in all, a total of 98 groups, >with6,834 aircrafr. It
was expected that these planes, other than the 4,000-mile-radius type,
would be based in the United Kingdom and the Suez region; and that
since the latter type would not be available before 1944, an interim
148