A Bristol Fighter of No 6 Squadron in Iraq.Photograph courtesy AHB (RAF)

An essay by an officer attending the Third Course at the Royal Air Force Staff College, 1924-1925

First published in Air Publication 1152, 1st edition, June 1925

Some Experiences of

No 6 Squadron in the Iraq

Insurrection, 1920

By Squadon Leader G C Pirie

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AAfter four and a half years on the WesternFront, and at a time when 90 per cent ofNo 6 Squadron were counting the days

that separated them from civil life, instructionswere received to move from Spa (in Belgium) toBaghdad. As the result of a flying visit to RAFHQ, Idiscovered that the Royal Air Force inMesopotamia (as it was called then) had beenreduced to one squadron, and that a second onewas now urgently required. All sorts of problemshad to be solved before the squadron could leave

Europe. The personnel problem was a very difficultand an exceedingly delicate one; and when, fivedays later, the squadron entrained for Marseille,many capable officers and most of the experiencedmechanics had to be left behind to awaitdemobilization. It was also necessary to refit withRE8s, for as yet there were no Bristol Fighters inthe East. We should have liked to see the RE8spacked in their cases, as a move from France toItaly in 1917 had shown the advantages of thisprecaution. Time, however, did not permit of this.

A speedy train journey to Marseilles and a fastvoyage in the ‘Malwa’ to Port Said filled us withhopes that we might arrive at Basrah before the hotweather set in, and have our machines in the airwithin a month of leaving Spa. These hopes, alas!,were shattered by an order to disembark at Port Said,and proceed by train to Suez rest camp, as thesituation in Egypt at the time was causing the gravest anxiety. After three weary weeks in this camp, we re-embarked and landed at Basrah in midJuly, 1919.

Mesopotamia seemed to be quite a peaceful country,although the ravages of war were visibleeverywhere. Lieutenant General Sir George FMcMunn KCB KCSI DSO was Commander-in-Chief,and had a force equal to about four divisions. WingCommander O T Boyd OBE MC AFC was incommand of the Royal Air Force, which consisted ofNo 30 Squadron and an Aircraft Park.

To those acquainted with the conditions underwhich we worked at Tanooma (Basrah) and withthe climate for which Basrah is noted, it will not bea surprise to learn that within 96 hours of landing,over one hundred of the squadron were in hospital,suffering from sand fly fever. Not a single riggerwas left, and the fact that within a week, six RE8shad been erected and flown successfully, speakswell for the rest of the squadron. But the machineshad been so carelessly packed that it was only bydepleting the others of necessary parts that it waspossible to build eight complete machines in all.The remainder had to be re-embarked and shippedto Baghdad.

Early in August, after the squadron had recoveredfrom the effects of fever, we moved to Baghdad. Asit turned out, there was no urgency for our arrivaland so for a little while there was every opportunityfor the personnel to become accustomed to thepeculiar flying conditions of the East.

No 30 Squadron was much dispersed. One flightwas at Kasvin (in Persia), another at Mosul, and thethird at Baghdad. Towards the end of August, 1919,one flight of No 6 Squadron moved to Bushire, avery pleasant winter station, 500 miles South-Eastof Baghdad. Shortly afterwards, another flight wasdispatched to Dair-es-Zor, 350 miles North-West ofBaghdad; and only a few days later half the third

flight had to reinforce No 30 Squadron’sdetachment at Mosul, where conditions werebecoming unstable and the outlook threatening.Only two machines were left at Baghdad forinspection duties.

Early in the Autumn, it became evident that somesinister anti-British influence was at work. Ourreception in the bazaars, in the towns and villages,and by the tribes appeared less cordial than it hadbeen. The natives ceased to accord the respect dueto the Political Officers, and failures to pay taxesand to carry out orders increased in number. To us,who moved among the tribes a good deal, thisattitude of the natives was obvious. To the Army ingeneral it was not so apparent. At this time, andindeed all through the insurrection, a close liaisonexisted between the High Commissioner, his staff,and the Royal Air Force. Sir Arnold Wilson carriedout most of his inspections by air, and this enabledpilots to form an intimate acquaintance with thehabits, customs, and superstitions of the natives,and to realize their attitude towards Great Britainand the occupation of their country.

The months of October and November saw afurther reduction in the forces garrisoning thecountry. The Royal Air Force, too, was a dwindlingforce. The claims of demobilization were absorbingthe majority of the pilots and mechanics. Machineswere becoming worn out, and there were noreinforcements coming out, either of personnel orequipment. GHQ did not appear to realize theseriousness of this state of affairs; nor did theviolation of the principles of war appear to concernthem as far as the Air Force was concerned. Theprinciple of concentration was consistently ignored.The Royal Air Force made an effort to concentrateas many machines as possible at Baghdad, but withlittle success. As the result of a chance meetingwith the British Minister at Teheran, permissionwas obtained to withdraw half the flight fromBushire. He insisted on the retention of threemachines there, although there was really no callfor them at all. Two machines attached to No 30Squadron at Mosul were recalled, and only twomachines were left at Dair-es-Zor. Finally, by 1 December, 1919, No 6 Squadron had three.

An incident, which was probably the precursor ofthe insurrection, occurred on the Upper Euphrates

Within 96 hours of landing, over one hundred of the squadronwere in hospital, suffering from sand fly fever

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about this time. It was a gigantic piece of bluff on the part of our enemies, but much to theastonishment of the originators of the plot, itsucceeded.

About 10 December, at Dair-es-Zor, which wasgarrisoned by two very efficient armoured cars,and two RE8s, in addition to a few levies, one ofour RE8s was flying around the village early in themorning, when the pilot noticed, about 10 miles tothe North, a horde of Arabs approaching the townin some semblance of order. They numbered about2,000, and when he arrived over them, they fired athim, so he returned to inform the Political Officerat Dair. Shortly before noon, the crowd arrived atthe gates of the town, headed by the firebrandRamadhan Shalash. It was quite a peaceful arrival.

Ramadhan Shalash asked to see the PoliticalOfficer, and informed him that he had come to takeover Dair-es-Zor ‘as arranged’. There had, as amatter of fact, been some talk of handing over thetown to the Sharifian Government, but noinstructions had reached our garrison. The PoliticalOfficer explained this to Shalash, who agreed towait outside the town until such time asinstructions were received from Baghdad.

Meanwhile a signal was sent to Baghdad, and anRE8 set off for the capital, where the pilot was ableto explain the situation. The resultant decision wasto evacuate Dair, as we could not possibly defendit. Ramadhan Shalash accordingly entered the townnext morning, and we retired to Abu Kemal. Ourretirement was wrongly interpreted by the tribes,and probably there were other influences at workto lead them to believe that we were retiring underpressure. Although no untoward incident occurredduring the march to Abu Kemal, ugly signs ofimpending hostility were not lacking, and bynightfall on the day after our arrival the tribes wereclosing in around the village. Abu Kemal is,however, well laid out for defence. The Serai isbounded on the East by the Euphrates and on the

West by a piece of high ground which serves as theaerodrome, whence machines can be taxied into theSerai at night for shelter. No fears, therefore, wereentertained for its safety, but the decision not to re-occupy Dair was a fatal one. Our lines ofcommunication began to cause us anxiety. On the19th, convoys coming from Anah were sniped at,and the irregular forces under the leadership ofRamadhan Shalash were reported to be about tomove on the village. The acting Commander-in-Chief flew up from Baghdad and reviewed thewhole situation himself. Despite the impossibilityof reinforcing the position, and the insecurity of thelines of communication, it was decided to remainin our present position pending receipt ofinstructions from HM Government.One or two cavalry and Indian infantry

detachments were collected from outlying posts and dispatched to Abu Kemal. Colonel-Commandant F E Coningham CB CSI CMG DSO,who was destined to play a very large part inquelling the insurrection, was sent there to takecommand, and a flight from the squadron was now stationed there. Beyond carrying out areconnaissance every second day, the machineswere idle. The precarious nature of ourcommunications, especially at this time of year, andthe dearth of suitable transport made it impossiblefor us to maintain the detachment properly, andtheir operations were limited by the number ofbombs that could reach the aerodrome. It wasforbidden to use the machines located at Baghdadas a means of supply. When a suitable target didnot present itself on the Upper Euphrates, GHQcould not allow a concentration of machines in thatarea for the day, fearing to be left without anyaircraft at Baghdad.

The ultimate result of six weeks of spasmodicoperations with our base at Abu Kemal was afurther withdrawal to Anah, which was soon in a state of siege. Col-Cmdt Coningham wellappreciated the situation when he left the village

Early in the Autumn, it became evident that some sinister anti-British influence was at work

Ugly signs of impending hostility were not lacking, and by nightfall on the day after our arrival the tribes were closing inaround the village

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after a few days’ occupation, and established hisheadquarters two miles west of it, on a piece ofground previously selected as an aerodrome. Thesupply difficulty was still serious, but arrangementswere now completed for special convoys to leaveonce a week for Anah with bombs and aircraftspares. Very little could, however, be done to easethe situation, as the tribes operated in small bodiesand did not belong to any particular section.

Fayad Beg, a shaikh with tremendous influence inthe desert in ordinary times, did all he could torestrain the hostile feelings of his people, butforeign money and our loss of prestige as the resultof continual retirements were factors which werevery difficult to overcome. Fayad Beg was a veryintelligent and interesting man. He had beeneducated at Constantinople and had lived inEngland in his early days.

One night at Anah, a terrific storm arose. So fierce was the gale, and so blinding the sand, that theofficers and mechanics were unable to find theirmachines, although they were sleeping only 500yards away. The aircraft had been securely peggeddown, and when the storm subsided, they werestill secure. But a closer examination next morningrevealed the fact that every plane was broken and

two of the four machines had broken their backs.Very little could be done till spare parts arrived.Meanwhile, under the supervision of a sapperofficer, the building of semi-circular breastworks,three feet high, round each machine for futureprotection was commenced. These walls savedmany machines from destruction by the storms thatmonth. Two RE8s were at once ordered to replacethe damaged ones at Anah, but it was no easymatter to send spares up for the damaged ones.The condition of the track to Anah rendered itimpossible to dispatch even a tender for the reliefof the flight. In the end, the services of some Fordvans were procured from a local MT Company.Each van carried two planes. After the convoy had

been almost washed away, crossing the Euphratesat Fellujah, it encountered a very severe storm, andan aeroplane flying to Hit discovered it 15 milesNorth of Fellujah, with all the vans lying on theirsides. Happily no damage was done to the planes,and after many vicissitudes, Anah was safelyreached next day. Such incidents were typical of thedifficulties we had to overcome. Meanwhile, theflight at Anah carried out petty raids, and madeunprofitable excursions to bomb tribes at Wadis,which, when located, were found to be deserted.During all this time, the squadron was becomingmore and more depleted of personnel. By the end ofApril, only seven officers and 70 airmen remained,and there were six machines serviceable. In theoperations on the Upper Euphrates, there had been alavish expenditure of machines. Early in April, 1920,No 30 Squadron began to re-equip with DH9As. Itwas, however, a slow process, and it was manyweeks before even one flight could be completed.

During the first week in May, it became only tooapparent, how seriously the situation wasdeveloping. Turkish ex-officers were known to beliving with the tribes in the Shinafiyah district, andit was becoming clear that the period of theRamadhan was quite likely to lead to a seriousoutburst of anti-British sentiment. Already at

Rumaithah, one of the local sheikhs was suspectedof passive disobedience. The Civil Commissionerhimself, realizing the gravity of the situation, hadlaid in a six months’ stock of provisions. Peoplelaughed at the idea, but as events turned out, hewas not far wrong.

Unexpected relief in that anxious period came to usfrom the direction of Anah. There, operationsquietened down, and the flight was withdrawn andpermission obtained to withdraw the remainder ofthe flight stationed at Bushire. About this time too,there arrived from England a big draft for theRoyal Air Force in Mesopotamia. To No 6Squadron, eight officers and 60 airmen were

The flight at Anah carried out petty raids, and made unprofitable excursions to bomb tribes at Wadis, which, when located, were found to be deserted

Slowly but surely the Royal Air Force was preparing for theinevitable conflict. By 1 June 1920, there was concentrated atBaghdad the whole of No 6 Squadron

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posted. Unfortunately, only a few days later, fourofficers and 40 airmen left for home. Still, even thiswas an improvement although two new pilots both‘wrote off’ an RE8 on their first flights.

Slowly but surely the Royal Air Force was preparingfor the inevitable conflict. By 1 June 1920, there wasconcentrated at Baghdad the whole of No 6Squadron, although only eight machines wereserviceable. The new pilots had had sufficientexperience in the country to be absolutely reliable,and the morale of the squadron was high. TheAircraft Park, after almost a whole year of inactionwas once again ready to produce several machines amonth. No 30 Squadron, busily engaged at Mosuland Kasvin had one flight at Baghdad. These threeunits did not total many machines altogether but theyformed an efficient force. The state of the country wasone of tension and uneasiness. Outwardly there wereno signs of hostility, but one felt instinctively that allwas not well. Lieutenant-General Sir J Aylmer LHaldane GCMG KCB DSO was now in supremecommand. Sir Arnold Wilson was still acting HighCommissioner, and Wing Commander (now GroupCaptain) C S Burnett CBE DSO commanded the threeair force units in the country.

On the evening of 4 June, rumours began to fly about; the next morning the news of the Tel Afarincident became known. It was felt by many thatthis must be the signal for a general rising. As itturned out, there was no further trouble for fourweeks, although the intervening period was a very disturbing one.

By 15 June, the conditions of the Squadron hadimproved enormously, for there were now sixBristol Fighters and five RE8s serviceable. The newpilots and airmen continued to do well and theoutlook was bright. The Ramadhan was proceedingwithout incident and hopes ran high that thedanger of a general rising might be tided over. Buton 30 June, the storm broke, for that evening, aW/T message arrived from the Political Officer,Diwaniyah saying that the train from Basrah was 24hours late; that he had been unsuccessful in gettinginto touch by telephone with Rumaithah, and that afriendly Sheikh had come in to say that Rumaithahwas about to be surrounded. A few minutes later,there arrived a W/T message from the garrison atSamawah, with the information that a train bound

for Baghdad had found the line cut, 10 miles Northof Samawah, and a party who attempted to repairit, had been fired on. The train had therefore,returned to Samawah and had been sniped at, allthe way to Barbuti Bridge. In view of this, orderswere at once issued for a reconnaissance of thedistrict to be made at dawn next day.

At 0400 hours, a machine left for Diwaniyah wherethe local Political Officer was first interviewed. Noadditional information could be obtained, and thepilot set out for Rumaithah, flying at 500 feet. Hefound the railway line intact, and everythingappeared quite normal at Rumaithah. Landing quiteclose to the village, he was about to switch off hisengine, when a crowd of 200-300 Arabs appeared afew hundred yards in front. They rushed towardsthe machine, firing as they advanced. In a moment,however, the aeroplane was off the ground, andwhen the pilot had reached 1,000 feet, the wholecountryside appeared thick with apparently hostileArabs, and the machine was hit in several places.The pilot wrote a note and dropped it into the Serai,where there were about 300 Indians lining the wallsbut not firing. The machine then turned south, andsurprised a party of Arabs trying to tear up the lineat Saiyia. Several other parties were scattered, andthe pilot being short of petrol, landed at Samawah,seeing that it was quite safe to do so. Major Hay,who was in command there, was quite certain thatthis was the beginning of the expected rebellion.When the pilot took off after lunch he was heavilyfired on before he had got to 500 feet, and when helanded at Diwaniyah he found that events hadmoved rapidly since the morning. The tribes werebeginning to close in on the river towns from thesouthwest and our communications with Hillahwere being threatened.

In order to appreciate the situation clearly, the verycentral position and the immense importance ofBaghdad must be fully realised. From Baghdadthere radiate five main routes, viz:

1. Baghdad— Basrah via the Tigris2. Baghdad — Basrah via the Euphrates3. Baghdad — Cairo via Ramadi and/or Hit4. Baghdad — Angora via Mosul5. Baghdad — Teheran via Karind, where all theBritish Officers’ families were for the hot weather(These are the lines of communication)

By 15 June, the conditions of the Squadron had improvedenormously, for there were now six Bristol Fighters and fiveRE8s serviceable

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During the insurrection, four of these five routeswere closed by the insurgents. The only one thatremained open was the first and at all timespreviously it had been the most insecure. In fact, itwas fully expected that it would be the first to becut in the event of internal trouble.

I feel certain that the seriousness of the insurrectionin Mesopotamia in 1920 has never been realised inthis country. The reason is probably a common one.Things went wrong. Mistakes were made, andforces employed often too small to achieve theirobject. A disaster was averted, firstly by the heroicresistance of certain British and Indian troops,many of whom died at their posts, and whosedeeds are unrecorded; and, secondly, by the workof the Royal Air Force, too many of whose exploitsare also unrecorded.

A detailed account of all the interesting incidentsthat occurred, and of the experiences of individualpilots, would be impossible to chronicle here, but afew events may be of value.

The weather at the time was very trying. AtBaghdad, the shade temperature was between 110°and 118°. Even at dawn it was quite a feat to flythrough the hot belt (from 500 ft to 1,500 ft) withoutlosing too much water from the radiator. The newRAF authorities believed at first that it wasimpossible to fly after 0800 hours owing to the heat,and it certainly was difficult, until a tropical radiatorwas improvised. GHQ, on the other hand, requiredflying at all times, although they did suggest an extraration of ice to keep the radiators cool.

The first stage in the campaign was an endeavour torelieve Rumaithah. Ever since it had been cut off, theRoyal Air Force had kept up bombing attacks, twicedaily, on targets in its vicinity. Intelligence, however,was bad, and it was left to us to select our owntargets. Those days were very tiring. We wouldleave Baghdad at about 0400 hours and fly toDiwaniyah. There we would consult the PoliticalOfficer and the garrison Commander, and thenproceed to Rumaithah. While one machine tookmessages off the Popham Panel in the Serai, the

remainder of the flight bombed and machine-gunned any gatherings seen near by. After replieshad been dropped to the Panel messages, the flightwould proceed to Samawah, where the garrison wasencamped on the aerodrome. Filling up ourmachines there, was a laborious and unpleasanttask, for we had to sit on the top planes of the BristolFighters and fill the tanks from five gallon tins. Thefierce hot wind from the North blew much of thepetrol on to our clothes. These, consisting as theydid of a pair of shorts and a shirt, were no protectionagainst the scorching and stinging pain ofevaporating petrol.

After a hasty lunch, which we had brought with us,we used to load up with bombs and proceed toattack the tribes West of Samawah.

This accomplished, we returned to Samawah, fixedon more bombs and started on the homewardjourney. Practically every afternoon at this time, atremendous sandstorm began to blow about 1400hours. Through this we had to fly — no simplematter. Even at 8,000 feet, the sand swirled aboutthe machines, and only by straining one’s eyes tothe utmost, could the winding course of theEuphrates be followed. It was almost impossible tocontrol an aeroplane under these conditions, andwhen we all descended over Rumaithah to see thatthe garrison were all right, and to bomb thegatherings near by, we felt more than anxiousabout the ability of the machines to stand thebuffeting of the storm. Landing at Hillah on thehomeward journey to report, we usually arrived atBaghdad at about 2000 hours — long and tryingdays, but inevitably so, in view of the shortage ofmachines and pilots.

The type of bomb generally used for theseoperations was the 25 lb Cooper bomb. It wasfound that this kind gave the best results for thetargets were either personnel or lightly constructedshelters. The number of bombs carried used to varywith the time of day. In the cool hours of themorning it was possible to carry eight bombsprovided that there was no other load to be taken.But almost every morning there was food, or

A disaster was averted, firstly by the heroic resistance of certainBritish and Indian troops, many of whom died at their posts, andwhose deeds are unrecorded; and, secondly, by the work of theRoyal Air Force, too many of whose exploits are also unrecorded

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ammunition, or stores to be carried to the variousgarrisons and this reduced the number of bombstaken. On the mid-day flights, it was often justpossible to get off with two bombs, so that theaverage weight of bombs dropped per day was small— about 250 lb in all. The results, however, justifiedthis policy, for while the Arab did not seem to mindvery much what weight of bombs was dropped, thecontinual visits disturbed him considerably. Theactual damage to material was small.

On 8 July we were told, while lunching atSamawah, that Rumaithah had reported by heliothat they had just had a protracted fight with aparty of about 500 Arabs who had attacked them.The enemy had been beaten off, but the garrisonwere getting anxious about their ammunition. Fourof us immediately set off for Hillah. We knewDiwaniyah were anxious about their supply ofSAA, so did not attempt to get any boxes fromthem. Just as the machines were about to land atHillah, it was noticed that the aerodrome was beingattacked. There was no alternative but to fly on toBaghdad where each machine was loaded with twoboxes of SAA on the bomb racks. It was, however,too late to do anything more that day. Nextmorning three machines set out specially forRumaithah, and dropped three boxes on thegarrison. One fell inside the Serai, unfortunatelykilling a Naik, and the other two fell just outside,and were recovered later in the day.

The next day as we were on our homeward run,the garrison at Rumaithah reported that they wererunning short of food. All that night, along with thelocal supply officers, we endeavoured to devise asuitable method of packing food and dropping itfrom the bomb racks. After many ways had beentried, six large sacks were filled with chapattis,dates, ghee, flour, salt, medical comforts; thesesacks were enclosed within others for safety. In theearly grey of the dawn it was a quaint sight to seethese six Bristol Fighters leaving the ground withtheir enormous sacks of food. The first day’s effortswere not too successful. Three sacks fell in theSerai, and the other three stuck on the bomb racksand fell off several minutes later.

Meanwhile, on 6 July, a small column under Lt ColMcVean had set out from Diwaniyah to relieveRumaithah, but the force was inadequate for this

purpose, and not even the efforts of No 6 Squadronwere of any avail. It has to be acknowledged thaton this occasion, the only one in the history of theinsurrection, co-operation with aircraft was notvery successful. This was due to two causes, firstly,because the operation was so urgent that noarrangements could be made beforehand, andsecondly because on 9 of July, aeroplanes watchedhis force being surrounded but were not able toconvince him of his danger until it was almost toolate. When at 1400 hours that day, he gave theorder to retire, four machines for three hours underthe most adverse weather conditions acted as hisflank and rearguards, and drove off, wave afterwave of well-led tribesmen seeking to cut him off.It is no exaggeration to say that the whole columnwould have been massacred had it not been for theefforts of these aeroplanes.

There was now a period of waiting while GeneralLeslie concentrated a force sufficiently large toundertake the relief of Rumaithah. Meanwhile thegarrison was becoming perilously short of food, andit was impossible to expect the Royal Air Force withits few machines to carry out its normal role andfeed the garrison as well. Even without being calledon to feed the garrison, we were unable to cope withall the demands that were being made. The numbersin the Serai had increased to over 500, owing to aninflux of refugees. A novel plan was conceived. Wewarned the garrison of our plan by droppingoperation orders on them the previous day.

On the day of the operation, 12 July, five BristolFighters from No 6 Squadron, reinforced by two oldRE8s and two DH9As from No 30 Squadron set outin formation. One machine dropped two 112 lbbombs in the middle of the village. The remainder,one after the other, dropped four 25 lb bombs on thehouses round the Serai, from about 300 ft. Thiscaused a panic in the village, and the inhabitantsrushed out into the countryside, where they wereattacked with bombs and machine-gun fire.Meanwhile the garrison made a sortie andsucceeded in collecting 20 sheep and 12 goats, inaddition to enough chickens and other food tosustain them for three weeks. This, of course, solvedthe food problem until the relief took place.

By 17 July, Col-Comdt Coningham was on his wayfrom Diwaniyah with a force of about 4,000 of all

It is no exaggeration to say that the whole column would havebeen massacred had it not been for the efforts of these aeroplanes

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arms for the relief of Rumaithah. The countrybetween these two places is ideal for aeroplane co-operation, and for almost the whole distance it waspossible to land beside the column. The ColumnCommander, after his experiences on the UpperEuphrates, relied entirely on his aeroplanes forreconnaissance. After several days fighting, duringwhich period well constructed trenches werecaptured, the Column reached Rumaithah,withdrew the garrison, and retired to Diwaniyah.The tribesmen followed, but constant bombingattacks on their homes and on them, ensured thatthey kept at a respectful distance.

While these operations were in progress, thegarrisons at Kufa and at Kifl had been practicallyisolated, and on the 24th had occurred theunfortunate disaster to the Manchester Regt on theRustumiyah Canal. Wildly exaggerated statements,which it was impossible to discount, now began tobe broadcasted throughout the country. No soonerhad this phase of the crisis occurred, than it wasreported one evening that Kut was surrounded. Apost on the Dyalah had been sniped at, and a largeparty of hostile horsemen had been seen 10 milesNorth-East of Kut. The news was not unexpected.The Muntifik tribes in the area between the Hai andthe Tigris are always a cause of anxiety, and it wasindeed surprising that they had not already risen.

Never have I seen anxiety written to plainly onanyone’s face as it was on those of the Civil andMilitary authorities on the receipt of this news. If itwere true, it meant the complete isolation ofBaghdad and a long and bitter siege. Two machineswere immediately sent out to make areconnaissance. It was a terribly hot evening andboth pilots had already done 7 1/2 hours’ flyingthat day. They found the garrison at Kut in a stateof panic and the bazaar full of the wildest rumours.They reconnoitred the country around Kut at 500feet for over an hour.

There was not a sign of human life anywhere,except at two places where one machine landedwhile the other circled overhead. Neither of the twoparties could talk any language known to the pilotbut they appeared quite peaceful, and had only fourrifles between them. They had large flocks of sheepwith them and had been shooting gazelle. Thisprobably accounted for the shots heard, and the

concentration seen. This information was negativebut absolutely reliable, for there was no possibilityof concealment. About the 25th an arrangementwas made by the Political Officer in the Hai areawith the Muntifik confederation. This arrangementguaranteed (if this were possible) the security ofthe Tigris tribes (the Bani Lam and Bani Rabia)quiet. This was an immense relief, and one of themost marvellous features of the insurrection wasthe comparative security of this line. Barges wereconstantly sniped at, and occasional fire fights tookplace between the armed guards on the barges andthe tribes, but nothing more serious happened.

Slowly, however, the insurgents were gainingconfidence, and even in the bazaars in Baghdadthere was a look of contempt and a sneer on thefaces of the buyers and sellers. Serious delays hadoccurred in sending off reinforcements to Diwaniyahand it was now cut off and surrounded by the tribes.

This news spread like wild fire through the country,and now on the Lower Euphrates, events movedrapidly. Before assistance could reach Samawah itwas cut off and besieged by several thousandtribesmen. There was however an element of luck inthe situation of the besieged camp. Inside it wasquite a fair-sized piece of ground and this was usedas an aerodrome. The camp was also on the river. Itwas impossible to relieve the detachment there forsome time, but with the assistance of the Royal AirForce the garrison was able to hold out. Every daywe took quantities of food and SAA, while they inreturn were able to give us bombs, for a large stockhad been brought in by the last train before the linewas cut. With the bombs we were able to raid thehostile encampments in the vicinity. It was thereforeconsidered safe to leave the garrison isolated to waitfor the day many months ahead when a relief forcecould be dispatched from Basrah.

Luckily, on the Upper Euphrates, an agreementwas arrived at whereby Ali Sulaiman undertook togarrison Hit until such time as it could bereoccupied. Both Ali Sulaiman and Fayad Begremained loyal to us all through the insurrection,and our troops although isolated were safe enoughat Ramadi and Fellujah.

Still, the situation was bad, for Baghdad, the seat ofgovernment and the garrison town of the country

Before assistance could reach Samawah it was cut off andbesieged by several thousand tribesmen

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was practically isolated. Sixty miles south was theHillah garrison also virtually cut off. Eighty milessouth-west a detachment at Kufa was besieged inthe Serai. Near Kufa a small force at Kifl wassimilarly situated. Seventy miles west of Baghdadwas Fellujah, isolated but with friendly tribes closeby. One hundred miles north, Samarrah containeda small detachment; while at Karind, 130 miles tothe north-east, the wives and families of thegarrison had only a company of young soldiers toprotect them. Precarious communication to Basrahexisted via the Tigris, but the amount of rivertransport available was insufficient to cope withthe supplies required. Only in actual fact wasBaghdad not besieged. From Khadimain thereemanated a steady stream of seditious propagandawhich found its way into the Baghdad bazaar, andpoisoned the minds of those whose support hadpreviously never been doubted. Sites were selectedaround Baghdad for a series of earthworks, andwork was begun on them at one. This was about 29July, and within a fortnight 40 brick blockhouseswere completed on the perimeter of the city. Theywere located at 1/2-mile intervals and weremanned day and night.

Our inner aerodrome was surrounded with barbedwire, and before a machine could take off, a wayhad to be cleared in the wire in order to gain accessto the outer aerodrome. On several occasionsnatives were caught armed with tins of petrol andmatches near the sheds; and at times the aerodromewas sniped. There came a day when every able-bodied white man was called up, armed with a rifleand required to defend the capital. The nights werereminiscent of France. All night long, the sky on theperimeter of the defences of Baghdad wasilluminated by Very lights sent up by the garrison.Intermittent rifle and Lewis gun fire broke the eeriesilence of the night. It was unsafe to sleep on theroofs as usual, and one often heard the thud of abullet hitting the mud walls of our bungalows.

It was now realised that Diwaniyah must beevacuated and after all the preparations had beenmade for what must inevitably be a desperateventure, Col-Cmdt Coningham left the town with a very long railway train on 30 July. As wasexpected, the retreat was a harassing operation.The pace of the column was limited by the speed ofthe train that had to be taken to Hillah. All the rails

had been torn up and the sleepers removed by therebels. Consequently, progress was only possible halfa mile at a time, for the rails over which the train hadpassed had to be lifted and relaid in front. Time wasalso an important factor, for no supplies of watercould be obtained after leaving Diwaniyah until theJarboyah Bridge, 30 miles north, was reached.

The aeroplane co-operation was most efficient.Four machines of the squadron were released fromall other duties in order to remain with the column.Communication was of course excellent, for it waspossible to land beside the column the whole time.When the column was halted, waiting for the nextbound of the train, there were always twoaeroplanes on the ground ready to deal with anythreat on the flanks or rear. When it moved,aeroplanes acted as a rearguard and bombed andattacked with machine-gun fire the enemy on theflanks and rear. Even with this assistance the perilto the column was considerable, as the numbers ofhostile tribesmen had risen to 6,000 or 7,000. Aftereight days, Hillah was reached, but the terribleanxiety caused by this harassing retreat under apitiless sun, left few of the column fit for furtheraction, until many days had passed.

In the midst of these operations, about 2 August,the Baghdad-Hillah railway was cut at Babylonand next day at Mahmudiyah. Working partiesrepaired these breaks and for a few days thepresence of an armed guard on each trainprevented any further incidents. But even thisservice broke down and within a week of the firstcutting of the line, all communication with Hillah,except by air and wireless, ceased entirely and theintervening country became unpleasantly hostile.

Simultaneously with the closing of the Baghdad-Hillah route, there was a rising of the tribes alongthe Baghdad-Quaraitu line, and the rails were tornup. Stations were burned down, and all intercourseexcept by air with the wives and families of theBritish garrison was stopped.

Operations for the relief of our besieged garrisonsand the crushing of the insurrection began aboutthe third week of August. A column set out forHillah, accompanied by a trainload of sandbags,SAA, water and supplies. Every half-mile itstopped, and after repairing the line, erected a

There came a day when every able-bodied white man was calledup, armed with a rifle and required to defend the capital

9

circular blockhouse of sandbags. This was a slow,tedious and uninteresting operation and requiredlittle air assistance, for there was very littleopposition. About 19 August, this column met asimilar column, which had set out from Hillah, andthe railway was opened again. 120 blockhouseseach manned by five soldiers rendered theoperation of the railway secure.

About this time the Aircraft Park completed theerection of three Bristol Fighters and four DH9As.No 84 Squadron were beginning to operate, andthey now relieved No 6 Squadron from thearduous task of co-operating with the Samawahgarrison from Baghdad. And as additional BristolFighters were becoming available in No 6Squadron, our days became less tiring.

For the remaining days of August, much less workwas required of the Royal Air Force. Punitivecolumns had gone out to retake the HindiyahBarrage which had passed into Arab control earlyin the month, and to relieve the post at Jarbuiyah,which it was found unnecessary to hold in themeantime. Little air co-operation was required forthose expeditions, and the very tired pilots andmechanics were enabled to rest after theirstrenuous exertions of the past two months.

It was now decided to reopen the route to Karind. Ithad been left alone since its isolation, except for adaily visit by air. It was a pleasant break for theweary pilots, for with Baghdad sweltering under ashade temperature of about 115°, it was a great joyto fly to the east for an hour and a quarter, and landat Karind, 3,000 feet high, with a shade temperatureof about 95°, and always a cooling breeze. The reliefof Karind and the subsequent evacuation of thefamilies to England was carried out withoutincident, and required only the usual aerial co-operation. One night a late reconnaissance forced apilot to land beside the relieving column, where hehad to sleep. During the night he was badly bittenby a jackal, and another pilot flew up in themorning and took him straight to Basrah where hecaught a boat for Bombay next day. By any othermethod, it would have been a week’s journey.

There were now few aerial operations until thesecond week of October, when a column set out torelieve Kufa. For many weeks Kufa had been

visited three times weekly by an aeroplane, whichdropped bombs on the enemy surrounding thegarrison, and food supplies on the garrison itself.Messages were taken off the Popham Panel, andoperation orders dropped as required.

Aeroplanes co-operated most successfully. TheColumn Commander relied almost entirely onthem as flank guards. Such was the nature of thecountry here that it was possible to give him five tosix hours warning of any impending move againstthe column. On one flank, guards were necessaryas the country is covered with camelthorn, andnegative information not always reliable. Aircraftwere also very successful in rounding up theretreating Arabs, and as a result, the column hadvery few casualties. Many of the insurgents werekilled by fire from the air. Early in the morning of17 October, the outskirts of Kufa were reached, butthe road into the town passes through a maze ofpalm trees. I have seldom known such close co-operation take place as on this occasion. Low flyingaeroplanes, by means of signals, kept our advancedinfantry in view, and bombed and machine-gunnedthe gardens ahead. One hour of this was more thanenough to put to flight a force of Arabs, estimated atover 2,000 strong.

In the action which ended in the capture of Tawairijaeroplanes did excellent work with bombs andmachine guns on the fugitives from Kerbela.

Towards the end of October, the Baghdad-Hillah-Fellujah area was much denuded of troops andaeroplanes were most effectively used to keep thepeace. Daily flights took place over the disaffectedareas, and although no troops were stationednearer than Hillah or Baghdad, no further incidentoccurred. Those demonstration flights consisted ofas many machines as it was possible to muster, forthe idea that one or two aeroplanes could overawethe Arab, had gone for ever. This was a valuablelesson and was not lost sight of.

On 1 December, a large column set out from Hillahto join up at Rumaithah with a column that had setout from Samawah, which had just been relieved. AtDiwaniyah, a halt for a week was made to carry outpunitive expeditions in the Daghara and Afejregions. Those were spectacular operations. Thecolumn would leave Diwaniyah at about 0200

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hours. Aeroplanes, leaving their base so that theywould arrive over the column when its outpostswere 1/4 mile from the village to be attacked, wouldswoop down on it, drop 30 or 40, 25 lb bombs andpour hundreds of rounds of SAA into it. Panic-stricken, the inhabitants fled, and in a few minutesthe column would enter the village without a shotbeing fired. The usual procedure then was to drivetowards Diwaniyah all the flocks and herds, settingfire to all that was left. This had a most salutaryeffect on the tribes north of Diwaniyah.

South-west of Diwaniyah the tribes were very slowto hand in their rifles and continued to preserve arather contumacious attitude as regards compliancewith the terms of the peace. Here again aeroplaneswere most useful. They were employed to bombthe villages of the recalcitrant tribes. Some of themwere very stubborn, and continued to hold out.The nights at this time were clear and the moonwas full. Hardly anyone in the squadron had flownby night, and no one had done so in Mesopotamiaor on a Bristol Fighter. But one evening sixmachines flew after dinner, and then for 60 hoursthe villages belonging to the refractory tribes werebombed incessantly. This was too much for them,and they submitted, having the distinction of beingthe last to give in.

This was the end of the insurrection, as far as activeoperations were concerned. Subsequent air attackswere delivered for purposes of control underconditions which approximate to these that nowexist.

The past six months had been a very full half-year’s flying for the squadron, which acquitteditself splendidly. The earlier part of theinsurrection, although not the most serious part,had been more full of incident, and reflectedgreater credit on the squadron. From 30 June to 21August six pilots and six Bristol Fighters had beenpractically the total available force, and the pilotshad averaged 4 3/4 hours daily for that period. The first six Bristol Fighters in the country haddone equal service, and there was not a singleforced landing that was not due to enemy action.There were of course other machines available, forNo 6 Squadron had on an average six BristolFighters and 5 RE8s serviceable. The flight of No 30Squadron at Baghdad averaged 3 DH9As and two

RE8s serviceable. But the RE8 was so unreliableowing to lack of engine spares and to trouble withthe oiling system, that it could not be employed onimportant operations, while the DH9As were fullyemployed keeping in touch with Samawah.

As I have already stated, the seriousness of theinsurrection in Iraq was not realised at home. TheGHQ at Baghdad realised it, only when everyapproach to the capital had been closed except theTigris line, and that was the only one that hadpreviously given trouble. It was thought inevitablethat it would share the same fate. But Ali Sulaimanand the tribes on the Upper Euphrates remainedloyal, and their influence on the Muntifikconfederation, combined with the work of theRoyal Air Force saved a disaster.

One lesson from this period stands out above allothers, and though it is not a new one, it iscontinually being neglected. At all times, it isabsolutely essential for the civil administration andthe three services to work in harmony and insympathy with each other. Each must understandthoroughly and be personally acquainted with theother. We can do much to achieve this end,especially in the East, where the great distancesbetween units and individuals prevent muchassociation except by air. The efficiency of the RoyalAir Force in Iraq in 1920 was largely due to theassistance given by officers of the other services, bypolitical officers, and by certain sheikhs, all ofwhom were personally acquainted with thesquadron officers before the Insurrection broke out.

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Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), X-35

TThis article seeks to examine whether currentstrategic air power doctrine has an adequatetheoretical base, and if not, what implications

this might have for air power in the future. The ideafor the subject arose from a long-standing interest inthe theory underpinning air power doctrine inorder to understand the mechanisms that determinehow effective air power actually is at the strategic

level. This line of attack has a parallel in theapproach of the social sciences towardsinternational relations. An ongoing debate existsbetween those who see social science as a genuinescience with regularity in behaviour allowing lawsto be developed that can be applied to predictactions, and the more traditional view of trying tounderstand why particular actions occurred.

“Air power is the most difficult of military force to measure or even to express inprecise terms. The problem is compounded by the fact that aviation tends to attractadventurous souls, physically adept, mentally alert and pragmatically rather thanphilosophically inclined.”(Winston Churchill)

By Group Captain Neville Parton

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Strategic Air Power Theory in the 21st Century

Strategic Air Power Theory in the 21st Century

As Waltz cogently pointed out, a purely pragmaticapproach “suggests that the hope for improvementlies in policy divorced from analysis, in actionremoved from thought. Yet each attempt to alleviatea condition implies some idea of its causes”.

1

Therefore, whether acknowledged or not, someassumed model of behaviour will be behind themost pragmatic of approaches, so even if such anapproach is proclaimed, analysis to determine theassumptions that were made will be worthwhile.

The international security situation has become farmore complex over the last decade as unwieldycoalitions attempt to coerce rogue states or sub-stateactors by force, with the minimum possible bodycount, and under the constant scrutiny of theworld’s media. Such a situation represents the mostlikely reality for the use of armed force over theforthcoming decades, and it could therefore beargued that the key role for armed forces in the nearfuture will be to act as coercive agents in a strategicenvironment that will be both complex and ‘messy’.However even as the security environment hasbecome more complicated, it seems that the promiseof air power is perhaps closer to being realised thanat any time since its inception. The 1990-1991 GulfWar, the Bosnia and Kosovo campaigns, the anti-Taleban war in Afghanistan and the recent war in

Iraq, have all demonstrated that air power createsthe battle-space within which the other armsoperate. Furthermore, the ubiquitous aspects of airpower, generally accepted as height, speed, andreach, translate into the ability to react rapidly andflexibly in changing situations, frequently makingair power the first weapon of choice for politiciansworldwide.

How do theoreticians see that air power should beused, as this forms the basis of the doctrine that isused to generate the actual war-fighting plans inany campaign? The last 15 years has seen aresurgence of interest in the development and useof air power doctrine, which therefore makes thisan apposite time to review where we are. Thequestion of whether incorrect or poor doctrine hasany impact on an air force is a legitimate one, andcertainly during the 1970s and 1980s, which for theRAF at least was a period of general doctrinalsterility, it would have been difficult to answer.Looking back further to the 1920s and 1930sperhaps, provides a more concrete example of asituation in which doctrine significantly adverselyaffected the development of air power due to anemphasis on the invulnerability of the bomber andthe effect that such aircraft would have on civilianmorale. There was certainly no lack of doctrine in

The 1990-1991 Gulf War . . . the Bosnia and Kosovocampaigns . . . the anti-Taleban war in Afghanistan and therecent war in Iraq, have all demonstrated that air powercreates the battle-space within which the other arms operate

A B-52 unloadsits deadly cargo overAfghanistan

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this case, but the doctrine was poorly conceived.There is a danger that our current doctrine may besimilarly poorly conceived when it comes to thestrategic use of air power.

Why is air power theory important?To summarise the historical sweep of air powerdoctrine and its underlying theory is notstraightforward. What is certain is that muchdoctrine has been based upon on theory that is, tosay the least, built on shallow foundations. Muellersummed this up neatly:

“From Guilio Douhet to John Warden and beyond, theevolutionary history of air power theory is littered withstrategies built on fatally flawed, or just severelyunderdeveloped, coercive mechanisms.”

2

The RAF’s experience between the two World Warsclearly demonstrates the perils of having incorrectdoctrine, and its experiences during World War 2showed the effect of not only poor underlyingtheory, but also of not having translated doctrineinto a technological reality in which it was not alone.Following the doctrinal sterility of the Cold Warperiod, or perhaps more accurately a period wheretactical doctrine received most of the attention ofboth theorists and practitioners, the last 15 years ofair power doctrine have shown a return to ‘classical’theories regarding the strategic use of air power, or

“air power for strategic effect’ as it is now termed: all are generally coercive in nature. What is also clearis that the doctrine and hardware need to becompatible, and that the doctrine must have morethan simply wish-fulfilment behind it if it is to be ofany value: ‘… the trick is to get a better ‘fit’ than theopponent between hardware, doctrine andoperational concepts and, to make things work in thereal world, appropriate organisational adaptions.”

3

“Although the post-war years have again reiterated thepoint that air power cannot act alone and nor can it bethe sole determining factor in the development ofstrategies, it has become abundantly clear thatoperations must be supported by effective and efficientair power.”(John Buckley)

Examination of recent conflicts, together with ahistorical analysis of World War 2 bombingcampaigns, points inevitably toward the conceptof the ‘exchange mechanism’ as being at the veryheart of strategic air power theory. In otherwords, how is the damage caused by highexplosive and metal, or even concrete and metalin these collateral-damage sensitive days,translated into the strategic effect that isrequired?

4Consideration should be given to the

overall models for strategic air power that havebecome obvious so far.

The last 15 years of air power doctrine have . . . shown areturn to ‘classical’ theories regarding the strategic use of airpower, or ‘air power for strategic effect’ as it is now termed

Tornado GR4A

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The first model can conveniently be thought of asthe Morale Model and is represented by thethoughts of such pioneers as Trenchard andDouhet. This was originally predicated upon thereactions of civilian populations to attack from theair, considered ‘proven’ by the response of theBritish populace to German attacks in 1915 and1917, albeit the French response in Paris appearedto be significantly different.

5Although further

experiences between the wars saw this theorystrengthened within the RAF, the case remainedeffectively unproven in World War II, although themorale effect was noted as significant in bombingsurveys.

6The exchange mechanism for this model

has been identified as Combat Stress Reaction7

(CSR), with both positive and negativeconsequences for the theory: bombing needs to beheavy enough to affect significant proportion of thepopulation, and frequent enough for thecumulative effects to build up. Ideally, suchbombing needs to be combined with psychologicalwarfare to heighten fears and sense of futility. Thiscan be extremely effective, as we have seen in theGulf War campaign against Iraqi forces in Kuwaitand Republican Guard in Iraq, but it is unlikely tobe acceptable for use against civilian populationsdue to legal, moral and public opinion restraints.However in a truly dire situation in which survival of the nation is at stake it might, beacceptable. If the alternative is long-term use ofsanctions, a case might also be made that a shortmorale bombing campaign could be ultimately lesscostly in terms of lives than a long period ofsanctions.

The Economic model that was most cogentlyexpressed by the American Army’s Air CorpsTactical School was based on the ‘economic web’theory: within any advanced economy there will be

node points that are so critical that, if taken out, theentire economy will collapse. The exchangemechanism here then is incremental degradation ofthe enemy’s material ability to fight. This certainlydrove the American bombing campaign duringWorld War II, as well as influencing the RAFcampaign, when it had reached the point wheretargets of less than city size could be effectivelytargeted. Both British and American reports onstrategic bombing concentrate on the efficacy of thecampaigns against particular target groups such asthe armament industry, energy or thetransportation systems. While these attacks clearlyhad an impact, in almost all cases this was far lessthan that desired or estimated, due to the degree ofsubstitution and resilience displayed in the targetsystems. Furthermore, although attacks on thetransportation systems towards the end of the warare credited with having appreciably affected theability of Germany to fight on, it could be arguedthat this only had strategic effect due to the landwars that Germany was being forced to fight.Certainly experience in the both the case studiesappears to indicate that this is not a method thatwill easily or rapidly lead to strategic effect.

Finally, the Leadership Model, based upon theoristssuch as Warden and Boyd, looks at either removingor reducing the ability of the enemy’s leadership tocarry out the classic leadership roles of planning,directing, commanding and controlling. In both thecase studies again this turned out to be a far harderconcept to bring to fruition than originallyanticipated. While the recent Iraq War may haveseen the ultimate application of this theory, in termsof the possible assassination of Saddam Hussein,even here it does not appear to have led to animmediate impact on the ability to fight of those leftbehind.

8Furthermore, as Meilinger pointed out

Bombing needs to becombined withpsychological warfareto heighten fears andsense of futility . . . aswe have seen in theGulf War campaignagainst Iraqi forces inKuwait and RepublicanGuard in Iraq

Members of the Republican Guard surrender in Iraq

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while Professor of Strategy at the US Naval WarCollege, air strategists have a difficult enough timeproducing strategy to deal with a ‘similar enemy’where effects and reactions can reasonably beguessed at. If the complications of a dissimilarenemy with very different motivations and statestructures are introduced the problem is magnifiedconsiderably.

9

When a bomb explodes on a target two verydifferent areas are affected: the first being thephysical realm and the second being the socialrealm.

10The former is the one which practitioners

of air power concentrate on. It is possible throughcalculation, trials, careful analysis and targetmatching to be highly confident regarding thedegree of damage that will be inflicted on aparticular target. This can be seen in the languageused by such practitioners. Probability of kill[p(K)], probability of serious damage [p(SD)], CEP— terms used by those who take a scientificapproach to weapons effects. This approach hasbeen read across into the targeting world with theconcept of ‘effects based warfare’ in which acommander will now be asked not just what sort oftargets he wants to hit, but what sort of damage isrequired.

The classic example is that of the power plantwhere differing levels of damage can be inflictedthat will remove it from use for a week, a month ora year — and there can be no doubt that thisapproach has its utility. At the tactical oroperational level, the ability to inflict a certain levelof physical damage in order to produce a particulartactical or operational effect, is absolutely critical.At the same time it is also far easier to work out theequation. If all the enemies’ second echelon forcesare on the far side of a bridge and he has nobridging equipment, destroying the bridge willremove his capability to reinforce or counter-attack.However, at the strategic level this type of causeand effect is generally not what is being sought.

The aim of strategic air power is to be able to reachover fielded forces and directly attack the heart ofthe nation in the form of the general populace andthe opposition’s leadership. However, in this case,the second area is being targeted — the socialrealm. Here the damage mechanism is far less well

understood, perhaps because it does not lend itselfto analysis in the same scientific manner asphysical damage, or because it deals with theeffects of high explosive on flesh, blood and spirit:this is not considered to be a suitable area forstudy. Indeed this may be a reflection of the generaldistancing effect that air power has in terms ofseparating those who deal out destruction fromthose who experience it. Irrespective of the cause itis this area upon which theories of strategic airpower are balanced, whether they include it or not.Both World War II bombing studies, as well asGWAPS, included a significant element of data-gathering and analysis on the subject of the moraleof those subject to strategic bombing. However theintervening years have seen little work in this area,or at least not by air forces. Significant work hasbeen carried out by the armies of a number ofnations in this area. Only here it is not normallyconsidered as the effect of bombing on morale, butof combat on the ability of the individual tofunction, or CSR as it is more commonly known.Examination of the reports of the USSBS inparticular, together with the work done underRAND’s auspices on air war and emotional stresswith particular reference to civil defence whencompared with the GWAPS findings, clearly showsthat CSR is the missing link in the exchangemechanism.

If CSR is the vehicle that turns explosive powerinto action in the social sphere, just what relevancedoes this have for air power theory? The answercomes from work carried out during the Blitz. Thiswas also backed up by the USSBS reports in thattwo different experiences can arise from theexperience of being bombed. In the first case,where individuals have gone through theemotional turmoil of sitting and listening while anattack takes place, but then finds themselves to beunharmed, there is an emotional release resultingin a feeling of invulnerability. Amongst those whohave had this experience, morale is generallyhigher after an attack than before: the worst casescenarios that had played on their minds beforehave not been realised. In the second case, thosewho have suffered near-death or injury during araid, or have had to deal with the immediateaftermath, there are a number of severe, albeitgenerally short-lived, psychological effects ranging

The repeated use of area bombing provided both the concussiveassault and the images of brutally killed and injured comrades.This was particularly successful in terms of producing a state ofmind in which fighting efficiency had virtually disappeared; theonly thoughts in most individuals’ minds was how to survive

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from persistent irritability to a much reducedcapacity for work.

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In the case of the Gulf War, the bombing campaignagainst the Iraqi troops in the Kuwaiti desert wasspecifically designed to heighten the latter effects:leaflet drops gave the time of the next attack andrepeated use of area bombing provided both theconcussive assault and the images of brutally killedand injured comrades. As the interviews with Iraqiprisoners referred to previously attests, this wasparticularly successful in terms of producing a state of mind in which fighting efficiency had virtuallydisappeared; the only thoughts in mostindividuals’ minds was how to survive. However,the experience in major cities in Iraq, as in Belgradeduring the Kosovo crisis, was completely different.Here the use of PGMs for precision bombingallowed the vast majority of the population to goabout their business unharmed, and, to asignificant degree, unaffected by the war.Therefore, most individuals’ experience would be

in line with the first case, where their worst fearswould prove to be groundless, and as a resultmorale would be likely to improve. This certainlyseems to be in line with what actually happened, asin neither case was there any sign of loweringmorale or a popular uprising. Furthermore, themost recent action in Iraq which commenced withthe ‘shock and awe’ air campaign appears to havebeen equally ineffective in terms of producing anydiscernible adverse results, other than damaginginfrastructure and proving that a city could be heavily bombed every night with almost no civilian casualties.

Therefore, the crux of the matter is that an‘exchange mechanism’ for the Morale Model ofstrategic bombing does exist, but it is not as simpleas proponents of ‘classical’ strategic air power seemto believe. It can be extremely effective indestroying morale and bringing about a state ofmind where survival of the individual is the primeconcern of all, but only if used in the correct

Strategic air power may well prove to be extremely humanein terms of minimizing collateral damage, but completelyineffective in producing any effect in the populace supposedlytargeted by such a campaign

A Iraqi missile factorydestroyed in therecent conflict

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manner. Yet this would require a strategy that is notonly contrary to common humanity but also to therules of war. If it is not used in this way, strategic airpower may well prove to be extremely humane interms of minimizing collateral damage, butcompletely ineffective in producing any effect in thepopulace supposedly targeted by such a campaign.

Of course strategic air power could be used totarget the enemy leadership directly, again asappears to have been the case in the recent war inIraq in which case a different mechanism comesinto play, namely decapitation. However, while onemight presume that such an approach is onquestionable legal grounds, as attacks specifically oncivilian leaders are forbidden under the laws of war,there appears to have a been a shift in some legalareas to consider attacks on specific enemy leadersas being allowable.

12On a more practical level as

seen in Iraq, it is difficult to be certain regarding thedeath of a specific individual in an air raid, and therumoured death of Saddam Hussein certainly did notseem to lead to any break down in law and order orany other form of general revolt although it may haveaffected the cohesion of actions aimed at resisting theinvading forces.

Where does this leave the use of strategic airpower? The obvious answer is that it is likely to beeffective only in particular situations. The targetand terrain allow a campaign to be designed toinduce CSR in the majority of the enemy’s forces,and where the loss of fighting ability amongst thefielded forces is likely to be a significant cause forconcern amongst the enemy leadership. This ofcourse agrees with Pape’s views on the mosteffective use of strategic air power, albeit from adifferent perspective. Even here, such an approachis unlikely to always be acceptable to publicaudiences who appear to be coming ever moreintolerant of high levels of casualties on either side.In terms of affecting a civil population directly, theuse of strategic air power is likely to have theopposite effect to that intended. Morale will remainhigh or even increase while a sense of hatred forthose imposing the punishment is also likely toincrease. The most important factor is that doctrineshould reflect these more complex realities in orderto ensure that the strategies devised stand areasonable chance of working.

The latest edition of AP3000 does contain somecautionary notes regarding the use of PGMs:

“If the fear of air power and the uncertainty created bythe unexpected can enhance the ability of air power to beexploited for strategic effect, the very accuracy of PGMsmay work against military utility. The fact that Westernnations are sensitive to loss of life on both sides of aconflict and that forces will be required to limit collateraldamage, could reduce the coercive nature of PGMs.”

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The production of a revised theory of strategic airpower therefore needs to be considered. GroupCaptain Lambert, in particular has not onlyidentified the psychological element in the coerciveuse of strategic air power but has also consideredsome of the effects on coercive theory ending upwith a list of 10 key points.

14Looking at the recent

conflict in Iraq, many of these points appear tohave been fulfilled in the air campaign. If the aimwas to force a regime change without militaryintervention on the ground, it seems to have failed,even in those areas that had previously shownthemselves to be least-loyal to the Iraqi leadership.

It is difficult to conclude that strategic air power,disregarding its use in the nuclear deterrence role,is anything other than a poor instrument forcoercion due to the limitations placed upon it.From a political view it provides many usefulattributes such as allowing highly visiblesignalling of intentions, a rapid response to eventsand the ability to be seen to be doing somethingwithout long-term commitment of forces; it isunrealistic to expect it to achieve significantcoercive effect. However, the recent Iraq conflicthas perhaps shown a new approach which is toutilise the deterrent effect of strategicconventional air power. While the air campaignwithin cities clearly did not incite the type ofsocial unrest that was perhaps sought in Kosovo,it could be seen as providing a clear signal tomembers of the Iraqi armed forces regarding theirbest hope of survival. The ‘shock and awe’campaign appears to have been deliberatelytargeted at highly visible symbols of the Iraqiregime, not to try and coerce the population intorising against it, but to clearly demonstrate theoverwhelming precision, lethality, and freedom ofoperation of coalition air force.

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Looking at the recent conflict in Iraq . . . If the aim was to forcea regime change without military intervention on the ground, it seems to have failed, even in those areas that had previously shown themselves to be least-loyal to the Iraqi leadership

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However, it should be noted that such an approachis not of course strategic air power in the classicalsense, as it is only effective as a prelude to a ground-based invasion where persuading a large proportionof the defending armed forces to either desert orsimply not fight is in their best interests. If this wasthe aim, it certainly appears to indicate that the aircampaign had never been intended to operate in astrategic manner, but simply as a means of shapingthe battle-space for the ground forces. Of course thisis in effect a repetition of what happened during theGulf War of 1990-91, but then Warden’s plan wasbased around forcing the Iraqis to comply with therelevant UNSCRs without committing any groundtroops, although other considerations led to theperceived need to extend the mandate beyondsimply the liberation of Kuwait and restoration ofpeace and security in the region.

Where does this then leave current and futurestrategic air power theory? Perhaps the first step isto produce a far more concise definition of whatstrategic air power actually is. Much of the ongoingdebate has to do with what actually constitutesstrategic air power and confusing the issue withsuch terms as ‘air power for strategic effect’ isunhelpful. A definition that provides a usefulstarting point is that strategic air power represents theuse of air power alone for coercive effect. This has thebenefit of making the strategic use of air powerinstantly identifiable, and Operation EldoradoCanyon instantly springs to mind as an example.As this idealised situation is unlikely to exist often

in the real world, a more realistic definitionperhaps is that strategic air power represents the use ofair power as the primary armed force in a theatrecampaign with coercive intent, or, alternatively, thestrategic use of air power is reflected in a coercivetheatre campaign where air power is the supported arm.

16

This removes the problem of defining what type ofair power is to be used, although as the effect thatis sought is coercive in nature this is likely torequire the application of force, hence ‘aggression’in a general manner is contained within thedefinition.It also covers both compellent anddeterrent activities, and the fact that it is being usedas the primary mechanism is what differs this useof air power from all other forms.

What sort of theoretical base needs to be associatedwith such a definition, as this will provide theguidance that is required for application? From thehistory of air power in general and the case studiesin particular, it is possible to derive a number ofpropositions regarding the use of strategic airpower: firstly, deterrence is much easier to achievethan compellence; secondly, genuine coercioncannot be achieved in a bloodless manner; thirdly,attacks on economic infrastructure are unlikely tosignificantly affect an enemy’s will to resist;fourthly, attacks on transportation andcommunication systems are unlikely to be effectiveunless combined with other action that requiresclose coordination and movement of enemy forces;and finally, it is extremely difficult to plan andcarry out a genuinely strategic air power campaign.

The FALCON (Force Application and Launch from CONUS)programme is to design, build, and demonstrate a FALCON systemthat can effectively and affordably conduct responsive and flexibleglobal strike missions. In practical terms this is envisaged as areusable hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV)

A reusable hypersoniccruise vehicle (HCV)would be capable oftaking off from aconventional runwayand striking a target9,000 miles away in lessthan two hours, using a12,000 lb payload

20

Taking these elements to a logical conclusion, if thedefinition of air power operating alone is accepted,given the limitations associated with each of themodels of strategic air power already discussed,strategic air power has little or no relevance tofuture conflicts. The very damage mechanisms thatmake it effective also makes it unusable in mostscenarios.

17However, those same mechanisms, as

have been clearly demonstrated in recent conflicts,can be devastatingly effective when used as part ofa co-ordinated, joint, theatre campaign: this iswhere air power’s emphasis should now lie.Effective, strategic air power is dead, but as a battle-space shaping force, strategic air power theory — ifcorrectly utilised — has the potential to afford suchsuperiority that battle-winning performance will bea natural consequence. Or, as a recent Chief of theDefence Staff stated, “Integrated joint operations areour asymmetric advantage”.

18

Such a view is clearly not universally accepted,particularly on the other side of the Atlantic. The USDoD has recently placed a programme solicitation inthe public domain for FALCON (Force Application andLaunch from CONUS). The aim of the programme is‘to design, build, and demonstrate a FALCON systemthat can effectively and affordably conduct responsiveand flexible global strike missions’. In practical terms,this is envisaged as a reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle(HCV) capable of taking off from a conventionalrunway and striking a target 9,000 miles away in lessthan two hours using a 12,000 lb payload of common

aero vehicles (CAVs), cruise missiles and smart bombs.19

The rationale for such a system is that:

‘The US Strategic Command has a critical need forresponsive, effective and affordable conventional strikesto provide deterrence, power projection and coercion,delivering munitions in minutes to hours globally fromCONUS . . . the intent is to hold adversary vitalinterests at risk at all times . . . a system capable ofresponsively and effectively performing these objectiveswould provide a ‘no win’ tactical deterrence againstwhich an enemy’s defenses would be ineffective.’

20

As can be seen from even this brief description, thetheoretical basis underlying the doctrine that hascalled for this technology is an understanding thatthe delivery of conventional munitions from the airwith pinpoint accuracy will in some way provideboth deterrent and coercive effect. And yet such asystem, even if capable of responding within atimescale of two hours, and with accuracy similarto that of current cruise missiles, will still face thesame problem of turning explosive power into arequired effect. Reading between the lines, it wouldappear that the ‘leadership’ model is at the heart ofthis proposal, with the ability to effectively threatenany enemy’s leadership anywhere in the world.The question is how morally and legally acceptablesuch an approach is, which certainly seems to bealmost an assassin-like threat aimed at any would-be enemy’s leaders. As recent experience appears tohave shown, even with real-time targeting the

Strategic air power inthe proposed newdefinition is air powerthat is being used alone,that is, without anyassociated land or seaoperations . . . It is alsobeing used solely forcoercive effect in order toeither compel any enemytowards or deter anenemy from a particularcourse of action

RAF Tornado GR1 aircraft equipped with laser guided bombs

21

elimination of an individual can rarely beabsolutely certain, and therefore the viability ofsuch a system against rogue actors must be suspect.The solicitation may have more to tell the worldabout the collective American psyche regardingdefence in the new millennium than it actuallyoffers in terms of coercive or deterrent power.However it does offer a further vivid illustration ofthe close linkage between theory, doctrine andtechnology.

“Air power means the use of the air to enforce thenational will . . . the primary agent of air power is aweapon system capable of delivering enormous firepower over long distances.”(AP 1300 Operations)

ConclusionThe bottom line is that over the last hundred years ofair power thinking, there has been a gap in the maintheories underlying strategic air power doctrine:there has been little or no analysis of the exchangemechanisms that were required to turn explosivepower into the desired strategic effect. Three modelsof strategic bombing theory have been identified:morale, economic and leadership, each of which isdependent upon a different theory, and thereforeuses a different exchange mechanism. In the case of ‘leadership’ — perhaps the most recentmodel — the mechanism is straightforward. If aleader can be removed or sufficiently isolated fromhis forces, particularly in non-democratic societies,then there is a strong likelihood of confusion thatcan be exploited. However, unless an oppositiongroup is immediately ready to take over the reigns ofpower, such an approach will require some form ofsurface action to utilize the subsequent opportunity;in this case it does not fulfil our criteria for strategicair power. Furthermore the status of such anapproach under international law is still potentiallyproblematic, and as the results obtained thus far withthis approach have been largely negative, it isunlikely to succeed.

On the economic front, the mechanism is basedupon an understanding of the highly interdependentnature of modern societies, whereby identification ofkey or nodal points will allow either the reduction ofessential supplies to an enemy’s armed forces suchthat they are unable to fight, or will produce suchdire conditions amongst the civil population that

they will rise up against their leaders. Howeverexperience has shown that even modern societies arequite resilient to the effects of air attack and whiles theformer is easier to achieve than the latter, again it onlyworks if surface forces are putting the enemy’s forcesin a position where they have to fight, and thereforecannot be considered as truly strategic air power.

This leaves the morale model. Analysis of studiesthat have closely examined the actual effects ofstrategic bombing provides a strong clue to the areaof this closely studied and understood mechanism.Although similar in many respects, it stands somedistance from that of air power. The mechanismrelates to the psychological/social/personal effectsof bombardment rather than the physical, which ofcourse makes it a great deal more difficult to analyseas these effects are not quantifiable in the same wayas material damage.

When used correctly, as in the campaign againstIraq’s fielded forces in Kuwait and the RepublicanGuard units on the Kuwait/Iraq border, it is anextremely effective method of warfare. However,constraints placed by legal and moral considerationsmake it unlikely to be acceptable for anything otherthan attacking an enemy’s fielded forces. Again,such an approach is not really strategic air power,although it could be argued that it is using air powerfor strategic effect.

21Understanding that this is the

mechanism of exchange in strategic bombing allowsa much better analysis of the effectiveness, orotherwise, of recent strategic bombing campaigns inthe post-Cold War era. The predictions that a revisedtheory of strategic air power make appear to standup well, but have severe implications for the utilityof strategic air power in the future.

Strategic air power in the proposed new definition isair power that is being used alone, that is, withoutany associated land or sea operations, except as maybe necessary to create the conditions for the aircampaign to proceed. It is also being used solely forcoercive effect in order to either compel any enemytowards, or deter an enemy from, a particular courseof action. It is not strategic air power if the purposeof the campaign is to shape the battle-space forexploitation by surface forces at a later date.Examination of the three models of strategic airpower show that it can be extremely effective whenused against tangible COGs, where generally a

one of the most central, although generally unstated, reasons forstrategic air power theory and doctrine has been to justify the needfor independent air forces as opposed to aviation arms of the landand sea forces

22

clearly determined link between cause and effect canbe drawn but is far less effective when used againstintangible COGs. The latter case is strengthened bythe fact that the exchange mechanism at the heart ofattacking intangible COGs lies in directly threateningthe audience from whom a reaction is sought, andyet political, moral and legal constraints make thismechanism unlikely to be acceptable.

Taking all of these points together, and applyingthem to the case studies examined as well as bothhistoric and even more recent campaigns seems toclearly imply that the idea of strategic conventionalair power is dead. The Elysium of making warwhich utilised an approach that bypassed anenemy’s fielded forces and took the conflict to theheart of the enemy’s nations has never worked, andis increasingly less likely to do so in the face ofmessy conflicts involving rogue states and sub-stateactors. However, this should not be seen as an attackon the value of air power overall. While it iscontended that strategic air power has no future, theuse of air power to create the battle space withinwhich surface forces operate has, arguably, becomethe prime role for air forces. No surface force inrecent years has triumphed in a conflict unless it hashad air supremacy, and in two notable cases thebattle space was so shaped by air power that landforces in particular enjoyed casualty ratios thatwould have been undreamt of only a few decadesago. Furthermore, the synergistic use of air power,with parallel campaign lines and an integratedtheatre plan, clearly provides results that no singleforce could produce by themselves. The greatestsuccess requires a clear understanding of theapplicability of the theories and exchangemechanisms behind of all three models of strategicair power.

Of course one of the most central, althoughgenerally unstated, reasons for strategic air powertheory and doctrine has been to justify the need forindependent air forces as opposed to aviation armsof the land and sea forces. This has been true fromthe painful birth and early gestation of the RAF inthe 1920s through the formation of the USAF in thelate 1940s, and has even risen in the wake of the Iraqwar where calls have again been heard for thereintegration of the RAF into the British Army toallow for better close air support. While the lessonsof history with regard to strategic air power are

clear, they are equally clear with regard to the valueof the independent air arm. The Luftwaffe at thebeginning of World War II plainly represented theevolution of an air arm that was subordinated to theland and left itself unable to conceive of control ofthe air as being the most important requirement forany air force — and eventually paid the price forsuch a mistake.

The death of ‘true’ or ‘classical’ strategic air powershould therefore not be seen as a threat to the needfor independent air forces. Rather, it should be seenas a springboard for air power theory and doctrineto concentrate on more productive areas such ashow best to shape the battle space within whichsurface forces will have to operate, in which much ofwhat lay at the heart of strategic air power theoryhas a great deal to offer. As Williams stated in histhoughts on NATO in the 21st century,

“Air power acting as a single component of militarypower by itself is almost certainly unlikely to repel ordefeat a ground invasion launched by sophisticated highintensity forces. But the use of air power can erode thematerial strength and will of forces on the ground to anextent unimaginable in the Second World War, forexample.”

22

This reality needs to be applied to our currentdoctrine of strategic air power that simply does notreflect the true strategic situation and could beconsidered as simply a repository for airborne tasksthat do not fit into any other categories. Bearing inmind that the same theories that are discredited asfar as strategic air power is concerned could andshould represent a vital element of campaignplanning against an enemy’s armed forces, it couldbe argued that all the discussion of strategic airpower is simply a matter of semantics, but thiswould be a gross oversimplification. The doctrinepossessed by the RAF, whether formal or informal,will drive the use of air power in the next conflict. Ifat the heart of that doctrine is a belief that a conflictcan be won by the use of air power alone, this islikely to result in a considerable wasting of scarceresources which can be ill afforded. Alternatively, ifthe doctrine contains a clear exposition of the waysthat air power can operate with surface and sub-surface force to greater synergistic effect, it is likelyto increase the chances of success and decrease theoverall costs.

23

Notes

1 Waltz, man the state and war, p2.2 Mueller, ‘The Essence of Coercive Air Power: A Primer for

Military Strategists’, p53.3 Watts, ‘Doctrine, Technology and Air Warfare’, p34.4 In order to minimise collateral damage in Iraq, in some cases

LGBs were used that had a concrete (i.e. non-explosive) centre,

relying on kinetic energy only for destructive effect.

Unattributable interview at RAF Wyton 2 May 03.5 Perhaps because the population in Paris had already

experienced artillery bombardment, and hence the same initial

shock was not so evident.

76 The official Report of the British Bombing Survey unit quotes

Speer, the German Armament Minister, as saying that “the

outlook of the people was often poor, but their behaviour was

always excellent.” (‘The Strategic Air War Against Germany 1939-

1945: Report of the British Bombing Survey Unit’, p77.)7 This term is arguably the most recent to be used to describe the

psychological as opposed to physical effects of war; previous

terminology has included shell-shock, battle fatigue, and Lack of

Moral Fibre (LMF).8 Although the implied change in the American view on

assassination (see previous chapter) is noteworthy.9 Meilinger, ‘Air Targeting Strategies: An Overview’ p65.10 Or alternatively, the physical (kinetic) effects, targeted against

capability, and the cognitive effects, targeted against will.

McNicoll, ‘Effects Based Air Operations: Air Command and

Control and the Nature of the Emerging Battle-space’, p39.11 Janis, Air War and Emotional Stress, p83.12 In cases where an enemy leader is also the effective head of the

armed forces, they are considered to be a legitimate target for

attack.13 Air Publication 3000 (3rd Edition), p2.6.11.14 Lambert, ‘Coercion and Air power’, p292.15 Codner, ‘An Initial Assessment of the Combat Phase’, p10.16 Correspondence from D Def S dated 10 June 2003.17 Although in a situation of dire extremity, such as a war of

national survival, such limitations might not have such force. The

current RAF force structure is unlikely to allow such application

of conventional force however, which would only leave the

coercive effect of the Royal Navy’s SLBMs.18 Boyce, ‘Achieving Effect; Annual Chief of Defence Staff

Lecture’, p34.19 DARPA Solicitation 03-XX, p1.20 Ibid, p3.21 And notwithstanding the argument that a short brutal war may

in the long run be more humane than a drawn-out set of economic

sanctions.22 Williams, ‘NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance in the 21st

Century’, p203.

24

25

Douglas B-26 Invaders. The B-26 light bomber served in thenight intruder role throughout the war

IIn 1986, the current United States Air ForceHistorian, Dr Richard Hallion, wrote The NavalAir War in Korea. In the final chapter, Hallion

commented on the debate arising out of the warbetween “those who denigrated air power asmarginal and those who saw it as decisive”. Tounderstand the origins of this debate one should beaware that the Korean War broke out in a periodwhen America was rationalising the roles andmissions of its fighting services. One significantresult of this rationalisation was that, in 1947, theUnited States Air Force achieved its independencefrom the Army as a fighting force in its own right.In a climate of change and inter-service rivalry, itwas inevitable that the war should raise questions

about the relative contributions of the services andtheir roles. It was a debate which continuedthroughout the war and has subsequentlyinfluenced various historical accounts.

According to Hallion, both parties in this debate“missed the point”. In the first instance they failedto acknowledge “the importance of the rules ofengagement in determining the outcome of airpower application” in Korea. Hallion, a scholarwith a profound understanding of the contributionair power can make to combat, was referring topolitical strictures which prevented strategicbombing missions against bases in Manchuria.Accordingly, air power simply could not function

By Dr John Mordike

The Korean War1950-1953

Land-Air Aspects

The Korean War1950-1953

Land-Air Aspects

27

First published by the Aerospace Centre, Fairburn,Australia and reproduced with the kind permission of the author and editor

in the same way as it had in World War II. Inaddition to ignoring these particular rules ofengagement, Hallion believed that the debate all toooften omitted a fundamental realisation about thevery nature of warfare itself. Warfare, he observed,is “inevitably a combined arms exercise”. Air power,like land power and sea power, was only one partof “the war-fighting triad”. “Air power on its owncould not win the Korean war, any more than theother two,” Hallion emphasised.

1

The Korean war, like other wars of the modern era,was conducted by forces operating in the land, seaand air environments. But air power gave UnitedNations Command forces a distinct advantage overthe North Korean and Chinese forces. It cannot bestressed too much that United Nations Commandenjoyed control of the air from the first few days ofits involvement. At the time North Korea launchedits invasion its Air Force completely outclassed thediminutive South Korean Air Force. Yet theadvantage was not maintained for long. Theinvaders possessed less than 200 propeller-drivenRussian aircraft of World War II vintage, butUnited Nations Command deployed some 650aircraft to the theatre in the first month of the war,gaining immediate control of the air. Within sixmonths, United Nations Command air assetsnumbered in excess of 1,400 aircraft, many of themjet fighters and jet fighter-bombers.

2Significantly,

these air assets also maintained control of the air

for friendly forces after China entered the war withits force of modern MiG-15s. This meant that theland forces of United Nations Command couldoperate with little fear of enemy air strikes.

3

Control of the air meant that friendly air powercould concentrate to a high degree and punish theenemy ground forces quite severely. At certainstages during the war, the tactical application of airpower was decisive. Understandably, it is in thistactical role — specifically the close air support role— that land forces are most aware of air power’scontribution to the battle. John Terraine commentedon the land force perspective when he observed that“[f]or the ordinary soldier, air support is thesupport that he can see”.

4Yet there are other forms

of air support that are rarely seen by the ordinarysoldier which, nevertheless, can have a decisiveimpact on the battle. In Korea, interdictionconsumed a significant amount of effort in anattempt to use air power to deny the enemysupplies and reinforcements by cutting his lines ofcommunication with his rear areas. However, airpower used in this role did not achieve the samesuccess as it did in close air support. Hallionbelieved that interdiction operations “resulted inlarge numbers of aircraft lost for relatively meager[sic] gains”. “While it is an exaggeration to statethat it failed,” he concluded, “it clearly did notsucceed. At best, interdiction complicated theCommunists’ efforts to supply their front.”

5

At the time North Korea launched its invasion its Air Forcecompletely outclassed the diminutive South Korean Air Force. Yet the advantage was not maintained for long . . . UnitedNations command deployed some 650 aircraft to the theatre inthe first month of the war, gaining immediate control of the air

F9F Panther,the stalwartof US navyoperationsin Korea

28

This paper discusses aspects of land-air operations,specifically the way in which the two air roles ofclose air support and interdiction contributed to thebattle. However, before discussing these roles, theconduct of the war is reviewed.

A review of the warThe North Koreans gained the element of surprise.The invaders organised and assembled their forcesfor a sudden, all-out attack across the 38th parallelwith the aim of subjugating the Republic of Korea.At 0400 hours on 25 June 1950, to use GeneralDouglas MacArthur’s words, some 10 divisions ofthe North Korean People’s Army “struck like acobra”. Columns of invading infantry, spear-headed by Soviet-made T-34 tanks, stabbed deepinto the southern republic.

6An underarmed

Republic of Korea Army was hard-pressed to holdthe well-armed invaders. Quickly reinforced by ill-prepared American Army forces which had beenpart of the occupation force in Japan, the defendingforces, now nominally under United NationsCommand, found themselves holding a perimeteraround the south Korean port of Pusan.

In early September more substantial reinforcementsarrived including the 3rd Battalion, The RoyalAustralian Regiment. The Australian battalion wasa component of the 27th British CommonwealthBrigade. Although the situation was at firstdesperate, these reinforcements began to tip thebalance in favour of the defenders of the Pusanperimeter, who had been organised as a United

Nations force called the Eighth Army. But thecommander-in-chief of United Nations Commandtook a daring step. On 15 September, MacArthurlanded X Corps, comprised predominantly of theFirst Marine Division and the Seventh InfantryDivision, at Inchon midway up the west coast ofKorea, effectively outflanking the North Koreaninvaders. One week later, the Eighth Army brokethrough at the Pusan perimeter, scattering theNorth Korean Army before it.

7

Encouraged by these developments, PresidentTruman decided upon the objective of thereunification of Korea. MacArthur went on theoffensive. As the Eighth Army pushed its waynorth along the western side of the Koreanpeninsula, the X Corps was withdrawn fromInchon to be landed, towards the end of October, atthe North Korean port of Wonsan on the east coastof the peninsula. The commander-in-chief’s aimwas the complete destruction of the communistforces in Korea, a task which would take UnitedNations Command troops across the 38th parallelinto North Korea and up to the Yalu River, thenorthern border with Manchuria. By mid-Octoberthe North Korean capital of Pyongyang was taken.It appeared that MacArthur was well on the way toachieving his objective.

Although progress was encouraging, there wereominous signs from 25 October to 6 November thatthe war could assume disturbing proportions.Elements of the Eighth Army and X Corps were

The commander-in-chief’s aim was thecomplete destruction ofthe communist forces inKorea, a task whichwould take UnitedNations Command troopsacross the 38th parallelinto North Korea

29

suddenly attacked by Chinese troops — a new forceon the battlefield. Not pressing on with these initialattacks, the Chinese withdrew. Pausing briefly totake stock, the United Nations Command forceresumed its northward advance, but on the night of26 November the Eighth Army and X Corps weresubjected to intense attack by Chinese forces ofconsiderable strength. This time the Chineseoffensive was sustained, putting the United NationsCommand force under a severe test.

The entry of Chinese forces changed the characterof the war dramatically. In the west, the UnitedStates Second Division, an element of the EighthArmy, was surrounded by Chinese forces in theChongchon valley, and, in the east, the X Corps’First Marine Division and parts of the SeventhInfantry Division were also surrounded at theChosin Reservoir. Although the Marines wouldmanage their subsequent withdrawal with greatercompetence, the Second Infantry Division suffered

a casualty rate of some 30 per cent and lostvirtually all of its equipment. In a recent analysis ofthe war, Eliot Cohen and John Gooch referred tothis episode and its immediate outcome as a seriesof ‘costly and humiliating defeats’. Such was thedebacle that in the period leading up to Christmasthe United Nations Command forces “tumbledsouth, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized [sic]MacArthur to begin planning for the liquidation ofthe Korean commitment”.

8It was a complete

turnaround of military fortunes; the defeat andreversal of the North Korean invasion during Julyto September now appeared a futile effort.

At the close of 1950, the appointment of GeneralMatthew Ridgway as commander of the EighthArmy brought a new phase in the war. Revitalisedby Ridgway’s leadership and his insistence onapplying the fundamentals of sound tacticalprocedures, Eighth Army took stock of itself and, ina few months, completed a successful advance

No 77 Squadron was one element of FEAF that wasproficient in the ground attack role . . . The squadronwas to play a part far out of proportion to its modest size

No 77 Squadron wasinitially equipped withF-51 Mustangs whichwere perceived to bebetter armed and moredurable for groundattack than theLockheed F-80 ShootingStar

30

north regaining Seoul in March and adopting aposition close to the 38th parallel. From about mid-1951 a seesaw war of stalemate followed until the armistice of July 1953. It was during thisphase in April 1952 — that the 1st Battalion, TheRoyal Australian Regiment, arrived in Korea. Itwas relieved by the 2nd Battalion a year later.

Land-air operationsThe air component of United Nations Commandwas comprised of three separate organisations: the United States Air Force’s Far East Air Forces(FEAF), principally its Fifth Air Force whichincluded the RAAF’s No 77 Squadron equippedwith the F-51 Mustang; the 1st Marine Air Wing;and the United States Navy’s carrier air groupsbelonging to the Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 77.

9

Among these, the principal component was FEAF.

Formerly responsible for the air defence of Japanagainst a possible Soviet attack, FEAF was not wellprepared for the war it suddenly found itselfengaged in. Commanded by Lieutenant GeneralGeorge Stratemeyer, FEAF’s training hadconcentrated on air defence and air superiorityroles. It was taken by surprise when PresidentTruman authorised MacArthur to use this air forceto supply the South Koreans with ammunition andequipment and to assist in the evacuation of non-combatants on the very day the invasioncommenced. One day later, the American presidentremoved all restrictions on operations by UnitedStates’ air and naval assets in providing support toSouth Korea on the southern side of the 38thparallel. On 29 June MacArthur was authorised toextend air operations into North Korea.

10

The commitment to battle of land forces also camewithout warning. Like FEAF, the first ground forcecomponent to be thrust into the battle — theUnited States’ 24th Infantry Division — was ill-prepared for active service and undermanned. Each of its regiments had had one infantrybattalion removed from its strength, and thedivisional allocation of artillery, armour andautomatic weapons had been slashed toaccommodate reductions in appropriations.” It was

the initial shortage of organic fire support whichwas to make air support critical in the first sixmonths of the war. But putting problems with thefighting units to one side, it quickly becameevident that there were problems with the force’scommand structure.

The command structure for the United NationsCommand force evolved out of the commandorganisation established for the occupation ofJapan. General Douglas MacArthur, as the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan,became the Commander-in-Chief, United NationsCommand. Yet, as Robert O’Neill points out in theAustralian official history on the Korean war, thecommand system that MacArthur had establishedin Japan “possessed some glaring deficiencies”. The most notable omission was the absence of ajoint service headquarters.

12This was contrary to

the thrust of American post-World War II defencedevelopments where, as Robert Futrell, theAmerican official historian of the air war, explains: the “theater [sic] commander wasexpected to stand separately from his own serviceand to provide the command authority over thetheater ground, sea, and air forces, which wouldcooperatively employ their capabilities to attain thetheater mission”.

13As early as 1946 the American

Joint Chiefs of Staff had directed the establishmentof joint staffs, but MacArthur had made no realeffort to implement this direction within his owncommand system. This deficiency was taken intothe Korean war, leading to problems in utilisingUnited Nations Command forces to their fulleffectiveness. Not only did the force consist of army,navy, air force and marine components but it alsoincluded significant air elements from the marinesand the navy. Indeed, indicating the potentialproblems for organising and implementing airoperations, the three air components were notunder the direction of any single air commander.

14

Robert Futrell believed that:

“at the outset of the Korean war, the defective theater[sic] command system prevented the fullest employmentof air power, delayed the beginning of a comprehensiveair-interdiction program for more than a month, and . . .

The Australian squadron demonstrated their particular proficiency by blasting the train off the rails . . . It was not until after theyhad returned to their base in Japan that the Australian pilots learned that the trucks had been carrying South Korean soldiers and American troops of the 24th Division

31

caused confusion and loss of effectiveness at the verytime that every single aircraft sortie was vital to thesurvival of the Eighth Army in Korea.”

“Had he possessed a joint headquarters staff,”Futrell asserted, “General MacArthur might neverhave encountered these mischievous problems.”

15

Not only did the command system result ininefficiencies, such as navy and air forcecomponents independently selecting and attackingthe same targets, but it also led to confusion and,for aircraft at least, a degree of danger as theyoperated in an unfamiliar environment andrelatively restricted air space. The system alsoproduced extensive delays between the reportingof targets and the assignment of strike aircraft. Thiswas to have tragic consequences for No 77Squadron on the second day of its operations in thewar: 3 July 1950.

16

No 77 Squadron was one element of FEAF that wasproficient in the ground attack role. This was aparticular strength which led O’Neill to say that inthe early stages of the war the squadron was toplay a part “far out of proportion to its modestsize”. No 77 Squadron was also equipped with F-51Mustangs which were perceived to be better armedand more durable for ground attack than theLockheed F-80 Shooting Star then in service withAmerican squadrons.

17Therefore, it was probably

no accident that No 77 Squadron was alerted whenthe Fifth Air Force headquarters in Itazuke, Japan,received a report of a North Korean convoyheading southwards through a particular area. Thisinformation had taken several hours in its passagethrough MacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo beforeit reached the air force operations officers. As aresult, the assignment of the target to No 77Squadron was based on an estimate of the likelylocation of the convoy when the aircraft arrived inthe area of operations. Despite doubts by the pilotsand reassurances from forward air control aircraft,an attack against a southward bound locomotiveand a road convoy was subsequently authorised. Itwas their first ground attack mission, but membersof the Australian squadron demonstrated theirparticular proficiency by blasting the train off therails, onto its side, and hitting many of the truckson the road during 20 minutes of rocketing andstrafing. It was not until after they had returned to

their base in Japan that the Australian pilotslearned that the trucks had been carrying SouthKorean soldiers and American troops of the 24thDivision. Furthermore, the train had been ladenwith American ammunition. Making mattersworse, the attack had been witnessed by severalnewspaper reporters, one of whom identified theaircraft as Australian. The tragic incident was thesubject of extensive reporting in Americannewspapers on the following day.

The subsequent investigation revealed seriousdefects in the Fifth Air Force’s target allocationsystem. The delay was attributed to MacArthur’scommand system, which forbade direct contactbetween the forward air operations staff in Koreaand Fifth Air Force Headquarters in Japan.Effectively, this meant that requests for tactical airsupport in Korea were to be passed back throughEighth Army channels to MacArthur’sheadquarters in Tokyo before being referred to AirForce operational staff. One senior American officerdescribed it as “a shameful way to operate”.MacArthur authorised direct contact on thefollowing day. Responsibility for the wholedisastrous episode was accepted fully by theAmericans. Along with other problems in thosehectic first few weeks of the war, it resulted inimproved procedures.

18For example, within a few

days of this incident, MacArthur issuedinstructions for the establishment of a realisticbombline and the need to report changes in thisline at periodic intervals during each day.

19Steps

were also taken to rationalise the command system.“Belatedly,” Futrell observed, “at the end of July,improvised procedures brought some order to thefantastically confused command situation in theFar East, but these extempore arrangements neverachieved the full fruits of unification.”

20

The intense activity which resulted from attempts tohalt the well-organised invasion of South Korea alsoproduced another controversy over the subject ofclose air support for land forces. Fighting a desperatebattle from the beleagured position of the Pusanperimeter, close air support played a vital role in thedefence. However, the debate which followed — itlasted almost for the duration of the war —concerned the relative benefits of two differentsystems of providing close air support. One systemhad been developed during World War II by the

With the brigade’s air group of three Corsair squadrons — some 48 aircraft — providing dedicated air support, the result was anarresting display of combat power

32

United States Army Air Forces (as it was then called)and the other system had evolved out of MarineCorps and Navy operations in the same war.

The Army and the Air Force had developed atightly structured approach to close air supportwhich was intended to have the capacity to dealwith a battlefront spread over a wide front, perhapscovering hundreds of miles. Because the operationsinvolved Army and Air Force, Air Force doctrineprovided for the establishment of a JointOperations Centre (JOC), staffed by Air Force andArmy personnel. An Air Force Tactical Air ControlCentre (TACC) would be located adjacent to theJOC. Tactical Air Control Parties (TACP), whichincluded a Forward Air Controller (FAC), would belocated forward with the land force. Normally, theFAC was an Air Force pilot who was supported bytwo airmen in a radio-equipped vehicle. Whenclose air support was required, the FAC would passthe request by radio to the headquarters of thedivision being supported. Division would thenrelay the request up to corps headquarters, whowould pass it to the JOC. Subject to competingpriorities for air support, the TACC would thencontact the appropriate airfield and aircraft wouldbe scrambled. The pilots might also receive a pre-flight briefing. In flight, the aircraft would report to

the TACP and receive final instructions beforeattacking the target. As an indication, this processmight take 40 minutes if handled expeditiously.

21

The Army-Air Force concept of close air supporthad evolved on a very important premise: theArmy’s requirement for close fire support would beprovided in the first instance by its own organicartillery. Within its effective range, the Armyconsidered artillery to be the principal source offire support. Beyond the range of the guns, theArmy considered air support to be the principalweapon. For this reason, in Korea, the bomblinetended to coincide with the range limit of artillerysupport. Similarly, Air Force considered that, indelivering support, it would seldom be closer thanone kilometre to ground forces. Therefore, therewas room for debate whether this form of close airsupport could be considered to have beenintegrated with land force operations in theintimate way that artillery close support was.According to its accepted definition at that time,close air support was “air action against hostilesurface targets which are so close to friendly forcesas to require detailed integration of each airmission with the fire and movement of thoseforces”.

22Despite any conjecture about the Army-

Air Force concept of close air support, it had been

The Marine air strikes were quick, devastating North Koreandefensive positions. It was the kind of close air support Marinesexpected, but it came as a revelation to the Army Officers whoshared the experience

US TBM-3R Avenger

33

developed to accommodate the requirements andpreferences of the Army while reflecting certainestablished principles for the employment of airpower. In his study of close air support in Korea,Allan Millett observed that:

“the Army did not expect integrated close air support,and the Air Force did not intend to deliver it exceptunder carefully circumscribed conditions: clearly markedtargets and readily identified friendly troops positions,positive observed direction from Air Force ground or aircontrollers, near absolute safety from friendly artilleryfire, and employment only against targets that could notbe attacked with heavy artillery.”

23

The Marine-Navy concept of close air support hadbeen developed in the war in the South-WestPacific. Unlike the system developed for Army, thisform of close support was in the first instance asubstitute for artillery, and, therefore, afundamental necessity for lightly-armed Marineswho lacked the traditional land force artillerysupport. Accordingly, a Marine division couldnormally expect the support of a Marine air wing,which was a small-scale tactical air force. Duringamphibious landings, Marines could utilise navalgunfire to some extent but, as there were limits toits application, close air support was stillrecognised as vital. In a similar fashion to artillerysupport, Navy and Marine strike aircraft woulddeliver fire support within 50 to 200 metres ofground forces. These air strikes were controlled byTactical Air Control Parties (TACP) located with theforward troops, normally at battalion level. TACPswould radio requests for close air support direct toa Marine brigade’s Tactical Air Direction Centre(TADC), which had direct contact with aircraftcarriers and the aircraft.

24

The vital aspects of the Marine-Navy close airsupport system were its rapid response time and itsdecentralised control of sorties. By eliminating therequirement for intervening ground forceheadquarters to process requests, the Marine-Navysystem was able to deliver an air strike withinminutes. Response times were further reducedbecause Marine operations were generallyconducted within a relatively contained geographicarea, perhaps in close proximity to aircraft carriers;without the requirement to conserve fuel forextensive transit between air bases and the area of

operations, aircraft could be kept airborne and ‘on-call’ over ground troops for long periods. In anemergency, execution of Marine-Navy air strikesproceeded on the assumption that liaison betweenground and air representatives at the battalion levelhad determined that air support was to be utilisedin the particular instance rather than artillery ornaval gunfire, thus removing the complication ofseeking clearances.

25

There were benefits in both the Army-Air Forceand the Marine-Navy systems of close air support,but, when they witnessed the latter system inoperation in the first six months of the war, someArmy officers, notably General Almond,commander of X Corps, argued that the Marine-Navy system should be adopted as thestandard with Army having its own organic airsupport.

26The case put by these Army officers

gained inspiration from such operations as the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade’s defence of thePusan perimeter in August 1950. With the brigade’s air group of three Corsair squadrons —some 48 aircraft — providing dedicated airsupport, the result was an arresting display ofcombat power. Allan Millett referred to theoperation as a “four-week virtuoso performance inclose air support”.

27

One of the Corsair squadrons operated from Japan,but the other two squadrons were launched fromtwo escort carriers. The carrier-launched squadronswere only minutes from the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade’s position and could remain on-station forup to four hours, ready for immediate response.The Marine pilots, 70 per cent of whom were WorldWar II veterans, were extensively trained in closeair support, the stock-in-trade for their squadrons.An FAC was located with each battalion, a TACCwas located adjacent to the brigade fire supportcoordination centre (FSCC), and the brigade’sdeputy commander was an aviation officer. TheMarine air strikes were quick, devastating NorthKorean defensive positions, their mobileformations and their artillery positions. More thanhalf of the Marine sorties were directed againsttargets about 1 kilometre from the forward troops.“It was the kind of close air support Marinesexpected”, Millett observed, “but it came as arevelation to the Army Officers who shared theexperience.”

28

The interrogation of some 2,000 North Korean prisoners indicated that more than half of North Korea’s equipment losses and one-third of their casualties were the result of damage inflicted by aircraft

34

Hallion records that the effectiveness of Marineclose air support in the Pusan perimeter“astonished Army troops fighting alongside theLeathernecks”. The apparent ease of calling in anair strike and the “overwhelming response addedfuel to the [close air support] fires raging betweenthe services”. But Hallion points out that therewere a number of reasons favourable to the Marineperformance. The prime ones were the shortdistance from the carriers to the battle, the smallsize of the battle front, bad weather interruptingAir Force support (which at that stage in the warhad to come from Japan), the superior enduranceand load-carrying capacity of the Corsairs, and theproficient relationship between the controller of thestrike and the aircraft.

29Other considerations that

Hallion did not mention were that such a level ofair support was dependent upon maintainingcontrol of the air, that the dedicated support of 48Corsairs was extremely expensive in terms offinancial cost and asset distribution, and that therewas a requirement for other air assets to conductconcurrent operations. Yet the Marine performancemade “an indelible impression on the younginfantrymen confronting a seemingly invinciblefoe”. “They cared little about the details of [closeair support],” Hallion concluded, ‘they only knewthat it saved their lives.”

30

In the first six months of the war there were othernotable displays of the Marine-Navy system ofclose air support. The two most significant beingthe Inchon landing, which saw the landing forcesupported by an overwhelming application ofNavy and Marine close air support, and the otherbeing the withdrawal of the First Marine Divisionfrom the Chosin Reservoir.

31These episodes added

With air superiority assured by FEAF’s dominant airpower capability and the competence of its pilots, theNorth Korean forces suffered overwhelming damage

Boeing B-29s of the Yokota-based 92nd bomb groupprepare to attack targets inNorth Korea

NORTHKOREA

CHINA

KOREAN WAR 1950-1953

SOUTHKOREA

Pusan

Pusanperimeter

InchonAmphibiouslanding atInchon15 September1950

Furthest advance byNorth Korean forcesSeptember 1950

Furthestadvance byChinese andNorth Koreanforces January1951

SEOUL

PYONGYANG

38th Parallel

ChineseinterventionOctober 1950

After three years of attack and counter-attack, with both sides pushing back theother into its own territory, the result wasa settlement on new boundaries whichdiffered little from their pre-warpositions.

Armistice line27th July 1953

Extent of UNadvanceNovember 1950

35

further impetus to calls for changes to the Army-Air Force system of close air support.

The chief Army proponent for changing the closeair support system was General Almond,commander of X Corps. In December 1950 and July1951, Almond recommended that each corpscommander should have operational control over aforce of fighter-bombers equivalent to one groupfor each division. He also recommended that eachinfantry battalion should have a TACP, with thebattalion commander having the power to sendrequests for air support direct to a TADC at corpsheadquarters, which, in turn, would order themission flown.

Despite such arguments and the general acceptancethat the Marine-Navy system had performedimpressively in Korea, there was not a universalcall for change. Firstly, it was recognised that thiswar was one where United Nations Commandenjoyed control of the air. If this were not the case,then the Marine-Navy system would not havelooked so impressive. Also World War II experiencehad demonstrated the problems of dividing airsupport into ‘penny packets’. Furthermore, theadoption of the Marine-Navy system to support aforce of 60 to 100 divisions would be prohibitivelyexpensive. Most significantly, it was only theArmy-Air Force system that had the capacity toconcentrate all available air power — the FEAFBomber Command, the Fifth Air Force, the SeventhFleet, and the 1st Marine Air Wing — on specificsectors of the front line. In addition to all of theseconsiderations, it was considered important tounderstand that the Marine-Navy and the Army-Air Force systems had been developed toaccommodate the requirements of two distinct setsof circumstances. In August 1952, General MarkClark, the then Commander-in-Chief of UnitedNations Command, rejected demands for changes

in the Army-Air Force system of close air support,effectively ending the debate.

32

The debate over the benefits of two systems shouldnot draw attention from the important role airpower played in the early months of the war.General Walker, as commander of the Eighth Army,asserted that it was tactical air support whichallowed United Nations Command to remain in theKorea in the hectic first few months of the war andthen to advance towards the Yalu River.

33An

analysis of this period of the war by Eliot Cohenand John Gooch supports this view and revealsthat, in the few weeks before China entered thewar, “intelligence confirmed what Americancommanders had long believed: American airpower had paralyzed [sic] the North KoreanPeople’s Army”.

The interrogation of some 2,000 North Koreanprisoners indicated that more than half of NorthKorea’s equipment losses and one-third of theircasualties were the result of damage inflicted byaircraft. This was twice the rate of damage toequipment and the same rate of damage topersonnel as inflicted by artillery. The Far EastCommand intelligence assessment concluded that“tactical air support was the greatest single factorcontributing to the successful conduct of UN groundoperations against the . . . invader”. Emphasising itsimportance, Cohen and Gooch claimed that “[a]irpower, not the Inchon landing . . . blocked thesuccess and weakened the grip of the North Koreansinvesting the Pusan perimeter”. Eighth Armythought very highly of its air support, theyobserved, “and analysis proved it right to do so”.

34

The North Korean force was particularlyvulnerable to air attack. It was a conventionalmechanised army, organised and equipped onSoviet lines, and dependent upon fuel, ammunition

The Chinese were a lightly armed andequipped peasant army, able toinfiltrate through the countryside andto survive on provisions requisitionedfrom local farmers; in the short term,they were not dependent on convoys of trucks for resupply . . . In short, theChinese force was a completelydifferent type of opponent

36

and stores in large quantities. Resupplied by truckconvoy and railways, its logistical tail providedmany targets. It was also apparent that the NorthKoreans were not trained to deal with air attacks.

35

With air superiority assured by FEAF’s dominantair power capability and the competence of itspilots, the North Korean forces sufferedoverwhelming damage. It all served to makeMacArthur and his staff extremely optimistic as theUnited Nations Command forces broke out of thePusan perimeter and headed for North Korea. Yet,in their study, Cohen and Gooch are at pains topoint out that, while air power had a dramatic,perhaps decisive, impact on the North Koreans, itwas a mistake to expect that air power would havethe same impact on the Chinese. “MacArthur didnot simply discount Chinese intervention,” theyasserted, “but he thought he had the antidote to it,in the form of broken bridges, strafed roads andtracks, and if necessary, incinerated villages andtowns.” Reflecting his confidence in UnitedNations Command air power, the Commander-in-Chief assured President Truman in October 1950that “if the Chinese tried to get down toPyongyang there would be the greatestslaughter”.

36He believed that the Chinese armies

would be crushed at the Yalu River. Yet it should benoted that MacArthur’s claim was not supportedby Lieutenant General Stratemeyer, commander ofFEAF, and Major General Partridge, commander ofthe Fifth US Air Force.

37

There were some important differences betweenthe North Korean forces and the Chinese forces.The average North Korean division had some 200hundred vehicles but a Chinese division had none.Where the North Koreans had some 40 artillerypieces in each division, the Chinese had nine light76 mm howitzers. The North Koreans had fourtimes the number of heavy machine guns as theChinese and more anti-tank weapons. However,the Chinese had more light machine guns andmore light mortars. Essentially, the Chinese were alightly armed and equipped peasant army, able toinfiltrate through the countryside and to survive onprovisions requisitioned from local farmers; in theshort term, they were not dependent on convoys oftrucks for resupply. Their tactics were alsodifferent, capitalising on their strengths anddiminishing their weaknesses. They attacked

mainly by night, probing, enveloping andintimidating the opposing force, using largequantities of hand grenades, light machine gunsand mortar fire. In short, the Chinese force was acompletely different type of opponent. When FarEast Command intelligence assessments concludedthat the Chinese force was an inferior version of theNorth Korean force, they missed this vital point.The North Koreans were a conventional forcesusceptible to the type of war the United NationsCommand force expected to fight, the type ofwarfare that had been experienced in World War II.The North Koreans were extremely vulnerable toair warfare as it was conducted by FEAF, but theChinese were not; at least not to the same degree.While Cohen and Gooch identified a number ofUnited Nations Command failures in theirexplanation of the reverses of November andDecember 1950, they nominate two critical failuresat the theatre level: excessive belief in air power asa solution and the faulty intelligence assessmentthat considered the Chinese force to be an inferiorversion of the North Korean force.

38

These conclusions by Cohen and Gooch do notmean that air power did not have an effective roleto play once the Chinese entered the war. What thetwo analysts were intent on illustrating was thatthe Chinese were organised and fought in a waythat allowed them to minimise the impact of airpower on their operations, thereby confoundingMacArthur’s unbounded optimism that he wouldachieve his objectives despite China’s entry into thewar.

39This was only one of a number of failures in

MacArthur’s force. At the tactical level there wereother, more fundamental, reasons why EighthArmy found itself withdrawing over ground theyhad won only weeks before. These wereimmediately obvious to General Matthew Ridgwaywhen he assumed command of Eighth Army at theend of December 1950.

Ridgway takes command of the Eighth ArmyRidgway was a highly experienced infantryman.What he found in Korea disturbed him deeply.After touring his forward units and talking to hisfield commanders, he realised that:

“before the Eighth Army could return to the offensive itneeded to have its fighting spirit restored, to have pride

A large Chinese force was located and substantial casualties were inflicted on it, promoting a sense of confidence in the EighthArmy and encouraging Ridgway to proceed with planning for a major offensive

37

in itself, to feel confidence in its leadership, and to havefaith in its mission.”

40

Ridgway had been chosen as the successor toWalker some time earlier but he had not been told.With the untimely death of Walker, Ridgway, whowas working in Washington, received short noticeto proceed to Korea. Arriving in Tokyo onChristmas Day on his way to the battlefront, hehad discussions with General Douglas MacArthur,Commander-in-Chief United Nations Command.According to Robert O’Neill, Ridgway foundMacArthur “to be discouraged at the turn of eventsin Korea”. The reversal of the United NationsCommand’s thrust into North Korea towards theYalu River was the cause. MacArthur’s formermood of optimism had turned to despair in lateNovember 1950, and he had ordered a withdrawalto the south by the Eighth Army and X Corps toavoid being outflanked by the Chinese counter-offensive.

United Nations Command troops faced thedepressing task of withdrawing over ground thatthey had won in battle only weeks before. It wasobviously an outcome that MacArthur had notcontemplated. During his discussions with theCommander-in-Chief, Ridgway “discovered thatremarkably little specific planning had been donefor the future operations of the Eighth Army”.Furthermore, it seemed that no strategic policy hadbeen developed. When Ridgway asked MacArthurif he had any objections to his mounting an attackagainst the enemy forces, the Commander-in-Chiefresponded: “The Eighth Army is yours, Matt. Dowhat you think best.”

41

Arriving in Korea, Ridgway spent time talking tohis men. He recorded that they “all conveyed to[him] a conviction that this was a bewildered army,not sure of itself or its leaders, not sure what theywere doing there, wondering when they wouldhear the whistle of that homebound transport”.

42In

Ridgway’s opinion, the force had been ill-prepared,suffered major shortages in weapons, lacked warmclothing for the freezing Korean winters and, dueto no fault of their own, had been spread across anarea “far too wide for them to maintain an effectivefront”. But Ridgway also found that many of thefundamentals of sound tactical operations werebeing neglected. He told his field commanders that

their forces had become road-bound, that they werefailing to assess the terrain and to use it to theiradvantage. The Eighth Army had “to get off itsbloody wheels and put some shoe leather to theearth, to get into the hills and among the scrub andmeet the enemy where he lived”.

43The new

commander quickly abandoned any thoughts of animmediate return to the offensive and began toprepare his force to meet a Chinese offensive that hebelieved would come at the beginning of the newyear. “The Chinese outnumbered us,” he reasoned.“But our armor [sic] was far superior . . . and ofcourse we had control of the air.” He urged hiscommanders to use the ground and enemy tactics totheir advantage. They should occupy suitable hillmasses, so inviting enemy infiltration at night. “Thenwith our superior firepower and air support wecould destroy the enemy by daylight,” he planned.

44

A new phase of the Chinese offensive commenced on31 December 1950. Ridgway’s policy was to yield alittle further ground as his force withdrew to thesouth.

45Pushed by advancing Chinese forces, the rear

battalion of the Eighth Army crossed the Han Riveron the morning of 4 January. For the second time insix months, Seoul had been abandoned to the enemy.Achieving a clean break from the advancing Chinese,

On the night of 11 February, the Chinese 40th and 66thArmies and the North Korean V Corps launched a counter-attack along the Hoengsong-Wonju axis. The attack by thecommunist forces did not takeRidgway by surprise

Mosquitoes organisedand controlled napalmand rocket attacks fromthe air

38

the withdrawal continued for another 160 kilometresto the south-east where, on 5 January, a defensiveline known as Line D was occupied. Ridgway hadoriginally planned a further withdrawal to a Line E,some 50 kilometres to the south, but this was to bethe limit for the new commander was determined tohold this position while inflicting heavy casualties onthe Chinese.

46

The plans to withdraw to Line E were notimplemented. “There were supposed to be 174,000Chinese in front of us at that time,” Ridgwayobserved, “but where they were placed, in whatstate of mind, and even that they were there at allwas something we could not determine.” Avigorous forward patrolling program and constantaerial reconnaissance failed to reveal evidence of asubstantial Chinese presence south of the HanRiver. Ridgway himself took to the air in a slowadvanced trainer with Major General Pat Partridge,commander of the Fifth US Air Force, as his pilot.“We flew at times at tree-top level and frequentlybelow the barren ridges,” Ridgway recalled.“Hardly a moving creature did we spot, not a campfire smoke, no wheel tracks, not even trampledsnow to indicate the presence of a large number oftroops.” Accordingly, Ridgway decided that hewould begin to advance northwards to seek outand close with the enemy.

47While he made plans to

begin his offensive in late January, GeneralMacArthur’s headquarters in Tokyo was makingdetailed preparations for the evacuation of Korea.President Truman had authorised MacArthur totake this action if he thought the safety of hiscommand was threatened.

48

In the third week of January, Ridgway ordered alimited probing offensive known as OperationWolfhound in the Osan-Suwon area, just to the northof the western end of Line D. A large Chinese forcewas located and substantial casualties were inflictedon it, promoting a sense of confidence in the EighthArmy and encouraging Ridgway to proceed withplanning for a major offensive.

49As a deliberate

strategy, Ridgway proposed to seek out the enemyand, rather than sustaining heavy losses to his ownforce by fighting for and holding ground, he wouldendeavour to inflict punishing casualties by extensiveuse of his available fire power. This strategy, which heannounced on 20 January, meant that the use oftactical air power would play a key role in theforthcoming battle, calling for a high degree of air-ground cooperation.

50

By this stage, United Nations Command air operationsenjoyed better co-ordination, much of the confusion ofthe earlier months having been resolved. Furthermore,the Eighth Army had received its normal allocation ofartillery. For example, in January the 27th BritishCommonwealth Brigade, which included the 3RAR,was augmented by the arrival of the 16th NewZealand Field Artillery Regiment. Such developmentsprepared the basis of a more rational application of theArmy-Air Force close air support system in accordancewith established doctrine. Ridgway planned to operatewithin this doctrinal framework.

Ridgway assured Major General Partridge that hewould not support the calls General Almond hadbeen making for radical changes to the close airsupport system. In return, Partridge examined the

On 15 March the EighthArmy regained Seoul for the final time in the war.Continuing the advance into April, Ridgway preparedhis force for an expectedChinese offensive

39

Air Force aspects of the system and brought aboutimprovements in communication procedures andequipment. The Air Force general also took steps to improve the training of TACPs and — to makeFACs more efficient — Partridge increased theduration of their normal tour with land units from three to eight weeks. When Ridgwaycommissioned his own staff to examine the EighthArmy’s participation in the air support system,similar reforms were implemented: improvedcommunications and better training for Armypersonnel involved in the system. This was adistinct step forward from the early weeks of thewar when it was reported that only two officers ofthe headquarters of the Eighth Army had ever readthe service manual on joint army-air tacticaloperations. The reforms initiated by Partridge andRidgway were timely, bringing improvements tojoint operations.

51

On 25 January, three of Ridgway’s divisionsadvanced north on Operation Thunderbolt,encountering an enemy screening force comprisedof two divisions of the Chinese 50th Army.Mosquito aircraft from the 6147th Tactical AirControl Squadron remained aloft over theadvancing troops and, as they located enemystrong points, they informed the ground forcesusing infantry radios. These radios had been

installed in the cockpits of these aircraft earlier inthe month as one of the measures aimed atimproving the close air support system. Anairborne relay station had also been establishedenabling radio messages to be transmitted from theadvancing troops to the tactical air control centre atTaegu. Air strikes were used to soften enemyresistance and to attack the enemy as theywithdrew to the north. With the capture of Suwonairfield, air resupply of the advancing force beganon 30 January.

52

By the end of the month, the advance had reached aline approximately 20 kilometres to the northwithout encountering any major Chinese defensiveposition. As Operation Thunderbolt proceeded onthe western flank, Ridgway ordered a secondthrust, Operation Round-up, in the central sector andby 10 February the whole battle-line had movedforward by 30 to 60 kilometres. Moderate resistancewas encountered on the western flank but north ofIchon the Chinese resistance increased.

53The main

body of the enemy had been attempting to rest andrestore their forces after their recent offensive butthey now realised that they needed to regain theinitiative. Beginning on the night of 11 February, theChinese 40th and 66th Armies and the NorthKorean V Corps launched a counter-attack alongthe Hoengsong-Wonju axis.

54

It was a period of determinedfighting and theFifth Air Force’sfighter bombersflew almost 400close air supportsorties each day,the heaviest effortof the war

US F-84s

40

The attack by the communist forces did not takeRidgway by surprise. Aerial reconnaissance haddetected large groups of the enemy making theirway to their line of departure. Ridgway assignedpriority air support to the elements of his forceunder immediate threat, which meant that someaircraft that had been supporting ground forces inthe west now found themselves providingassistance in central Korea. As the communist forcebegan its attack, Republic of Korea troops north ofHoengsong were in imminent danger. Close airsupport was a key element in enabling them towithdraw. In the daylight hours groups of up to400 enemy were detected by tactical air supportMosquitoes which organised and controllednapalm and rocket attacks from the air.

55While

it is clear that enemy sustained many casualties,Hoengsong was taken by the communists on 13 February, forcing United Nations Commandtroops to fall back to Wonju.

As daylight broke on the morning after Hoengsongwas taken, aerial observers detected two Chinesedivisions moving south in columns along the SomRiver. It was clear that the communist forceintended to encircle the United Nations Commandtroops at Wonju. Caught in the open without theprotection of field trenches, this force took arelentless pounding from artillery and air strikesover a period of some hours. Further fightingcontinued that night and into the next day, but theenemy attack had been broken by the extensivepunishment it suffered. It is estimated that thebattle at Wonju cost the Chinese over 5,000 men, anunacceptable loss even for a profligate enemy andthey shifted their efforts to Chipyong-ni.

56

Chipyong-ni was a village surrounded bymountains to the west of Hoengsong. Theoccupying force, the United States 23rd InfantryRegiment and a French battalion, were quicklysurrounded and in immediate danger.

From the outset it was a grim struggle againstsuperior numbers. The defensive position, beingapproximately one kilometre in diameter, wasdependent on ammunition, fuel and rationsresupply from the air as the enemy attacked instrength. Blood plasma and medicines were alsoflown into the position by helicopters and 52casualties were evacuated. It was some of the

bloodiest fighting of the whole campaign with thedefenders grimly engaged in desperate combatwith a force that was estimated to be more thanthree Chinese divisions: Ridgway would later claimthat it was five divisions.

57

For the three days that the position was underimmediate threat, Mosquito tactical control aircraftwere constantly aloft over the area when it waslight. Air strikes were directed against the enemy inthe surrounding hills with rocket and napalmattacks. The 5th United States Cavalry wasdispatched from the south of Chipyong-ni in a bidto relieve the beleaguered position. At the sametime, the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade wasdeployed to remove enemy forces from the mainsupply route from Iho-ri to Chipyong-ni. Broken inspirit by artillery and air bombardment and thefierce resistance of the defenders of Chipyong-ni,the communists abandoned attempts to take theposition just as it was finally relieved by the 5thUnited States Cavalry Regiment. General Almond,commander of X Corps, subsequentlyacknowledged that close air support and resupplyby air were critical in sustaining the force atChipyong-ni over the period 14 to16 February.

58

The enemy forces were successful in an attack on a third front to the east at Chechon. Overall,however, their offensive collapsed due to theamount of punishment they had suffered in centraland western Korea. The United Nations Commandforce had again assumed the upper hand by 21 February. Therefore, Ridgway launchedOperation Killer which, by thrusting eastward, was designed to isolate enemy forces which hadpenetrated into South Korea. Throughout thisoperation close air support was used extensively.Major General Claude Ferenbaugh, commander ofthe 7th Division, reported that close air supportgiven to his division was ‘outstanding’ and the‘excellent results’ achieved by air strikes enabledthe taking of objectives with minimum casualties.

59

On 15 March, the Eighth Army regained Seoul forthe final time in the war. Continuing the advanceinto April, Ridgway prepared his force for anexpected Chinese offensive. By this stage EighthArmy had developed confidence and a higherdegree of operational competence. The experienced

The communists had to divert thousands of men to repair thecontinual damage to the railways and the roads. For example, the enemy eventually had a repair gang positioned at four-mileintervals throughout the rail system

41

infantry commander had reversed the fortunes of abewildered army, turning it into an efficient fightingorganisation able to deal with a determined andaggressive enemy. Ridgway did this largely byreminding his field commanders of the basics ofinfantry tactics and by utilising the overwhelmingfirepower which he had at his disposal. A majorelement of this firepower was close air support, anasset which Ridgway had endeavoured to employ tohis advantage from the outset.

Buoyed by its successes against the Chinese, EighthArmy was well prepared for and able to counterthe Chinese offensive which commenced on 22April and extended through to 22 May. The EighthArmy plan was to absorb the momentum of theChinese attack by withdrawing through a numberof defensive lines while inflicting heavy casualtieson the enemy with artillery and air strikes.

60It was

a period of determined fighting and the Fifth AirForce’s fighter bombers flew almost 400 close airsupport sorties each day, the heaviest effort of thewar.

61The Chinese and North Korean forces

sustained serious casualties in this period, makingthem ponder whether it was worthwhileproceeding with another offensive. Indeed, therewere few real gains to be made by either side. Thecommunists agreed to truce talks in June 1951,thereby giving prominence to the political arena ofnegotiation. At this stage, military operationsdeveloped into a seesaw war of stalemate whichcontinued until the armistice of July 1953.

InterdictionIn April 1951, FEAF’s emphasis on air operationsshifted from close air support to interdictionmissions. Yet Ridgway, who had assumed theposition of Commander-in-Chief of United NationsCommand in April 1951, began to have seriousdoubts about its effectiveness. He noted that theenemy’s defensive strength “obviously improvedduring the summer” of 1951, recording that:

“Despite our constant and consistently successful effort toknock out railroads and bridges, to demolish marshaling[sic] yards and deny the highways to enemy traffic,supplies continued to flow down from Manchuria.”

It was evident that fire from Chinese artillerygreatly increased while more and more anti-aircraft

fire appeared, destroying 81 FEAF aircraft in theperiod of three months from April to June.

62

“Whatever may be said for the value of air power— and there is no question that without it many ofour advances would not have been possible,” heconcluded after the war, “it simply could not keepthe enemy from bringing in the armament heneeded.” In Ridgway’s opinion, air power “couldnot isolate the battleground” in Korea.

63

While there were doubts about the immediatebenefits of air interdiction programmes, theCommander-in-Chief had another reason formaintaining such pressure on the communist forces.The enemy hoped for an early cease-fire to relievetheir forces from air attack. But Ridgway reasonedthat once an armistice had been granted, therewould have been no incentive for the communiststo negotiate on other issues. Therefore, he decidedto maintain pressure by using the available airpower to operate far and wide over North Koreaconducting close support operations, maintainingair superiority and cutting supply lines.

64

Operation Strangle, an air interdiction programmeinvolving a major portion of FEAF’s assets,commenced in April 1951. The area between the39th parallel and the forward edge of the battle wasdivided into three north-south strips, one beingallocated to each of the Fifth Air Force, the 1stMarine Air Wing and air units of the naval TaskForce 77. But the concentrated interdictionprogramme was unsuccessful in preventingsufficient resupply to the communist forces toenable them to maintain a moderate rate of combat.As quickly as one route was cut, another wasopened or repaired, while aircraft suffered thedanger increasing anti-aircraft fire.

65

Following the poor results achieved throughOperation Strangle, FEAF staff officers examinedthe logistic system in North Korea. Theydetermined that the 60 Chinese and North Koreandivisions in the combat zone depended upon adaily supply of 2,400 tons. The most efficient meansof carrying this quantity of supplies was on theNorth Korean railways. It was thereforedetermined that a comprehensive attempt wouldbe made by FEAF to cripple the rail system byattacking its bridges.

66

42

These interdiction operations continued at anintensive rate for four months, from August toDecember, but it was only in the first two monthsthat it was evident that the communist supplysystem suffered any major dislocation. The enemysoon displayed an ability to recover quickly fromdamage to the railway by transferring the load toroad convoys and by undertaking speedy repairs.

It also proved difficult to make complete cuts in thesystem without a large number of sorties. Makingthe task even more difficult, anti-craft protection forthe rail system increased significantly. There wereserious doubts whether it was worth the effort.While this program was in progress it was stillnecessary to conduct close air support operations,but this was done at a reduced rate, because airassets were limited. As a result, groundcommanders complained — O’Neill believes withjustification — that their forces were sufferingincreased casualties because of the emphasis oninterdiction.

Yet no one could be sure whether the interdictionprogram was actually making it impossible for thecommunist forces to accumulate sufficient suppliesand equipment to mount a damaging offensive.There were grounds to believe that, if interdictionstopped completely, then an offensive wouldfollow.

67Ridgway reported to the United States Joint

Chiefs of Staff in January 1952 that although thecommunist logistic system had suffered as a resultof the raids, the enemy was still able to conduct adefensive operation.

68

In March 1952, Fifth Air Force launched a newform of interdiction known as Operation Saturate.The object was to inflict intensive damage torailways in select areas rather than to achievesimple cuts over a wide range of track. Thereasoning behind these operations was theobservation that the North Koreans found it moredifficult to repair damage if it required heavyequipment to be brought forward. While thisprogram met with some early success, theincreased deployment of anti-aircraft artillery madeit extremely costly. The whole of the railwayinterdiction program resulted in a loss rate thatexceeded the replacement rate of fighter-bombers.By May 1952, there were only enough aircraft to

maintain six intensive cuts and the program was abandoned.

69

In his account of the Korean war, Ridgway wasadamant that interdiction ‘could not isolate thebattleground’. Clearly, such an objective would beuppermost in the mind of a ground forcecommander. Yet there can be no doubt that theinterdiction program, which lasted for 10 months,did cause disruption to the communist system ofsupply. The communists had to divert thousands ofmen to repair the continual damage to the railwaysand the roads. For example, the enemy eventuallyhad a repair gang positioned at four-mile intervalsthroughout the rail system. The repair of a singlebreak took them two hours and intensive damagerequiring special equipment took from four to sevendays. These are the small gains that were made at alarge cost, but it seems probable that the resultswould have been greater if the communists had notenjoyed the sanctuary of Manchuria.

70

ConclusionAir power was a vital component of the UnitedNations Command forces in Korea. At times itsinfluence was decisive. This was particularly so inproviding close air support in the defence of thePusan perimeter where it inflicted heavy losses onthe North Korean invaders. Breaking down theenemy’s combat power and resolve, air powerpermitted a break-out of land forces. Yet theprovision of close air support was subject todebate. The Marine-Navy system was impressivefrom the land force commander’s perspective but itdemanded a relatively large number of dedicatedassets. This not only involved dedicated aircraft butalso the provision of TACPs down to battalionlevel. This lavish scale of support was not feasiblewhere large forces were concerned. Furthermore,concurrent air operations had to be executed. Mostimportant was the necessity to maintain control ofthe air. Without this the war in Korea would havehad a different outcome.

Ridgway demonstrated that the Korean war couldbe fought successfully through a conventionalapproach to battle which paid attention to thefundamentals of sound tactical operations whilemaking good use of available fire support.Ridgway used the existing Army-Air Force system

43

of close air support but introduced efficientprocedures and improved communications. Thisachieved positive results which permitted anadvance by the Eighth Army. Where the EighthArmy and X Corps had been initially overwhelmedby the entry of the Chinese forces, Ridgway’sapproach turned the tables on the communists. Heclaimed that some stages of his advance would nothave been possible without the application of airpower. But he also believed that air power used inthe interdiction role was unsuccessful. Yet it isgoing too far to say that it failed entirely.

There can be no doubt that the interdictionprograms did complicate the resupply of thecommunists forces and did force the enemy to uselarge amounts of resources to keep his supplyroutes functional. In this light, it seems that the fullimpact of the interdiction program is not known.

Notes

1 Richard P. Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, The Nautical &

Aviation Publishing Company of America, Baltimore, 1986, p. 206.2 Allan R. Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, in B.F. Cooling (ed.), Case

Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, Office of Air Force

History, United States Air Force, Washington, DC, 1990,

pp. 354-5.3 Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 208.4 John Terraine, The Right of the Line: The Royal Air Force in the

European War 1939 - 1945, Sceptre, 1988, p. 156.5 Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 207.6 Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea 1950 -1953,

Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1961, pp. 7-8.7 Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The

Anatomy of Failure in War, The Free Press, New York, 1990,

pp. 165-6.8 ibid., pp. 168, 172.9 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p. 345.10 Robert O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War

1950 - 53, Volume II: ‘Combat Operations’, The Australian War

Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service,

Canberra, 1985, p. 296.11 Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, Revised

Edition, Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force,

Washington, DC, 1983, p. 84.12 Robert O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War

1950 - 53, Volume II: ‘Combat Operations’, The Australian War

Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service,

Canberra, 1985, p. 299.

13 Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea 1950 - 1953, p. 43.14 O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War 1950 - 1953, p. 299. 15 Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, Revised

Edition, Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force,

Washington, DC, 1983, p. 55.16 O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War 1950 - 1953, p. 299.17 ibid., p. 298; and Alan Stephens, Going Solo: The Royal Australian

Air Force, 1946 - 1971, Australian Government Publishing Service,

Canberra, 1995, p. 217.18 ibid., pp. 305-6.19 Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea 1950 - 1953, p. 86.20 ibid., p. 55; and O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War 1950 -1953,

p. 299.21 Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 42-3.22 ibid., p. 42.23 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p. 351.24 Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, pp. 43-4.25 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, pp. 351-2.26 Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, Revised Edition,

p. 706.27 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p. 366-7.28 ibid., p. 367.29 Hallion, The Naval Air War in Korea, p. 52.30 ibid., pp. 52-3.31 ibid., pp. 61-4.32 Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, Revised Edition,

p. 706.33 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p.354.34 Cohen and Gooch, Military Misfortunes, pp. 178-9.35 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p. 355; and Futrell, The United States

Air Force In Korea 1950 - 1953, p. 85.36 Cohen and Gooch, Military Misfortunes, p. 179.37 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p. 372.38 Cohen and Gooch, Military Misfortunes, pp. 176-9; and Figure 7-1,

‘Matrix of Failure’, p. 190-3.39 ibid., p. 179.40 Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War, Doubleday & Company,

Inc., New York, 1967, p. 89.41 Robert O’Neill, Australia in the Korean War

1950 - 53, Volume II: ‘Combat Operations’, The Australian War

Memorial and the Australian Government Publishing Service,

Canberra, 1985, p. 91; and Ridgway, The Korean War, p. 78 & p. 83.42 Ridgway, The Korean War, p. 86.43 ibid., pp. 88-9.44 ibid., p. 90.45 O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, p. 92.46 ibid., p. 94.47 Ridgway, The Korean War’, pp. 105-6.48 O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, p. 97.49 ibid., p. 98.

44

50 Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea 1950 -1953,

p. 314.51 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, pp. 376-7.52 ibid., pp. 316-7.53 O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, pp.103-6.54 Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea 1950 - 1953,

p. 318.55 ibid., p. 318.56 The History of the United Nations Forces in the Korean War,

Volume IV, pp. 472-3; and O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, p. 112.57 Ridgway, The Korean War, p. 107.58 Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea

1950 - 1953, p. 319; and The History of the United Nations Forces in the

Korean War, The Ministry of National Defense, The Republic of Korea,

1975, Volume IV, pp. 467-76.59 Futrell, The United States Air Force In Korea 1950 - 1953,

p. 320.60 O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, p. 348.61 Millett, ‘Korea, 1950 - 1953’, p. 379.62 O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, p. 350.63 Ridgway, The Korean War, p. 186.64 O’Neill, ‘Combat Operations’, pp. 350-1.65 ibid., p. 350.66 ibid., p. 353.67 ibid., pp. 353-5.68 ibid., p. 375.69 ibid., p.376.70 ibid., pp 377-8.

45

To Stop Them OnThe Beaches

Luftwaffe Operations against the Allied Landings in Italy

To Stop Them OnThe Beaches

By Professor James S Corum

47

IIn May 1943 it was not yet clear to the NaziHigh Command that the war had turnedirrevocably against the Axis. German forces had

suffered a disaster at Stalingrad, but hoped torecover the situation on the Eastern Front with agrand offensive in the Summer. In Tunisia the Axishad taken another severe defeat. After winning afew operational victories early in the campaign theGerman/Italian forces had been overwhelmed byAllied ground and air power. Over Germany, citieswere taking a beating from the increasing RAFnight raids, but German air defenses were

formidable and it looked as if Germany could winthe aerial attrition battle. Although the strategicsituation in the Mediterranean looked bleak, withItaly clearly the next target of Allied forces, theWehrmacht High Command was feverishlyworking on plans to reinforce Italy in the hope thatthe expected Allied landings could be thrown backinto the sea or at least endure heavy losses so anyAllied advance would turn into a stalemate.Whatever the Allied course of action in theMediterranean, the Luftwaffe was expected to havea major role in repelling any landing attempts.

This article will examine the Luftwaffe plans,tactics and operations against the Alliedamphibious operations at Sicily, Salerno and Anziobetween July 1943 and February 1944. The air warin the Mediterranean in 1943-44 was a sideshow forboth the Luftwaffe and the Allied air forces,overshadowed by the great air battles on theEastern Front and over the skies of Germany. Assuch, the Luftwaffe and the Allied air operationsover Italy have received scant attention fromairpower historians. Yet it was nonetheless a veryimportant campaign and one the Luftwaffe foughtwith considerable effort and ingenuity.

German strategic situation in May 1943The early part of the campaign for Tunisia gave theLuftwaffe a false impression of its true capabilities.From December 1942 to February 1943 theLuftwaffe generally held air superiority over thebattlefront. The German and Italian air forcesoperated from good, all-weather airfields close tothe front while the British and Americans had fewairfields within effective range of Tunisia and wereforced to build new airstrips at the end of a longlogistical pipeline and with far too few engineers.During the Winter of 1942-43 the USAAF and RAFforward airfields were often deep in mud and shortof parts and supplies. At the same time, theAmericans had trouble coordinating their airoperations with the British and developing aneffective doctrine for supporting the ground war.

However, by the Spring of 1943 the Alliedproblems with coordination of air forces, supplyingforward airfields and building adequate airstripshad been largely sorted out. The Americans and

British were soon able to use their superiority innumbers to drive the Luftwaffe from the skies,interdict Axis ships and aircraft traveling to andfrom Tunisia and render the Axis airfields largelyinoperable. Just before the end of the collapse, theGermans and Italians, having taken heavy losses inthe air, pulled their battered formations out ofTunisia to Sicily and the Italian mainland. TheGerman and Italian air forces left behind hundredsof wrecked and damaged aircraft on Tunisianairfields — many of the planes in good conditionbut unflyable due to a lack of spare parts

that never arrived because of the Allied interdictionof Axis supply lines.

The disaster in Tunisia woke up the German HighCommand to the crisis in the Mediterraneantheater. As the situation in Tunisia deteriorated, theGerman High Command assessed the Italianarmed forces as being in such poor shape that theywere basically incapable of offering seriousresistance to an Allied attack on Italy. The fightingworth of the Italian Army was low due to lack ofequipment, obsolete equipment, poor training,

Abandoned Junkers Ju 88s

The German and Italian air forcesleft behind hundreds of wreckedand damaged aircraft on Tunisianairfields — many of the planes ingood condition

The only really useful units of theRegia Aeronautica were the fighterunits that had recently beenreequipped with the Macchi 202s and 205s

Macchi MC 202

48

poor morale and weak officerleadership. The Italian Air Force wasrated as largely ineffective. While therewas a large number of planes on hand,all but a few of the fighters werecapable of taking on Allied aircraft onan equal basis. The Italian bomber force of severalhundred planes was regarded as so hopelesslyobsolete that it was rated as having no value for thedefense of Italy. The Italian aircraft industry and airforce logistics system, never very capable in thefirst place, were close to a breakdown. Air forceoperational rates were about 30-40% of aircraft dueto a lack of parts and especially a lack of spareengines. The only really useful units of the RegiaAeronautica were the fighter units that hadrecently been reequipped with the Macchi 202s and205s. In those two fast, maneuverable and well-armed aircraft the Italians had planes that wereroughly equal to the Allied P-40s and Spitfires. Theonly Italian force that was rated as fairly modernand effective was the Italian navy. Even then, theGermans wondered whether the Italian fleet couldever stand up to the Royal Navy in open battle.

1

On 2 March 1943 the Italian High Command, theCommando Supremo, sent Hitler a long messageoutlining Italy’s precarious strategic situation anddemanding large quantities of modern equipmentfrom the Germans. The next day, after conferringwith his staff about the crisis on the southern front,

Hitler replied to Mussolini and, to reassure his ally,promised large quantities of German matériel andassistance to include tanks and artillery for theItalian Army and re-equipping the Italian bomberfleet with German Ju 88 medium bombers. A largenumber of flak guns and radar units were alsopromised and the German equipment was to flowimmediately.

2In the meantime, German army and

air reinforcements were ordered to Italy.

The Luftwaffe prepares to meet the AlliesThe crisis in the Mediterranean pushed the GermanHigh Command to reorganize the commandstructure of the army and Luftwaffe in Italy.Through the North African campaign LuftwaffeField Marshal Albert Kesselring, with the title of‘Commander in Chief-South’, had worn two hats ascommander of German army units as well ascommander of Luftflotte 2 (Air Fleet 2). In June1943 Luftwaffe Field Marshal Wolfram vonRichthofen was pulled from the Russian front,where he commanded Luftflotte 4 in southernRussia, to take over Luftflotte 2 in Italy. Kesselringstill maintained the title of Commander in Chief-South but his authority now extended only to

Light bomber andattack (fighter-bomber and Stuka)units were based inSicily, southern Italy

Hitler . . . promisedlarge quantities ofGerman matériel andassistance to includetanks and artillery forthe Italian Army andre-equipping the Italianbomber fleet withGerman Ju 88 mediumbombers

Junkers Ju 88

49

German army units and some Luftwaffe flak unitsplaced under army command. As was typical in theNazi command system, there was no true theatercommander or joint staff. Luftflotte 2 was underBerlin’s direct authority and reported directly tothe Luftwaffe High Command. In any case,Kesselring and von Richthofen were expected tocoordinate their commands and plans for thedefense of Italy.

The selection of von Richthofen as Luftwaffecommander shows how seriously the HighCommand viewed the threat in the Mediterranean.The temperamental and rather humorless vonRichthofen was not an easy general to work for.However, he had the well-deserved reputation asthe best tactical air commander in the Luftwaffe.Not only was von Richthofen a gifted tactician, hewas ruthless and aggressive and was known foraccomplishing a lot with limited resources. A greatpart of his success as a commander was in hisunderstanding of aviation technology. He hadearned a PhD in engineering during theReichswehr era and had served as a leader in theLuftwaffe’s Technical Branch developing newweapons and equipment before he was sent toserve in the Condor Legion in 1936. He could beexpected to make the best use of the new anti-shiptorpedoes and radio-guided bombs that theLuftwaffe was deploying to the Mediterranean.

Along with von Richthofen other first rateLuftwaffe senior commanders were sent to thetheater. Col Dietrich Pelz was pulled out of his postas Inspector of Luftwaffe bombers and Stukas andsent to command the German bomber force in Italy. Pelz had won recognition as an outstandingbomber commander and tactician early in the warand was charged to develop effective bombertactics against the expected allied invasion forces.

The next year he would become the Luftwaffe’syoungest major general at 32.

The available Luftwaffe forces for the defense ofItaly were commanded by Luftflotte 2,headquartered at Frascati, a small town near Rome,which also contained Kesselring’s headquarters.Luftflotte 2 had two major elements, FliegerkorpsII, whose headquarters was in Sicily at Tavromina

Airfield. However, before July a more secureheadquarters had also been prepared near Naples.

3

Also assigned to support Fliegerkorps II was AirTraining Division 2, based in the south of France.Fliegerkorps II’s main force consisted of a fightercommand based at Tapani Airfield in Sicily, withfighters and fighter-bombers at Vibo Valentia andMonte Corvine airfields. Light bomber and attack(fighter-bomber and Stuka) units were based inSicily, southern Italy and there were several groupsof aircraft in Sardinia.

Air Training Division 2 was headquarters forbomber units that been badly mauled on otherfronts and had been sent to a restful sector to berebuilt, reequipped and retrained. It also containedBomber Wing 100 (KG 100), which was beingequipped and trained to employ the new radio-controlled bombs, the first true PGMs. In additionto these flying commands, the Luftwaffe’srepresentative to the Italian Air Force staff(Superaeria) General Ritter von Pohl, had a staff to conduct liaison with the Italians and alsocommanded the Luftwaffe’s ground forces and flakunits in Italy.

4

In total, in early July 1943 the Luftwaffe had anofficial strength of 667 combat aircraft available for the defense of Italy: six Ju 88 bomber groups,each with 40 aircraft, 1-2 weak He 111 torpedobomber groups, three fast bomber groups (1 groupMe 210s and two groups Me 110s), several attack(Schlachtflugzeuge) groups in the process of transitioning from the Ju 87 Stuka to the FW 190 fighter-bomber, four groups of Me 109 day fighters and one group of Ju 88 night fighters.For reconnaissance, Luftflotte 2 had one group of Ju 88 long range reconnaissance planes, onegroup of He 111 bombers equipped with radar totrack shipping and one squadron of Me 109sequipped with camera and drop tanks for extrarange.

5Official numbers are, of course, often

misleading. Most of the units were well understrength. For example, the Me 210 fast bombergroup had only 18 aircraft, and of these, only 12were operable. In most categories of combat plane,the Luftwaffe units were at two-thirds strength orless. Thus, in early July there were only 443Luftwaffe operational combat aircraft in Italy andsouthern France.

6The Luftwaffe estimated that it

The Italian Air Force paper strength of 1,042 aircraft translatedinto an operational strength of 164 relatively modern aircraftthat could take on the Allies in less than suicidal conditions

50

and the combat units of the Regia Aeronauticawere outnumbered by a factor of approximatelyfive to one in the air — a fairly accurateassessment.

The Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) was in farworse shape than the Luftwaffe. Of the massiveGerman assistance promised to the RegiaAeronautica in March 1943, by July only 40 Ju 88shad arrived to equip an Italian bomber group, andthis unit was not yet operational. The Italianbomber force of 400 aircraft was so obsolete that itwas written out of German planning. Italianaircraft production and maintenance remained inpoor shape and was, in fact, getting worse by theday. The Italian fighter arm had a strength of 530planes, but of these only the Macchi 200s, 202s,205s and Re 2001s were considered modern enoughto take on any Allied planes. Of these latter craft,only 130 were operational. To repel any Alliedlanding, the SM 79 and SM 84 torpedo bomberswould be essential, but the Regia Aeronautica hadonly 22 of these operational. In the final reckoningbefore the Allies landed, the Italian Air Force paperstrength of 1,042 aircraft translated into anoperational strength of 164 relatively modernaircraft that could take on the Allies in less thansuicidal conditions.

7

Von Richthofen arrived on 12 June 1943 to takeover a battered and demoralized force. On his wayto Italy, von Richthofen had been personallybriefed by Goering in his vast Karinhall estate.Goering was convinced that the Luftwaffe’s failurein North Africa had been due to poor leadershipand lack of will. As he had done in the Battle of

Britain, Goering blamed his pilots’ lack of courageand aggressiveness for the failure against theAllies. Goering even drew up an order stating thatany Luftwaffe pilot — up to wing commander —who showed any lack of aggressiveness would bedemoted to private and sent to fight as a soldier onthe Russian Front.

8Von Richthofen made his own

assessment when he got to Italy. Von Richthofen,who had been continuously at war as a seniorLuftwaffe commander since 1939 (and for 18months in Spain before that) and had more thanenough experience to intelligently review theLuftwaffe’s condition without Goering’s advice.His private assessment of the Luftwaffe’scapabilities versus the vast Allied resources led tosome pessimistic conclusions. Von Richthofenrealized that if the British and Americans gotashore in force, neither the Italian army or thesmall number of German ground units had anyhope to defeat them.

The only way to defend Sicily or Sardinia was tocatch the invasion fleet at sea, or at the moment oflanding, and to sink enough transports and supplyships to cause an Allied logistics breakdown. Heremarked, “We can put every effort into attackingenemy shipping . . . If we are successful indisrupting the supply over the beaches we canmake his ground units ineffective and vulnerable tocounterattack by our forces”.

9The Luftwaffe’s

Intelligence estimated that the Allies had 1 1/2million tons of cargo shipping in the Mediterraneanto support landing operations. If the Luftwaffe andRegia Aeronautica could sink or disable 100,000tons per day, any allied assault would soon becrippled. As von Richthofen noted, “We can’t

Von Richthofenplaced a good dealof hope in the smallfast bomber andfighter-bomberforce (Me 210s,110s and FW 190s)

Messerschmitt Me-110

51

predict a success with this strategy . . . but it’s theonly strategy that offers a possibility of success”.

10

From May to July the Luftwaffe experienced anever-increasing number of air raids against theirairfields in Sicily, Southern Italy and Sardinia. Eventhe Luftwaffe bomber bases in southern Francewere attacked. The Allied advantage lay in theAmerican four engine B-17 and B-24 bombers thathad the range and payload to pound any Axisairfield in the theater, including those in NorthernItaly and Southern France. The large British andAmerican twin-engine bomber force had the rangeand payload to hit targets in Sicily, southern Italyand Sardinia. Through the month of June, the

AAF/RAF bombers ranged all across Italy,attacking rail centers, shipping, and Italianmunitions factories. The Luftwaffe’s air bases camein for special attention. Von Richthofen pulled mostof his bombers out of Sicily for well-defended fieldsin the Foggia area in southern Italy. Some fighterswere pulled out of Sicily and based at airfieldsaround Naples, Foggia and Calabria although somefighters and the attack units remained.

There are conflicting accounts of the Luftwaffe’srelations with the Regia Aeronautica before theSicily battle. Some Luftwaffe officers describe theItalians as being very cooperative and loyal Allies atthis point in the war. Other Luftwaffe officerscomplained that the Italians were deliberately

The Allies “would do the Germans a favor” if they only attackedat one location as the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica only hadenough airplanes to make a good fight on one front

52

dragging their feet and inhibiting full cooperationwith the Germans. The lack of Italian engineerssupporting the Luftwaffe delayed the process ofrebuilding, repairing and enlarging the airfields thatthe Germans urgently needed if they were to stagetheir units south and mount an air defense ofSicily.

11I tend to support the former view of the

Italians as loyal allies of the Germans in mid- 1943.Whatever the relations between the German andItalian army had been, and they were often marredby distrust and acrimony, the Regia Aeronauticahad a reputation of always doing its best to supportthe Luftwaffe in North Africa. In the case of theslow pace of airfield building and repair, I suspectthat the Italian regime’s routine incompetence is abetter explanation than any bad faith.

The defense planFrom May to June the Luftwaffe feverishly tried toset up an effective air defense system for Sicily,southern Italy and Sardinia. As part of Hitler’s aidpackage, 100 German flak batteries arrived innorthern Italy to defend the heartland of Italy’s warindustry. Normally, most of the flak crews wereItalian soldiers with Germans manning the radarsand gun control systems. Additional Luftwaffe flakreinforcements went to southern Italy and Sicilyalong with German ground troops and the 5th FlakDivision was deployed to southern Italy. As Tunisiawas falling, the Germans emplaced a long-rangeFreya radar in Western Sicily and another inSardinia. Numerous short-range radars weredeployed to cover German bases.

12One of the most

severe German problems was a shortage of trainedtechnical specialists. In Tunisia the Luftwaffe hadlost its most experienced fighter operations (radar)controllers and such men were hard to replace.

13

In spite of Goering’s admonition to simply fightharder, the new commander had a few weeks tomake his own assessment and draw up his ownplan. Von Richthofen and Pelz worked hard todevelop some anti-shipping tactics against theexpected Allied invasion that would inflictmaximum damage on the Anglo-American fleetwith minimal German casualties. Given the massiveAllied superiority in fighters, the Luftwaffe’s bestchance would be to attack at night or at dawn ordusk. Pelz directed that the bombers were to flycarefully planned courses out to sea and then dropto 50 meters altitude and change course to confuse

Allied radar. As planes approached the target theywere to climb to 2,500 meters and attack the targetin a 30-50 degree dive. The group commanderwould drop illumination flares and would usecolored flares to mark the target for his bombers.

14

Due to the fuel shortage, each mission would becarefully calculated with the most experiencedpilots and navigators carrying a larger bombloadand less fuel and the inexperienced crews a smallerbombload and more fuel.

15

Ideally, German/Italian reconnaissance would findthe Allied invasion convoys well out to sea and givethe air units plenty of warning to hit the enemy hardand early. Pelz hoped that the Allied shipping couldbe hit with large, coordinated attacks of 50-80 planesat once. The highly trained German bomber force of1940 might have been able to carry out suchcomplex plans, but after Russia and North Africa,the Luftwaffe bomber force was a shadow of itsformer self. Despite a desperate shortage of trainedbomber aircrew, Pelz hoped to quickly retrain hisunits to carry out anti-ship strikes.

Attacking ships is quite an art, and one theGermans had done little to master. A specializedLuftwaffe anti-shipping force had been virtuallyignored before the war. From 1939-1942 the Ju 87Stuka was the most capable airplane for attackingships. But the Stuka had little chance to survive incombat against the Western Allies in 1943. In 1942the Luftwaffe had finally created a small force ofHe 111 torpedo bombers, which did well againstAllied convoys to Northern Russia that summer. Inthe Mediterranean the Luftwaffe had set up atorpedo bomber school at Grosetto and in theSpring of 1943 and was in the process of trainingand equipping two bomber groups for the missionwhen a massive Allied raid devastated the base.Von Richthofen withdrew the small torpedo planeforce to relative safety in Southern France.

16

Von Richthofen placed a good deal of hope in thesmall fast bomber and fighter-bomber force (Me210s, 110s and FW 190s). They were expected toroar in at full speed at 50 meters altitude in orderto evade allied radar. At about a kilometer from thetarget they would climb slightly and skip theirbomb into the enemy while also strafing him.

17The

greatest problem in using these light attack planeswas their limited range with heavy bombloads,

53

especially the FW 190. Some attack units wouldhave to be held in central or southern Italy andstage into Sardinia or Sicily if these islands wereattacked. The closer a German airfield was toAllied bases in North Africa, the more intense theAllied bomber attacks and the heavier the dailyattrition. Luftflotte 2 would have to pick just theright moment to stage the aircraft forward to thevulnerable Sicilian or Sardinian bases.

The intelligence picture:anticipating the Allied assaultGerman Intelligence left Kesselring and vonRichthofen largely in the dark about Allied plansand forces. German signals intelligence was usuallya very good source of intelligence on the Allies, butafter Tunisia fell, the Allies maintained a prettythorough radio silence in the Mediterranean andthis source died up. The Luftwaffe’s only long-range reconnaissance asset capable of monitoringAllied shipping and port activity was a squadronof Ju 88 reconnaissance planes. Try as they might, it

was hard to get past the Allied fighter cover tophotograph the main North African ports whereAllied invasion forces were assembling. A fewaerial reconnaissance reports came in during May-June, but there was nothing like a comprehensivecoverage of Allied port and naval activity.

18A

handful of Italian and German flying boats andseaplanes patrolled the open sea to try to spotAllied convoys and shipping, but dared not get tooclose to the well-patrolled North African coast.

From all sources of intelligence, including agentreports, Wehrmacht intelligence in Italy estimatedthat the Allied powers had 50-55 divisions ofground troops in the Mediterranean, including theUS Army, British Army and Free French Forces.German Intelligence even reported that theAmericans had a force of three paratroop divisionsbased near Oran and being readied for the invasionof Italy. Of this vast Allied force, which included theformer Vichy French forces in North Africa, theGermans estimated that 25 divisions were fully

A force of 24-36 Ju 88 roared in over the US fleet. A direct hitwas made on the SS Robert Rowan, an ammunition ship, and itbegan to burn. The crew was removed with no casualties andthe Robert Rowan blew up at 1700 in one of the most dramaticmoments of the campaign

54

equipped and trained and available for the comingcampaign. Moreover, of this force, the Germansestimated that the Allies had the shipping andlanding craft to land 120,000 men and 4,000thousand tanks and vehicles in one lift.

19The

German estimates were almost double the trueAllied strength figures. The Allies would use mostof their ready combat forces in the theater, 12divisions, in the Sicilian operation and the Allies, atpeak strength in 1944, would never have more than20 divisions in Italy. As for airborne divisions, theAmericans had only one, the 82nd Airborne, in thetheater. However, the estimate on Allied shippingwas not far from the mark. The British andAmericans had the capability to land a force of100,000 men on Axis shores.

From the scanty information available, vonRichthofen believed that there were two obvioustargets for an Allied invasion, Sicily and Sardinia.Of these Sicily was the most probable site for anattack as it lay within fighter range of the Britishairfields on Malta. In the case of Sardinia, while itwas out of range of the single-engine fighters, itwas within easy range of Allied light and mediumbombers and the British had carriers in theMediterranean that could provide fighter cover. Asan obvious target, Sardinia was reinforced byItalian and German ground forces and a strong German and Italian air contingent wassent there. If the Allies took Sicily, they could easilybase aircraft there and assault southern Italy. If theAllies took Sardinia, its airfields could cover Alliedlandings in central Italy. As far as von Richthofen

was concerned, the worst possible scenario was asimultaneous Allied attack on both islands. German and Italian ground and air strength wassimply too thin to make an effective fight for bothlocations. Per Luftflotte 2’s assessment, the Allies“would do the Germans a favor” if they onlyattacked at one location as the Luftwaffe and RegiaAeronautica only had enough airplanes to make agood fight on one front.

20

The Allies telegraphed their intention to move onSicily when they seized the island of Pantelleriasouth of Sicily in early June. Pantelleria was a large,well-garrisoned island with a major airdrome and aradar station. The Allied air forces subjected theisland to a massive two-week bombardment thatbroke the morale of the Italian defenders and thegarrison surrendered just as the first boats of theamphibious landing force touched shore.Pantelleria was vital to any Allied action againstSicily because its radar provided early warning ofAllied raids and its airfield, within fighter range ofSicily, was urgently needed for land-based aviation.The Germans rightly figured that the British andAmericans would not make such a great effort toseize Pantelleria if Sicily were not the primarytarget. After Pantelleria the AAF and RAF bombersbegan ranging all over Sicily and southern Italy,striking logistics centers, rail centers and, mostimportantly, German and Italian airfields. VonRichthofen noted that, “the competition between usand the Allies is to see if we can repair our airfieldsas fast as the Allies could bomb them”.

21By 20

June, von Richthofen noted that the German

Even in an all-outcampaign against Alliedshipping, the Luftwaffeand Regia Aeronauticawere not able toaccomplish much. TheAllied loss of 12 ships toAxis air attacks did nothinder the landing ofover 100,000 troops northeir vehicles andsupplies on the shores of Sicily

55

airfields in Sicily had been so heavily damaged thatthe Luftwaffe’s attack units “couldn’t get off theground in less than 45 minutes”.

22As the air attacks

on airfields across southern Italy increased in earlyJuly, the Germans and Italians placed their forces inSicily and Sardinia in the highest state of alert.

Battle for SicilyEarly on the morning of 9 July an Italianreconnaissance plane spotted an allied invasionconvoy south of Pantelleria. At 1630 the same dayanother Italian plane spotted five convoyssteering north from Malta. The Italian andGerman forces on Sicily were all alerted. Withinan hour a German reconnaissance plane reporteda convoy 33 miles northwest of Malta. Until darkthe Axis reconnaissance units shadowed theAllied convoy movements and before 2000 hoursthe Italian Air Staff ordered their torpedobombers based in Sardinia to attack.

23The Axis

forces were about to face the largest amphibiousoperation in history (to that time). The time andplace of the attack was expected and theLuftwaffe had used the time since Tunisia toprepare air attack plans and tactics.

On the morning of 10 July the Allies began landingsix divisions at eight landing points along a 100-mile stretch of the southern Sicilian coast. With aninvasion fleet of 1,365 warships, transports andsupply ships as well as 1,225 smaller landing craftit was, as one might say today, a “target richenvironment” for the Luftwaffe and RegiaAeronautica.

24The Luftwaffe and Italian Air Force

began hitting Allied armada before dawn.25

At 0510the US minesweeper Sentinal was sunk by a directhit from a Stuka with 10 killed and missing and 51wounded. At the Licata landing site there wereseveral air attacks but no US ships were hit.

26At

the Gela landing site just before 5 AM a Stukamade a direct hit on the destroyer USS Maddox thatsank immediately with heavy loss of life. Italianand German bombers flying from Sardinia attackedthe Gela beachhead in the afternoon and inflictedminor damage to the destroyer USS Murphy. ALuftwaffe fighter-bomber sank LST 313 while ahigh-level bomber attack that night came nowhereclose to hitting any ships.

27

In the British landing sector near Catania theBritish invasion fleet came under heavy attack,

mainly from the Luftwaffe bombers based insouthern Italy. On D-Day four Liberty ships and aDutch auxiliary were hit by bombs and two weresunk. That night two British hospital ships, theDorsetshire and Talamba were bombed and Talambasubsequently sank.

28

During the first two days of the landing theGerman and Italian aircraft met little oppositionfrom Allied fighters. Even though the RAF andAAF had based several fighter groups on Maltaand Pantelleria, amounting to several hundredplanes, the fighters were flying at extreme rangeand had less than an hour to patrol over thebeachheads. With eight landings and over 100miles of coast to cover the AAF and RAF couldkeep no more than a few planes patrolling overeach sector, even with a maximum effort. TheGerman and Italian planes, which had orders toavoid combat with Allied fighters, found it easy toslip in to attack the Allied ships. The American307th Fighter Squadron that covered landingreported the German tactics of the first part of theinvasion as “2-5 Me 109s or Fw 190s trying to sneakin and dive bomb the ships”.

29The US unit claimed

only two German aircraft in the campaign for theisland.

30The main resistance to the Axis air attacks

was the shipboard anti-aircraft fire, whichmanaged to bring down several Axis aircraftduring the first day. During the first two days ofthe campaign the Germans and Italians lost at least27 aircraft attacking Allied ships — losses underthe 5-10% rate that von Richthofen deemedacceptable attrition.

31

On 11 July the German and Italian air forcesattacked Allied shipping throughout the wholelanding area. In the American sector, ships logsreported several large and well-coordinated attacksby German bombers. At 1540 hours a force of 24-36Ju 88 roared in over the US fleet. A direct hit wasmade on the SS Robert Rowan, an ammunition ship,and it began to burn. The crew was removed withno casualties and the Robert Rowan blew up at 1700in one of the most dramatic moments of thecampaign.

32The ammunition ship sent a column of

smoke thousands of feet into the sky as debris andunexploded shells rained down over several squaremiles. The event was captured on film (a UScameraman at Gela was taking a photo of thebeachhead just as the Robert Rowan exploded).

By mid-July 1943 the Regia Aeronautica disappeared fromthe war as a cohesive force

56

That night the Italian and Luftwaffe bombersattacked for more than an hour using parachuteflares for illumination and the destroyer USSTilman was slightly damaged by a near miss. In theBritish sector, the destroyer HMS Eskimo was badlydamaged by a German bomb.

33

After the first days of the invasion the Axis attackstapered off as the Allied air forces rapidly putseveral captured airfields near Catania intooperation and immediately shifted fighter units to

Sicily. Once RAF and AAF fighters were based inSicily they quickly won air superiority over thewhole island and made it far too dangerous for theLuftwaffe or Regia Aeronautica to operate indaylight. In the meantime, before the Allied airunits were established ashore, the Luftwaffe keptup the attacks. On 13 July the Liberty ship TimothyPickering was sunk and on the 17th the Liberty shipWilliam Coleman was badly damaged as well as theHMS Queen Emma.

34

The first days of the Allied landing at Sicily waslast time the Axis air forces were able to have afairly free hand in the air due to the thin Allied aircover. It was the last opportunity for the Germansto use their most lethal anti-ship weapon, the now-obsolete Ju 87 Stukas, in daylight operations.However, even in an all-out campaign againstAllied shipping, the Luftwaffe and RegiaAeronautica were not able to accomplish much.The Allied loss of 12 ships to Axis air attacks didnot hinder the landing of over 100,000 troops nor

their vehicles andsupplies on the shoresof Sicily.

35The massive

Allied air campaignagainst Axis airfields inJune had cost theGermans and Italiansover 200 destroyedaircraft and over 100damaged.

36The

systematic Allied airsuperiority campaignagainst Axis airfieldsplayed the primary rolein minimizing Axisairpower over Sicily.

The air battle over Sicilywas also the last gasp ofthe rapidly expiringItalian Air Force. As theGermans expected, theItalian bomber forceproved worthless andItalian bomber raidssank no ships andcaused minimal damage.The Italian torpedobombers did somewhatbetter, sinking one ship

and damaging the British carrier HMS Indomitableon 16 July, forcing the ship to steam to Gibraltar forrepairs. The Italians indeed did their best as loyalGerman allies. The Regia Aeronautica coordinatedoperations with the Germans and pressed theirattacks aggressively. But the Italians didn’t havemuch to fight with. The Italian 4th Fighter Wingthat flew in the Sicilian campaign had a strength of133 Mc 205 and Mc 202 fighters on the books butonly 49 operational planes. Italian air operations

The Germans had deployed a revolutionarynew weapon to the theater . . . The newweapon was the precision-guided munition

The HS 293 would actually glide towards the target with the bombardier steering with a joystick and radio guidance for the control surfaces. Once a target was clearly sighted, the bombardier would ignite a rocket engine that would propel the bomb and its 700-pound warhead into some unfortunate ship at almost 500 miles per hour

57

included escorting the Luftwaffe’s Stukas to thetarget and from 11-14 July the Italian fighterstangled with the AAF’s P-38s and the RAF’sSpitfires over the invasion beaches.

37After a few

days, however, the Italian Air Force was literallyfought out, suffering from attrition and constantattacks on their airfields. By mid-July 1943 theRegia Aeronautica disappeared from the war as acohesive force.

The lack of accurate intelligence remained aproblem for the German commander and staffs.The reports on Allied losses sent to von Richthofenby the air units were wildly inaccurate. Apparentlyevery near hit was counted as a sinking. Withmany of the attacks at night, air units simplyestimated the damage inflicted on the Allied fleet.On 10 July, von Richthofen estimated that 100,000tons of shipping had been sunk as well as a “largenumber of landing boats”.

38On 11 July Luftwaffe

units reported five to six large ships sunk alongwith many landing boats. By the end of the second

day of the operation the Axis estimated that they had sunk or disabled 350,000 tons of Alliedshipping.

39On 12 July another 100,000 tons of

shipping was reported as sunk or heavilydamaged.

40Although von Richthofen believed his

strategy of attrition against the Allied shipping wasworking, reality in the form of growing Allied airsuperiority affected the German campaign plans. Atdawn on the 13th a strike by the Ju 88 force suffereda heavy loss when six were shot down. At the sametime, a group of Me 110s shipped in from Germanyto replace combat losses was destroyed on theground by an Allied air attack. By the 14th, vonRichthofen, still receiving reports of heavy Alliedshipping losses, forbade any more large air attacks.Luftwaffe units were ordered to try to slip by Alliedair and anti-aircraft cover in small groups to attackthe invasion fleet.

41By 15th, five days after the

landing, Kesselring and von Richthofen realizedthat the invasion was not going to be defeated andLuftflotte 2 started to evacuate Luftwaffe personnel,equipment and aircraft in Sicily.

42

58

The Luftwaffe continued small attacks through Julyand August and reported another few hundredthousand tons of Allied shipping lost. However,from mid-July on, the Luftwaffe’s priority was torebuild its force and prepare for the next stage ofthe war, the expected Allied invasion of southern Italy. In contrast to the massive Allied lossesclaimed by the Luftwaffe (over 500,000 tons), in the month of July, in fact, the Allies lost only 14merchant ships (80,000 tons) in the Mediterraneanalong with two warships (USS Sentinel andUSS Maddox).

43

SalernoThe Sicily Campaign ended on 17 August 1943when the Allies marched into Messina. On that dayKesselring was busy rushing reinforcements tosouthern Italy and von Richthofen was workingfrantically to rebuild the units that had been badlybattered in Sicily. The Allied failure to follow up thevictory in Sicily with an immediate jump across thestraits to the Italian mainland was viewed as agodsend by the German commanders. Montgomery,with characteristic caution, waited more than twoweeks to land the 8th Army in Calabria on 3September and the Germans used the time toprepare strong defenses. The Bay of Salerno, withthe great port of Naples, was the most obvioustarget for an Allied landing on the Italian coastalthough the Germans were still concerned aboutthe possibility of an Allied landing on Sardinia andhad to maintain a strong air detachment there. Atthis time Luftflotte 2 had seven bomber groupsbased in the Foggia area and another two at thesouthern Italian base at Viterbo. Three bombergroups (I KG 26, III KG 26 and III KG 100) werestationed in southern France, ready to stage south tosupport Luftwaffe operations against an Alliedlanding. Although the unit strength of each bombergroup was supposed to be 40 aircraft, some of thegroups, especially KG 26 and KG 100, had takenheavy losses in Sicily and the heavy attacks on theFoggia and Viterbo airfields continually cost theGermans aircraft destroyed on the ground. In earlySeptember 1943 most of the bomber groups were athalf strength or less, giving the Luftwaffe fewerthan 200 bombers for the whole theater. As theAllies prepared to attack Salerno, the Luftwaffeprepared to withdraw its bombers to airfields in thefar north of Italy, in Piedmont, Bergamo andPiacenza, in order to make them less vulnerable to

Allied attack.44

The fighter, light bomber and fighter-bomber units were dispersed to airfields in Calabriaand Apuleia within range of any probable Alliedlanding sites. After the losses in Sicily, the fightersand attack units were also weak, operating at halfstrength or less.

For the Luftwaffe, Salerno would be a tougher aircampaign than Sicily as the British and Americanshad captured and repaired numerous airfields inSicily and, although flying at long range, were in abetter position to keep a strong air cap over thebeachhead than in the first days of the Sicilylanding. The Luftwaffe would need new tactics andweapons to have a chance of inflicting majordamage upon the Allied fleet. Indeed, the Germanshad deployed a revolutionary new weapon to thetheater that gave them the hope of turning back theexpected Allied invasion of southern Italy. The newweapon was the precision-guided munition, abomb that could be dropped at high altitude,steered in flight by a bombardier with radio controland could hit a precise target, such as an Alliedship, with devastating effect. In tests the newbombs had proven to be ten times more accuratethan any conventional bombs dropped at highaltitude. The campaign at Salerno would be thefirst major test of the precision bomb in warfare.

The Luftwaffe had, in fact, developed two differentmodels of precision bombs. The first was the Fritz X,a 3,000 lb armor-piercing bomb designed with alarge tail with controllable surfaces. The Fritz Xwould be dropped at approximately 22,000 feet in atrajectory that would bring it close to the target. Aflare in the bomb’s tail gave the position to thebombardier, who then used a simple joystick tomanipulate the radio-controlled tail surfaces tosteer the bomb to the target. Because it was anarmor-piercing bomb, the Fritz X was intended foruse against Allied warships. The second bomb wasthe Henschel Hs 293 and resembled a poweredglider more than a conventional bomb. The Hs 293could be dropped from high or medium altitudesand the bombardier was able to track it by a flarein the tail, as with the Fritz X. The HS 293 wouldactually glide towards the target with thebombardier steering with a joystick and radioguidance for the control surfaces. Once a target wasclearly sighted, the bombardier would ignite arocket engine that would propel the bomb and its

The thing the Allies had most feared came to pass as Dornierscarrying Fritz X bombs arrived over the fleet

59

700-pound warhead into some unfortunate ship atalmost 500 miles per hour. The latter bomb wasintended primarily to destroy soft-skinnedmerchant vessels and transports.

In September 1943 two bomber groups of BomberWing 100 (KG 100), each with twenty planes, had been trained and equipped to drop the Fritz X andHs 293. Both groups employed Dornier Do 217bombers and KG 100 had long been considered tobe an elite bomber unit and used consistently bythe Luftwaffe to employ new equipment andtechniques. In 1940 KG 100 had been the premierunit in the Luftwaffe for long-range navigation andbombing and had been the first air force unit to bedesignated as a ‘pathfinder’ force for otherbombers. Because of the more complex nature ofthe radio-guided bombs, the aircrew of KG 100were a carefully selected and trained group. Indropping the Fritz X, for example, the pilot had topull up and fly as slowly as possible after droppingthe bomb in order to allow the bombardier toacquire the bomb and the target. Moreover, the

pilot had to fly straight and release the bombwithin a five-degree cone. Employing such aweapon required precise flying far above thestandard coming out of the German pilot schools in1943. The Hs 293 was considerably easier toemploy, without the same requirements for stayingon a direct course.

45

On 8-9 September 1943 it must have seemed to theWehrmacht in Italy as if everything was happeningat once. In the late afternoon of 8 September aGerman reconnaissance plane spotted a vast Alliedconvoy north of Malta heading east for Salerno. Alanding at Salerno was expected within 12 hoursand the German forces were alerted.

46On the same

day, the Italian surrender, which had been secretlynegotiated and signed the week before, wasannounced. At the same time that they had toprepare to repel an Allied invasion, the Germanforces also had to immediately seize control of allItaly and disarm the Italian armed forces. However,the Germans had also been quietly planning forthis eventuality since the Spring and had its forces

60

in position of execute ‘Operation Axis’, the plan to secure Italy for the German Reich. The selectionof the code name for the operation suggests thatField Marshal Kesselring had a humorous streak in his nature.

Of course, things can always get worse, and theydid. That night the USAAF launched a big raid of120 heavy bombers on the German army andLuftwaffe headquarters at Frascati. The outsidebuildings were all leveled and Kesselring almostkilled in the raid. Of the 1,000 personnel at thearmy and Luftwaffe headquarters about 80 werekilled with many more wounded. The Germantheater headquarters communications were shutdown. However, the Germans were fairly luckythat day. Most of the headquarters was locatedunderground in deep tunnels and caves andremained unscathed by the attack. In a remarkableshow of competence, the Luftwaffe’s signalengineers restored full communications in only six hours.

47On the morning of the 9th, von

Richthofen was able to put his portion of Operation Axis into effect.

The first mission of the German bomber force wasto see that the Italian navy did not end up in Alliedhands. A large part of the Italian fleet had sailed forAllied ports in North Africa during the night andwas spotted off the coast of Corsica. Aircraft of KG100 attacked their allies of a day before and madetwo direct hits with Fritz X bombs on the BattleshipRoma, the pride of the Italian fleet. Two near missesadded to the damage. The Roma sunk almostimmediately, taking almost all the officers and crewwith her. It was a pretty impressive debut for thePGM in use against a major warship.

48Several

smaller Italian ships were sunk or damaged byGerman air attacks on the 9th as the Italian fleetraced to safe Allied havens.

49

A force of 55,000 American and British groundtroops supported by 586 Allied warships,transports and landing ships fought their wayashore in the Bay of Salerno at dawn on 9September.

50With the bombers busy attacking the

Italian fleet, the first Luftwaffe attacks were madeby Fliegerkorps II’s Me 109 fighters and the Fw 190fighter-bombers of the attack groups. The Me 109semployed a new weapon in the form of 21cmrocket launchers mounted on the wings.

The Fw 190s carried 500 kg bombs (1,100 lb). Withfairly strong Allied fighter cover, with additional aircover provided by five British carriers, the onlyeffective tactic for the Germans was to slip in at highspeed, fire the rockets and drop the bombs at thefirst likely targets and run away at high speed. As inSicily, the damage reported by the Luftwaffe waswildly exaggerated. While von Richthofen was toldthat two Allied cruisers had been sunk and 150,000tons of Allied shipping had been taken out of action,in reality the Luftwaffe’s fighter-bombers had onlycrippled one LST and sunk another.

51Some small

landing craft were sunk or badly damaged as well,the 21 cm rockets actually proving to be an effectiveweapon against small vessels.

In any case, 9 September 1943 was perhaps thebusiest day for the Luftwaffe in Italy as it survivedAllied air attacks, seized control of all the ItalianAir Force installations and flak units, bombed thefleeing Italian navy and attacked the Alliedlanding. Despite the events of the Salerno landing,von Richthofen’s personal diary hardly mentionedthe Allied attack while containing a detailedaccount of all the measures that had to be taken tosecure the German lines of communication in Italy.It’s a testament to the Luftwaffe’s competence andvon Richthofen’s capable leadership that so manysimultaneous crises could be handled. .

It would be three days before Luftflotte twobombers were ready to conduct major strikesagainst the Allied beachheads. In the meantime,General Fink’s Fliegerkorps II fighters and fighter-bombers made a series of low level hit and runraids, which mostly damaged Allied light craft.Most of the German bombers were relegated tonight raids on the Allied fleet because there weretoo few fighters to escort them in daylight attacks.The three battered Luftwaffe fighter groups still insouthern Italy could only mass enough planes toescort the Do 217s of KG 100 on daylight raids. Oneof the Luftwaffe’s most effective anti-shippingforces, the small group of torpedo bombers, couldnot be used in daylight due to the paucity ofescort.

52

On the 11th the thing the Allies had most fearedcame to pass as Dorniers carrying Fritz X bombsarrived over the fleet. The cruiser USS Savannahwas badly damaged by a glide bomb. Two days

All the Luftwaffe forces in Italy were ordered into the Anziobattle. In von Richthofen’s words, “We couldn’t have done more”

61

later the cruiser USS Philadelphia had a narrowescape as it maneuvered frantically to avoid twoguided bombs. The cruiser HMS Uganda was not solucky. It was hit by a guided bomb and crippled onthe 13th and attacked again while it was beingtowed away on the 14th.

53On the 13th the British

hospital ship Newfoundland took a direct hit andsank. On the 14th the merchant ship SS BushrodWashington was hit by a guided bomb, probably aHs 293, and sunk. The next day KG 100 Dorniersstruck the SS James Marshall with a guided bomb.The ship was wrecked but later salvaged. On the16th, a week after the landing, KG 100 got theirbiggest prize of the campaign. The battleship HMSWarspite, which provided vital gunfire support forthe Allied units engaged in desperate fightingashore, was hit by two guided bombs anddamaged further by two near misses. The Warspitewas towed to Malta, repaired and eventuallyreturned to service, but would be out of action forseveral months.

54

It was basically a pretty auspicious beginning forthe PGM in warfare. The small Luftwaffe forceequipped with the new weapons had, in a week,disabled a battleship, two cruisers and had sunk orwrecked three other vessels. It still was not enoughto seriously hinder the Allied landing and buildup.The Luftwaffe, however, had a different picture.The Germans believed that dozens of Alliedwarships and merchant vessels had been sunk ordisabled at Salerno (400,000 tons by the 18th) whenthe reality was far different. In the month ofSeptember 1943 the Allies lost 52,000 tons ofmerchant shipping in the Mediterranean.

55Still, by

mid September it was clear that the Allies weresuccessfully ashore and would continue to advanceup the Italian peninsula.

The combat losses to the Luftwaffe during theSalerno battle were reported as low. Still, there wasa steady attrition from combat and Allied attackson German airfields and by mid-September theLuftwaffe bomber force was described simply asbeing ‘fought out’.

56Since the southern Italian bases

were in the path of the Allied ground advance, theywere evacuated on 20 September and the bomberunits sent to northern Italy. The fighters and attackgroups who had borne the brunt of the battle atSalerno were pulled out for the relative safety ofCentral Italy. The Luftwaffe needed time to

reorganize, retrain and rebuilt its units after Sicilyand Salerno. Von Richthofen, who was being treatedfor tuberculosis, started five weeks of convalescentleave in a northern Italian sanitarium. Kesselring,who didn’t like von Richthofen but still valued hiscompetence, told Berlin to keep von Richthofen inthe theater despite health problems because heneeded the Luftwaffe commander to rebuild hisforce for the battles expected in the Spring.

The Luftwaffe reorganizesOf course, Hitler’s promise of massivereinforcements to von Richthofen made in theSummer proved false. After the failure to stop theBritish and American landings at Salerno, theLuftwaffe in Italy was radically reorganized andreduced to a fraction of its former strength. Thesituation in Italy was at least stable and thedemands of the other fronts and defense ofGermany were too pressing for Berlin to ignore.The Luftwaffe’s command setup was also reducedand reorganized. Fliegerkorps II under GeneralBulowius was detached and sent to France.Luftflotte 2’s bomber command was eliminated.KG 1 was sent to Germany to be reequipped withthe He 177. One bomber group (II KG 77) was sentto Germany to be trained as a torpedo unit andanother group (II/LG 1) was sent to Greece butwas available to support operations in Italy. Onlythree Ju 88 bomber groups with about 100 planeswere retained in Italy (I and II KG 76 werestationed at Aviano) and the other bomber groupswere sent to France to take part in the plannedbomber offensive against England. Sardinia wasevacuated with its air detachment brought tonorthern Italy. Three fighter groups (I JG 53, I JG77, I JG 4) a fighter-bomber wing of two groups (ISG 4, II SG 4) and some reconnaissance squadronswere retained in the theater and stationed innorthern and central Italy.

57By late Fall 1943 the

Luftflotte 2 had fewer than 300 operational combatplanes available for operations in Italy.

However, even this reduced force was still capableof inflicting serious damage on the Allies. DuringNovember 1943 the Germans noted the weaknessof the Allied air defenses at the port of Bari insouthern Italy, one of the Allies’ most importantsupply bases. Using reconnaissance planes flyingfrom the Albanian Luftwaffe command as well asfrom Luftflotte 2, Bari and its shipping was kept

62

under careful observation for two weeks.58

In a raidmeticulously planned by von Richthofen and hisstaff, a force of 105 Ju 88s, virtually every bomberin the Italian theater, attacked Bari harbour thenight of 2-3 December. The Luftwaffe’s tactics weresuperb. Most bombers first flew out to sea anddropped to low altitude to avoid Allied radarobservation. Pathfinder bombers dropped‘windows’ (aluminum foil strips) to jam the Alliedair defense radars while the bombers systematicallyworked the port over by the light of parachuteflares. The small port was crammed with shippingand the Ju 88s were lucky enough to hit anammunition ship and a tanker. The ammunitionship blew up and rained explosives on the othervessels as the fire from the tanker’s burning oilspread. In a short time 16 Allied merchant vesselswere destroyed and eight others damaged. Theport facilities were heavily damaged and knockedout of operation for three weeks. Naval historianSamuel Morison described it as “the mostdestructive air attack since Pearl Harbor”.

59Yet the

Bari raid was not to be repeated, Allied anti-aircraftand night fighter defenses at the major ports, suchas Naples, were simply too strong for theLuftwaffe’s small bomber force.

AnzioThe Luftwaffe settled into a routine of small nightharassment raids against Allied logistics during theWinter of 1943-44. By January 1944 things were soquiet that Field Marshal von Richthofen took a tripto the Po Valley to hunt ducks with some of hisstaff. While von Richthofen was reducing the birdpopulation of northern Italy an Allied invasionfleet of 370 ships and landing craft made the 150mile jump from Naples to Anzio on 22 January1944 and landed a corps of 50,000 American andBritish troops on the coast near Rome withvirtually no opposition. In contrast to Sicily andSalerno, the landing came as a complete surprise tothe Germans. The Luftwaffe’s air reconnaissanceforce was, by this time, unable to provide morethan the sketchiest picture of Allied shippingmovements and convoys. However, the Germanshad noted Anzio as a possible landing site and hadenough reserves near Rome to throw against theinvaders and slow the Allied advance.

Bad weather over northern Italy prevented vonRichthofen from flying immediately south to direct

operations against the landing from hisheadquarters near Rome.

60Many German aircraft in

Northern Italy were grounded by bad weather forthe first days of the battle and the Luftwaffe’spremier anti-shipping force, the guided bombgroups of KG 100, were dispersed around smallairfields in southern France to evade the Alliedbomber campaign against the larger Germanairfields. It took days to assemble the units andstage them south to airfields in Italy closer to theaction. The Luftwaffe’s fighter and attack groups inItaly had been badly weakened by constant attackson their airfields in the three days before the Anziolanding and needed time to sort themselves out andmove to airfields close to the landing site. When hearrived at his headquarters late on the evening ofthe 22nd, von Richthofen gave the orders to deployavailable air units to oppose the landing as well asordering 40 Luftwaffe flak batteries to the front linesto engage the Allied ground troops. Virtually all theLuftwaffe forces in Italy were ordered into theAnzio battle. In von Richthofen’s words, “Wecouldn’t have done more”.

61

In the meantime, Luftflotte 2’s only response to theAnzio landing on the 22nd were a few fightersstationed near Rome that evaded the Allied air coverand strafed the beach. Some fighter-bombers alsoattacked the shipping. For the next two days, poorweather hindered the Luftwaffe’s deployment offorces to meet the Allied landing.

62On the night of

the 23rd the Luftwaffe drew its first blood when adestroyer HMS Janus was hit by a German air-dropped torpedo and sunk and the destroyer HMSJervis was damaged by a bomb.

63The first large

attacks came on the 24th. Fifteen fighter-bombers ofSchlachtgeschwader 4 attacked the Allied fleet in theafternoon while another 43 aircraft attacked at duskand 53 bombers attacked at night. A 500 kg bombfrom a fighter-bomber hit the destroyer USS Plunkettand caused heavy damage and casualties. That nightthe hospital ship St. David took a hit from a guidedbomb and sank. The destroyer USS Mayo hit a mineand was badly damaged.

64Through the campaign,

the German bombers also dropped mines in theshipping lanes at night and between January andApril 1944 more than 600 mines were dropped bythe Luftwaffe near Anzio.

65

As the fighting intensified von Richthofen wasoften at the front to observe the air attacks of his

63

unit from an observation post overlooking the bay.General Ritter von Pohl, commander of all the flakunits in Italy was appointed as the ‘close battlecommander’ of Luftflotte 2 with the responsibilityof commanding all the flak and air units in theAnzio sector.

66Within a few days, the German air

campaign assumed a pattern. Groups of 30-50fighters and fighter-bombers would attack theshipping and beachhead once or twice a day whilethe bombers, especially the KG 100 units with theguided bombs, would attack at night. The Germanbombers normally employed ‘Window’ against theAllied air defenses, which proved effective injamming the Allied air defense radars. The Alliedcommanders noted that Anzio saw the toughestGerman air opposition in the whole Mediterraneancampaign. A dusk raid of FW 190s on the 26th

damaged a LST, 7 light craft, two merchant shipsand a tug.

67On the night of 29 January KG 100 had

its best night of the campaign when its guidedbombs sank the cruiser HMS Spartan and theLiberty Ship SS Samuel Huntington.

68One factor that

made the German night attacks so effective was theLuftwaffe’s large radar installation at Cape Circethat overlooked the Anzio beachhead. Despitemany attempts by the Allies to destroy the site, the

radar kept operating throughout the campaign andgave the Luftwaffe a clear picture of the Allied airactivity over the sector.

Any air attack can be terrifying, but it is especially toughon sailors because there is no place to hide on a ship. The sailors that faced the nightly Ju 88 raids withconventional bombs took them fairly calmly. While theconventional bombers made a lot of noise, they rarelyhit anything. This was not so in the case of the attackswith the Fritz X and Hs 293. Because the tail flare in thebombs and the rocket engine of the Hs 293 were highlyvisible at night, anyone under attack could see the bombheading straight for the target. This leant a surrealquality to the raids by KG 100 on the Allied fleets atAnzio and Salerno. An American Army sergeant atAnzio watched the attack that sank the cruiser HMSSpartan (probably a Hs 293) and described the “brightred spot (the flare) that seemed to hang in the sky forseveral seconds . . . when the target was located it camedown like a comet in a wide sweeping arc”. Theexplosion was described as ‘tremendous’.

69After the

initial landing supplies were brought in by LSTs andLiberty Ships that unloaded as quickly as possible andsailed away. Such ships might be unlucky enough toexperience one such attack. However, the sailors

A DO 217carrying the Hs 293 guidedbomb

A 25% hit rate for bombs does not seem much by modernstandards but it represented a quantum leap in the capability ofairpower in 1943-1944

64

manning warships like the HMS Spartan that stayed onstation to provide gunfire support to the troops onshorehad to suffer through several such attacks. If the PGMsof 1943-44 were not as accurate as their moderndescendents but, like the Kamikazes in the Pacific, theycertainly had a demoralizing effect on their targets.The German campaign against the beachheadreached a crescendo in mid February whenKesselring mounted a major ground offensive totry to destroy the Allied beachhead. MassedLuftwaffe fighter-bombers provided close airsupport for the German panzer units advancing onthe Allies and bombers struck Allied depots andlogistics. The Germans flew more than 150 sortieson 16, 17 and 19 February in a desperate attempt tobreak the Allied defense.

70The all-out effort failed.

The AAF and RAF were able to fly hundreds ofsorties against the German attackers as well asagainst the Luftwaffe. Between 16 and 19 Februarythe Allies claimed 26 German aircraft shot down atAnzio.

71By 22 February it was clear to Kesselring

that his forces were not going to overrun the Alliedbeachhead at Anzio. At the same time, theLuftwaffe was clearly exhausted by its effort andsteady attrition. Night bomber attacks continuedwith a Liberty Ship and LCT hit by guided bombsand sunk on 15 February and the destroyer HMSInglefield sunk by a guided bomb on 25 Februarywith heavy loss.

72However, after this time the

Luftwaffe effort petered out and assumed thenature of minor harassment raids.

By mid-Spring 1944 Berlin understood that therewas little the Luftwaffe could do in the Italiantheater and all the bombers were withdrawn fromthe theater to reinforce the expected battle inFrance. By June Luftflotte 2 was left with a forceof less than 200 combat aircraft on paper, withabout 100 fighter planes and fighter-bombersoperational. That month the Luftflotte wasofficially abolished and the Luftwaffe force inItaly downgraded to the status of a specialcommand ‘The German Air Force in Italy’s. Forthe rest of the war, the major Luftwaffe oppositionto the Allies in Italy would be its flak brigades.Von Richthofen, a field marshal, remained incommand of a force more suitable for a majorgeneral. Perhaps it was Hitler and Goering’s wayof punishing von Richthofen for the failure tohold the Allies in Italy. In any case, relegating abrilliant commander and tactician like von

Richthofen to a minor command on what hadbecome a backwater front when there were majorair battles to come over Germany and on theWestern front is typical of the petty manner inwhich the Third Reich treated its top soldiers inthe last two years of the war.

ConclusionThe Luftwaffe’s campaign in Italy in 1943-1944 is asnapshot of a force in rapid decline. Given theenormous Allied air superiority over the Germans, itssurprising that Luftflotte 2 did as well as it did. VonRichthofen and gifted subordinates such as Generalvon Pohl, General Bulowius, and Colonel Pelzdeveloped some fairly effective tactics against theAllied invasion fleets and inflicted moderate damageon the Allies against great odds. Frankly, it is hard tosee how the Luftwaffe could have done better givenits strategic situation and the force disparity.

The British-American commanders wisely chose themost effective strategy for dealing with theLuftwaffe threat to the invasion fleets at Sicily,Salerno and Anzio. The German airfields throughoutthe Italian theater were attacked so constantly andeffectively (with a lot of help from Ultra intelligence)that the battered Luftwaffe combat units were neverable to recover from their losses. Attrition wasconstant. No sooner would replacement aircraft arrivefrom Germany, sometimes in batches of 30 or more,than they would be blown to bits in an Allied bomberraid. The German records are full of such stories.Moreover, the heavy Allied attacks on the forwardGerman airfields forced the Luftwaffe to pull theirunits away from the front and to fly at extreme rangefor much of the campaign. The sound Allied airstrategy forced the Luftwaffe to fight inefficiently.

Attrition of aircraft was especially heavy in theItalian theater.

73In addition, pilot attrition had

become a crisis for the Luftwaffe by the time ofSicily. Although careful tactics kept pilot losses fairlylow in Italy, the well-trained aircrew of the early waryears could not be easily replaced. To make tacticseffective one also needs good pilots. Yet, by 1943, thefailure of the Luftwaffe to adequately expand itsflight schools early in the war was evident in thestate of pilot proficiency. In 1942 pilot attritionforced the Luftwaffe to drastically reduce the timeand flight hours for new pilots. By 1943 new bomberand reconnaissance pilots were arriving at the front

65

with scarcely more than 100 hours total flight time.This meant that the operational commanders in theMediterranean couldn’t simply give their squadroncommanders mission orders. Flights had to becarefully planned to ensure that inexperienced pilotswere allocated more fuel and were shepherded bymore experienced pilots. Luftwaffe pilots weregenerally less capable in night operations, althoughthe Allied air superiority forced the Luftwaffe tooperate largely at night.

An example of the failure of the Luftwaffe’sTraining Command to meet the needs of the war isseen in the two groups of KG 100 that specializedin dropping the Fritz X and Hs 293 guided bombs.Both were cranky weapons to use. As with anynew and complex weapon there were a lot of bugsin the system and the aircrew needed a lot of extratraining to use the guided bombs effectively.Moreover, only very competent pilots and aircrewcould be expected to accurately drop the bombsand hit the targets. Because of the deficiencies inthe Luftwaffe training system and the acuteshortage of experienced bomber crews by 1943,there were never more than 40 airplane crews thatwere fully qualified to employ the guided bombs.That alone was a godsend for the Allied forces thathad to face the German attacks. The bombs weren’tthat hard to produce nor were there any shortageof Do 217 bombers. The whole programme waslimited by personnel shortages.

Another issue that limited the effectiveness of theLuftwaffe’s precision bomb attacks was the failureto provide enough battle-experienced pilots andcommanders to KG 100. While the pilots andbombardiers of the precision bomber groups werethe top graduates of the Luftwaffe trainingprogramme, only a few of the squadron and flightleaders in KG 100 had considerable battleexperience. Even a well-trained pilot or flightleader can become unnerved and confused in hisfirst experience in combat. Several of the attacksmade by KG 100 at Salerno and Anzio went offcourse and executed poor attack runs due to theinexperience of the flight and aircraft commanders.Another problem for KG 100 was the Allied flak.Due to the German use of ‘window’ against theAllied radars, Allied defensive fire tended to beunguided barrage fire — spectacular to view butnot especially dangerous. If the Luftwaffe had

assigned some more ‘Old Hares’ (combat-experienced bomber pilots) to KG 100 the attacksagainst the Allied shipping would likely have beenpressed much more aggressively through therelatively ineffective Allied night air defenses.Instead, more than a fifth of all the Fritz andHenschel bombs dropped in combat were droppedin emergency release mode as the bombers brokeoff combat. Many other bombs were dropped insuch a haphazard fashion that the crew was unableto track the fall of the bomb.

74

Although many pundits and historians touted theFirst Gulf War as ‘the first precision war’ fewremember that modern precision bombing wasborn in the Italian campaign. The Fritz X and Hs293 were true PGMs and mark the beginning of arevolution in aerial warfare that culminated in theair campaigns of 1991 and 2003. Before theLuftwaffe’s radio-controlled bombs the onlyprecision weapon of an air force was the dive-bomber, and dive-bombers were highly vulnerableto enemy fighters and light anti-aircraft. Moreover,dive bombers couldn’t operate effectively at nightand none of the World War II dive bombers couldcarry the large ship-busting 3,000 lb Fritz X. Incontrast, the Luftwaffe’s radio-controlled bombswere true standoff weapons, designed to bereleased at high altitude, outside the range of lightanti-aircraft, and sometimes miles from the target.The survivability of the PGM carrying aircraft wasnotably increased. In addition, the Fritz X and Hs293 could be used effectively at night. Of the 500guided bombs dropped by KG 100 in 1943 and1944 28% malfunctioned, usually due to electronicor guidance problems. Twenty percent of thebombs were dropped in emergency release,sometimes when the aircrew fear Allied nightfighters. However, of the over 300 bombs droppedin combat, about a quarter of them either hit thetarget directly or landed close enough to inflictdamage. Indeed, the damage inflicted by a fewguided bomb raids on the Allied fleet in the Italiantheater was pretty impressive. In opposing theAllied landings in Italy the Luftwaffe’s two smallguided bomb units sank or disabled twobattleships, sank one cruiser and disabled two,sank or crippled two destroyers and sank a furtherseven merchant ships and transports and damagedat least 17 more. A 25% hit rate for bombs does notseem much by modern standards but it

66

represented a quantum leap in the capability ofairpower in 1943-1944.

75

Notes1 General Paul Deichmann, ed. Die deutsche Luftwaffe in Italien,Monograph, April 1956. In the USAF HRA Doc. K113.310-8 1943-1945Kapitel 1 pp. 18-222 ibid p. 253 Deichmann Part II p. 34 Deichmann Part II p. 35 Deichmann Part II p. 56 Deichmann Part II p. 57Deichmann Part II p. 78 ibid p. 369 Von Richthofen Diary 12 July 1943. Copy of the Diary from the VonRichthofen family.10 ibid11 In his diary von Richthofen expresses continual distrust of theItalian High Command and its intentions. General Paul Deichmann, inhis monograph on the Italian campaign, often describes the Italians asdoing their best.12 Deichmann pp. 37-4013 Deichmann pp. 40-4114 Deichmann p. 5315 ibid.16 Deichmann part II p. 1317 Deichmann Part II p. 2618 See Bundesarchiv/Militaerarchiv BA/MA Doc RL/2/II/305‘Lageberichte Luftflotte II’ for the surviving reconnaissance reports ofApril-June 1943. The Germans only occasionally got reconnaissanceplanes over the major Allied ports in North Africa such as Algiers,Oran, Bizerte, Bone tried to observe major Allied ports with 19 Deichmann, see Chapter 2 pp. 1-3 and Part III pp. 45-4720 Von Richthofen Diary, Entry of 9 July 4321 ibid22 Von Richthofen Diary entry of 20 June 194323 Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations inWorld War II: Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, January 1943-June 1944, New York:Little Brown and Co., 1954 p. 6924 www.naval-history.net/WW2194306.htm World War 2- 1943, Sicily,Salerno, Italy p. 425 Morison p. 8526 ibid p. 8827 ibid pp. 107-10828 ibid p. 16429 USAF HRA Doc SQ FI 307-HI, 307th Fighter Squadron Outline Historyto 31 Dec 194330 ibid31 Brigadier General C.J. Molony, The Mediterranean and Middle East Vol.V, London HMSO 1973 p. 6632 Morison p 12033 ibid p. 15834 ibid pp 164-16535 Richard G. Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe,Washington; Center for Air Force History, 1993, p. 241. The Alliedplanners had expected to lose as many as 300 ships to air attack.36.Molony p. 4837 Antonio Duma, Quelli Del Cavallino Rampante: Storia Del 4 StormoCaccia, Rome: Edizioni Dell’Ateneo, 1980 pp. 347-34938 Von Richthofen diary 10 July 4339 ibid entry of 11 July

40 ibid entry of 12 July. 41 Ibid entries of 13 and 14 July. 42 Ibid entry of 15 July 4343 See WWW. Naval-history and David Brown, Warship Losses of WorldWar II, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990 pp. 87-8844 Deichmann, Part III pp. 71-7245 Deichmann part II p. 46 On the difficulties in using the Fritz X andHs 293 see A.I. 2 G Report 1813 “German difficulties in Guiding theRemote-Controlled Glider Bomb”, Oct. 1945 in USAF HRA Doc.170.2278B46 Deichmann part III p. 8047 Deichmann Part III p. 8548 The Luftwaffe employed a few Fritz X and Henschel PGMs againstAllied merchant shipping in the Bay of Biscay on 25 August and in theMediterranean on 29 August. The first use of the weapons againstarmored warships was on 9 September. See William Green, Warplanesof the Third Reich, New York; Galahad Books, 1970, p. 154.49 Morison p 244, see also Deichmann Part III p. 8650 WWW. Naval-history, Salerno p. 1151 Von Richthofen Diary 9 Sept. 4352 Deichmann Part III p. 8353 Morison pp. 290-292. 54 Morison pp. 296-30055 WWW. Naval-history, Salerno, p. 1156 Deichmann Part III pp 88-8957 Deichmann Part III p. 89-9358 See BA/MA Doc RL/2/II 304, Intelligence Reports Luftflotte 2November-December 1943 and BA/MA/2/II/369 Luftflotte 2Lageberichte Nov-Dec 194359 Morison p. 319, 32260 Von Richthofen Diary, 22 January 194461 ibid62 ibid63 Morison p. 34464 ibid pp. 345-34665 Deichmann Part IV p. 11066 ibid p. 10567 Morison p. 34968 ibid p. 35569 History of the 3rd AAA Air Support Control Squadron. P. 3 in USAFHRA Doc SQ-A-Sup-Cont-3-HI, Feb 1944-Feb 1946.70 USAF HRA Doc 650.430-3, HQ 12th AF, A-2 Section, Enemy AirActivity Over Anzio Beachhead, Jan- April 1944. 71 ibid72 Morison pp. 363-36473 Attrition in the Mediterranean was far worse than on the EasternFront. With a fighter force of 296 planes in the Med in September-December 1943, the Luftwaffe lost almost 400 planes. In Russia, during the same period, the Luftwaffe had almost 500 fighters, but lost fewer airplanes. Most of the attrition, About 70%, was due toaircraft lost on the ground to Allied raids. At each stage of the Alliedadvance, the Luftwaffe abandoned dozens of aircraft, sometimes onlyslightly damaged, on airfields in Sicily, Southern Italy and Sardinia.The weak Luftwaffe forward maintenance structure could not copewith the number of aircraft repairs required.74 Interview with Herr Ulf Balke, historian at theBundesarchiv/Militärarchiv Freiburg, 14 May, 2003. Herr Balke’sfather served in KG100 and he is writing a book on that unit. 75 In 1945 KG 100 did a careful study of its experience in using theguided bombs. See translation of Air Force Research StationKarlshagen, “Considerations on the Employment of New TechnicalSpecial Weapons” 18 Feb 1945 in USAF HRA Doc. 170.2278B

67

The paper begins with an analysis of recent conflictfrom the ISR perspective, taking the last decade asa recent and relevant time period, examining theGulf War (1991), Bosnia (1995) and Kosovo (1999)as convenient episodes at approximately five-yearintervals. The analysis will attempt to show thechanges and improvements in ISR capability anddraw out what is feasible and what is not, leadingto the position we are today. It will also show whatthe ISR challenges are for conflict today, howconflict is changing and the consequences for therole and employment of ISR capability.

Having identified what remains challenging, themajor discussion will propose potential solutionsfor maximising the employment of our ISR assetsin order to bring significant additional benefit tobear on the battlefield. The editorial constraints andthe classification restrictions for this paper precludein-depth or technical analysis. The discussion willfocus on the principal considerations. The paper isconstrained in its focus on ‘air ISR’ capability as itcannot hope to cover all three Services’ ISRcapabilities, although there is certainly applicabilityacross the joint and combined arena. Any broader

examination would require more detailed research:work is already being undertaken, particularly inthe Applied Research Program (ARP). It is hopedthat this paper will complement, rather thanduplicate, such work.

The Gulf WarThis was the first major conflict after the end of theCold War and inevitably attracted close scrutiny.Many lessons emerged from this unexpected andlargely unenvisaged conflict, certainly unlike anyexpected NATO/Warsaw pact confrontation inCentral Europe. Gen Adams, the USAF DeputyChief of Staff for Plans and Operations at the time,said: “Reconnaissance needs attention. It’s acontinuing effort to assess how well we’re doingevery day. Many of our systems are configured fora Soviet-type scenario, and they are not as capableas they might be”.

1Analysis in the Australian

Defence Forces Journal added comment on anumber of weaknesses including the lack of timelyBattle Damage Assessment (BDA).

2Such detailed

target imagery analysis is essential to ensuring thateffort is not wasted on unnecessary re-attacks, andthat any re-attacks which do prove necessary are

The technology, newly available to the RAFin the form of the Tornado Infra-RedReconnaissance System (TIRRS) on theTornado GR1a, meant that night imagingmissions could be flown

An image of an aircraft taken at night, usingthe TIRRS system

70

targeted appropriately.3

Lack of trained BDAanalysts was a problem but the operational trainingof existing analysts also needed improving.

4

Despite such criticism, intelligence and BDAfunctions did work quite well, but the unexpectedpace of the conflict demanded better capabilities.Most aircraft were not fitted with sensor video sothat immediate reporting of impact results couldprovide an element of additional post-strike BDAwithout recourse to scarce ISR assets.

5

Reconnaissance assets were scarce. Even moreimportantly, the ability to manage all of theinformation collected by them was inadequate.

6

Intelligence gathering assets needed to be bettermanaged to avoid expensive and unnecessaryduplication of effort to achieve the right and timelycoverage of the appropriate targets.

7

To match the rapid pace of the war, real timetransmission of reconnaissance information wasrequired. So too was high-quality imagery whichwas capable of being provided at night and in poorweather.

8The technology, newly available to the

RAF in the form of the Tornado Infra-Red

Reconnaissance System (TIRRS) on the TornadoGR1a, meant that night imaging missions could beflown, albeit at low level only. However, only a fewof these aircraft were available to the coalition. Ascloud increased, reconnaissance assets were forcedto operate at increasingly lower altitudesthroughout the war as sensors were not capable ofimaging through weather. Furthermore, no tacticalassets were available to carry out reconnaissance at night at medium level.

9

Coalition warfare demands trust, yet intelligencesharing across the Coalition was lacking at tactical,operational and strategic levels. Sharingintelligence demands effective dissemination butthis was poor due to an inadequatecommunications structure. Where sharing didoccur, the lack of effective output was exacerbatedby an inability to fuse intelligence from cockpitvideo, tactical reconnaissance aircraft andsatellites.

10Improved abilities to be able to process

information quickly, together with improveddissemination capabilities were deemed essential.

11

The employment of smart weapons was seen ashighly desirable but such weapons relied on

“The ability to maintainthe initiative was tied tothe ability to undertakereconnaissance andsurveillance” . . . TheFrench Mirage F1CRwas the only tacticalplatform with even alimited capability

71

accurate and timely target intelligence, especially ofmobile targets, such as the infamous Scuds.

12

This issue is continued by Gen NormanSchwarzkopf: “The lack of timely reconnaissanceimagery is one of the shortfalls of Op DesertStorm”.

13The ability to control air assets and re-

target in real-time in order to keep abreast of thefluid battlefield, proved essential: “The ability tomaintain the initiative was tied to the ability toundertake reconnaissance and surveillance”.

14

J-STARS (deployed as a prototype) did providesome capability to detect critical Iraqi war fightingcapability in real or near real time.

15Another report

also adds comment on almost a total lack of datalink systems for real time reporting. The FrenchMirage F1CR was the only tactical platform witheven a limited capability.

The lack of intelligence system interoperability,across both strategic and tactical systems was aproblem, as it prevented information from beingcollated more efficiently and then disseminated tocommanders.

16Col Mann relates the lack of timely

intelligence to flaws in the “observe, orient, decide,act” (OODA) loop cycle.

17He relates various C4ISR

activities and processes to each component of theOODA loop and makes the noteworthy point thatthe OODA cycle is exactly that, a cycle, andtherefore only as strong as the weakest link in thecycle. In Desert Storm’s case, poor levels ofobservation lead to weak orientation and, while theAllied OODA loop was quicker and superior to theIraqi’s, it was not nearly as short and quick asAllied commanders would have wished.

18

The presence of the media also posed problems, inparticular the need to balance the release ofpotentially revealing intelligence with the desire tokeep popular support strong through timely andaccurate reporting. Management of the media andmanaging the media’s requirements for imagerywas also a lesson learned.

19

Most Gulf War material is consistent in its keythemes: the scarcity of assets; the importance ofreal-time information; an unexpected emphasis onnight, all-weather activity; precision-guidedmunitions and their requirement for precise targetlocations; the criticality of command, control anddecision-making (DM); intelligence dissemination,including to the media and interoperability.In

The Predator offered the ability to conduct ISTAR operationsin real time. It was equipped with UHF and Ku-bandSATCOM data links so its operators could conduct a degree of immediate analysis and provide near real-time intelligenceto the commander

72

Bosnia, nearly five years later, had the Gulf lessonsbeen learned, had progress been made, or did thenature of war change, bringing with it newrequirements?

BosniaThe Bosnian theatre of operations was verydifferent to that of the Gulf War. From the relativelyflat, Arabian desert environment with relativelyclear skies, to the hilly, forested terrain of Bosniaunder often low-lying European cloud cover.Bosnian terrain was much less conducive to ISTARoperations and the poorer weather had an equallydegrading effect. The ground situation wassignificantly more challenging given the lack of aclear ‘front line’ to delineate friendly and enemyforces on the ground and where belligerents weremixed with non-combatants. This made it difficultto discriminate between forces.

20The Allied forces

found themselves having to cope with a shift fromtraditional targeting and offensive work to apeacekeeping and crisis management role that wasmore difficult and complex.

21The target sets could

not have been more different to the Gulf asSaddam’s large, unconcealed armoured formationshad given way to elusive, mobile Serb artillery andinfantry units.

Bosnia did provide a testing ground for some newISR capabilities. The US Predator UAV flew its firstoperational missions, and it was J-STARS firstoperational use with the USAF and its first use inthe peacekeeping role.

22The Predator deployed

with a high-resolution (1 ft) Synthetic Apertureradar (SAR) sensor allowing it to conduct areaimaging from above the weather. It could then flyto lower altitudes to gather more detail from itsusual electro-optical/IR sensor.

23An important

factor was that the Predator offered the ability toconduct ISTAR operations in real time. It wasequipped with UHF and Ku-band SATCOM datalinks so its operators could conduct a degree ofimmediate analysis and provide near real-timeintelligence to the commander. The data links alsoallowed timely BDA to be undertaken, thusenabling and enhancing re-strike decision-making.

However, despite such advances as Predator andSAR, conventional NATO aircraft largely flew the20,000-plus reconnaissance sorties accomplishedduring the conflict and there was much that still

could not be achieved. Weather was still asignificant problem. In one critical 10-day period,low clouds virtually wiped out all chances ofimagery mission success and it was this weatherfactor that instigated the initial requirement todeploy the J-STARS.

24With the advent of better

weather, sensors were still hampered by the hillyterrain profile, and the thick vegetation thatmasked military targets.

25The safety of friendly

forces was jeopardised, as vital road and rail routescould not be kept under observation to ensuresafety of movement.

26Fast-jet ISR capability

limitations could not be overcome by the use ofUAVs either, as bad weather and high windshampered Predator operations.

27

The challenge of timely dissemination of imageryhad still not been resolved since the Gulf War.Thousands of images were being processed daily,largely still from wet film, as most systems had notyet been upgraded to digital technology. Theproblem then, was how to get it to the decisionmakers and end-users. Generally, verbal reportswere first transmitted through the intelligencesystem to the NATO CAOC at Vicenza andSouthern Command HQ in Naples. This mightthen be followed by a video feed of the still imageand finally, hard copy image transmission ofspecific targets.

28RAF personnel describe how the

transmission of a 4 x 3 in image on an A4 sheettook up to one hour via the NATO LOCE systemand also how imagery hard-copy prints were hand-couriered to the user from the UK. The task-to-imagery-available cycle was taking in excess of 48hrs.

29Training was also still deficient. Imagery

analysts were simply ‘picture reporting’ and unableto offer much in the way of an actual intelligenceassessment or, for BDA, a re-attackrecommendation based on damage assessed.

30

Prior to post-strike BDA imaging however, pre-attack reconnaissance had to be conducted, eitherto search for and find targets or indeed to confirmknown targets just prior to a strike. In his RUSIaddress, Sweetman describes many of theproblems, commenting that the risks of hurting orkilling civilians, the very people NATO was thereto protect, had a huge importance and meant thatstringent Rule of Engagement (RoE) were put inplace. This drove an attendant to accurately locateand positively identify the target prior to attack.

31

73

On one occasion, Swedish troops came undermortar attack near Tuzla and requested air support.However, when the RN Sea Harriers dispatched toassist the troops under fire arrived, they could notlocate the mortar threat and therefore could notdrop any ordnance.

32

Precision-guided munitions (PGM) were used insignificantly greater numbers than in the Gulf War.Some reports suggest over 600 were used duringOp Deliberate Force.

33Their use had a significant

knock-on effect for intelligence requirements, asUSAF General Ken Israel remarked: “You cannothave precision-guided munitions unless you haveprecision guided reconnaissance”.

34Many believe

that the reconnaissance of chosen areas to providethe location of previously known and unknown

targets is the biggestand highest prioritytask for ISTAR assets now and in the future.

35

Linked closely to thepre-attackreconnaissancerequirement, is thegrowing politicalimperative of provingwhat has actuallybeen attacked.Accurate and timely

BDA imagery offers to analysts not only essentialimagery of the mission results, but also tocommanders at all levels the means to show exactlywhat was attacked and the damage caused. Withmedia deployment now inevitable in any likelyconflict zone, images of damage, which may ormay not be as a result of Allied weapons, can beseen on TV screens worldwide in almost real time.Media deployed on the enemy’s ground are opento influence by the opponent’s regime and Alliedforces must be able to quash any disingenuousclaims.

36Demands to provide such imagery for

public consumption can come from all levels ofcommand and from many and varied locations.The ability to provide the required imagery willtherefore be dependent both on the communicationlinks for dissemination and an appropriate imageryformat to facilitate ease of viewing. Own force BDAneeds will be subject to the same two requirementsin order to provide rapid weapon effectivenessassessment and to inform re-tasking decisions.BDA and media requirements reinforce the needfor responsive reconnaissance assets at thetactical/operational level that are able to gatherand provide timely imagery.

The importance of BDA also drives an attendantISR requirement at the very beginning of thetargeting process. Prior to hostilities, aircrewconsequently flew intensive reconnaissancemissions over an area of interest, both to familiarisethemselves with pre-planned targets and so that

The reconnaissance of chosen areas to provide the location ofpreviously known and unknown targets is the biggest andhighest priority task for ISTAR assets now and in the future

Saratoga’s F-14Sqn wasprocessing asmany as 3,500images dailyand moreduring surgeoperations

74

the very latest imagery was available in order toassess whether targets were in accordance with theNATO targeting mandates, in particular to assessthe risk of collateral damage.

37The demand to

provide imagery throughout the targeting cycle isdriving even greater use of ISR assets. For example,

with just four TARPS systems, Saratoga’s F-14 Sqnwas processing as many as 3,500 images daily andmore during surge operations!

Since the Gulf War, modern, digital reconnaissancesystems, fully integrated with the host aircraftavionics system have emerged. They offer accuratetarget positional data that can be rapidlydownloaded into intelligence systems and is thusalmost immediately available to the front line usersand the C2 chain.

38However, when such a digital

reconnaissance system can store somewhere in theregion of 12,000 images per mission, it is also clearthat disseminating such a mass of imagery quicklyis going to be extremely challenging! Bandwidthavailability, particularly for imagery, which is somuch more ‘data hungry’ than text and many otherdata types, is crucial to the successful flow ofimagery to the end user. Imagery transmissioncertainly seems likely to be the largest singlerestriction in the reconnaissance cycle.

KosovoNearly another five years later, the Kosovo conflictshowed a further number of key differences,

underlining the way in which the conduct ofconflict is changing. The British experienceemphasised “the extent to which our operations arejoint”.

39The air operation involved assets from all

three Services, aircraft and missiles from the RN,aerial surveillance assets from the Army and of

course RAF air assets. Kosovo was significant inother new approaches with key differences to theBosnia conflict just a few years before. One authorwrote: “Commanders and warfighters found newcapabilities that allowed them to take fulladvantage of precision-guided munitions, flexiblesurveillance and reconnaissance assets, and real-time situational awareness”.

40Kosovo marked the

first real employment of UAVs in strength,although not in such great numbers with Britishforces. The US forces deployed Predator andHunter UAVs (the latter with the CIA) providing asignificantly enhanced ISR capability; their abilityto loiter over hostile terrain providing ‘stop andstare’ and real time surveillance imagery. Perhapsthe greatest change though was the high level ofpolitical interest and involvement in both air and(later) ground operations.

41Such was this political

interest that targeting was both more closelyscrutinised and more tightly controlled than everbefore. The North Atlantic Council set out targetingguidelines, then NATO Military Authoritiesselected target sets and then individual Alliesfinally cleared those targets assigned to them.

42

Such complex targeting processes demands

The US forcesdeployed Predatorand Hunter UAVs(the latter with theCIA) providing asignificantlyenhanced ISRcapability

Hunter UAV

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significant, timely transmission of targeting datathroughout the levels of command, flowing bothnationally and internationally.

Many of the lessons learned from the Kosovoconflict are reported in the MOD’s Kosovo: Lessonsdocument. The first lesson is that: “an improvedIntelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissancecapability is of great importance to all threeServices . . . an improved capability would be ofbenefit across the board”.

43Imagery intelligence

(IMINT) from a variety of sources played animportant role in informing decision-makers (andthe public) of key developments and in theselection and clearance of targets. This last point iscrucial given the view that: “Accuracy in attack,and taking all feasible precautions with a view toavoiding, and in any case minimising, collateraldamage, are important both politically andlegally”.

44Such political and legal oversight was

exercised to an unprecedented degree during theKosovo campaign.

Politicians were also concerned about the need toensure that the civil populace was kept up to date,to: “Cut through Milosevic’s propaganda . . . to letpeople know the truth, and to let an informedpublic decide what was right”.

45Satisfying the

media appetite for timely information and newsstories was a major challenge: “In many ways,getting our messages across in the broadcast andwritten media was as crucial as the militarycampaign”.

46With such an importance attached to

the media war, the ability to provide the rightnews, at the right time must be increasinglyimportant to the military.

Winning such an information war is not easy. Asdigitisation of the battle space continues, systemsincreasingly provide data in a digital format. Theproliferation of data formats also increases, sointeroperability typically decreases. Therequirement to win the information war places agreat dependence on passing the data around thebattlespace efficiently, so a huge premium is placedon bandwidth and connectivity.

47The MOD

clearly experienced such problems andconsequently carried out a comprehensiveintelligence review: “improving secure Informationand Communication Technology (ICT) at bothstrategic and operational levels to enable the

passage of intelligence and targeting informationacross and between these levels, is a majorconcern”.

48Whether it is to win the media

campaign or to reap the benefits of digitisation,passing data efficiently and in a usable manner isof the utmost importance; this demandsinteroperability.

The political and legal implications of targeting,particularly to reduce collateral damage andminimise civilian casualties, are significant. It isthis, and the drive to ‘find and strike’ rapidly,before a fleeting target disappears, that are the keyissues. “Attacks against tactical targets in Kosovoproved to be a significant challenge to the Alliance,given the difficulties in locating and positivelyidentifying targets”.

49The Yugoslav’s ability to

conceal forces and employ deception techniquescaused such difficulties. Should such a targetpresent itself, it seems highly likely that it would beunder cover of darkness or poor weather andprobably only fleetingly.

50The ability to find and

engage a target in such difficult conditions is vitallyimportant and the MOD has identified the need todo it much better, from the entire sensor, C2 andweapon engagement points of view.

51

BDA during the Kosovo campaign was certainly asessential as during the Bosnian campaign. Theimportance attached to the political imperative tokeep the public and the media well informed, to beable to nullify Milosevic’s information campaign,dictated the growing requirement for post-strikeimagery. The images that commanders need formedia publication are also the images required forBDA, so such post-strike imagery has become‘dual-use’ in nature. After the campaign, Alliesconducted comprehensive reviews of their BDAprocesses. The MOD noted that “sufficientbackground information should be compiled toenable the accurate assessment of the impact ofoperations and of an adversary’s remainingcapability”.

52A significant amount of the

‘background information’ referred to will comefrom reconnaissance missions flown before anoffensive starts i.e. pre-strike imagery. This placesgreater demands on in-theatre ISR missions in thebuild-up phase and also requires more effectiveand widespread dissemination of strategic levelimagery to the targeting and BDA cells at all levels.Co-ordinating weapon strikes on targets with

Political and legal oversight was exercised to anunprecedented degree during the Kosovo campaign

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imaging TOTs will offer timely BDA and maximiseuse of assets. Such timely BDA ensures rapiddissemination of imagery to cater for political andmedia requirements can be carried out.

The growing importance of ISR, has led toincreased demand, placing severe stress onbandwidth availability that actually limited thedeployment of some of the alliance’s most usefulassets’.

53During Kosovo, the US bought significant

commercial satellite bandwidth and still neededmore. Gen Clark (then SACEUR) commented: “. . .the information environment was characterised bymultiple imagery . . . “This imagery, however, ‘eatsup’ megabits of information with each use. Often itmust be routed simultaneously to severalheadquarters for study and review”.

54Clark added

that, trying to operate a high-precision campaignneeds robust information to plan effectively, controlthe strikes and then decide where to go back into.Clark notes that UAVs were limited in theiremployment (numbers) simply because thebandwidth required for their operation was notavailable. However, bandwidth is not only the keyto effective employment of assets, it is also vital inensuring that the product is flowed down to thosewho really need it, particularly in the lowerechelons. It seems increasingly that, while we arecertainly not asset rich, we are already in theposition of not being able to disseminate what weare collecting to those who really need it.Improving dissemination emphasises the criticalityof interoperability because: “Command, control,communications, computers and intelligence arethe backbone of the alliance, and they have to bethe first elements of interoperability”.

55If

dissemination was already poor, then the addeddimension of a ground offensive would only haveemphasised the Kosovo campaign’sinteroperability and connectivity problems.

Summary of ISR effectiveness to dateAnalysis of the past decade has analysed ISRcapability in three major conflicts, showing bothwhat was and was not possible and the progressthat has been made. It illustrates the changingmanner in which the ISR capability battle is beingfought, how the ISR product is being used andshows the key issues, the challenges that remain.CDS recently summed up the UK’s presentcapability “. . . we are constrained by ISTAR assets

and availability and by the bandwidth available . . .Quite simply, we cannot be all-seeing all the time— we simply do not have the resources”.

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As more ISR data become available (with evermore capable sensor systems), more end-usersdemand that product. Such end-users willinevitably have differing degrees of connectivity,variable bandwidth capacity or availability anddeficiencies in data format reading and exploitingcapabilities. The very same connectivity alsoimpacts the command and control aspects of ISRand our ability to use such capability effectively.Increasingly, air power is demanded to deliverrapid effect in the battle space, yet the veryconnectivity we have seen to be so lacking in ISRproduct dissemination is likely to be the sameconnectivity bearing the C2 aspects needed toemploy offensive air power to maximum effect. Ifthese rapid effect operations are demanded, thenhow can we ensure that timely, efficient command,control and DM, whether carried out on or off thebattle-field, is in place to deliver the desired effectin a highly time sensitive manner?

Time taken to either procure more systems ordevelop new technologies will neither bringimmediate benefit nor maximise use of currentsystems. The shortfalls in overall ISR capabilityseen in recent conflicts and placed in the context ofthe changing way in which we are using the ISRproduct, show two key areas on which we canfocus: firstly, ISR product dissemination, andsecondly, employment of the sensor system on thebattle-field so that the desired offensive effect can bebrought to bear.

Product dissemination “Traditionally, the UK MoD has bought stand-alone,stovepiped systems, especially when it comes tointelligence-gathering equipment. The sensor reportsback to a specific ground station and even though theinformation may be useful to another user, there’susually no way of ensuring it gets to him”.

57

Product dissemination can be viewed as acomprised of two components: the product itselfand its ease of use once it has been distributed; andthe means of distribution. In the latter case, themeans of distributing an ISR product is dependentupon point-to-point or networked connectivity and

“We are constrained by ISTAR assets and availability and by thebandwidth available . . . Quite simply, we cannot be all-seeing allthe time — we simply do not have the resources”

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the data rate or capacity available. The reporteddeficiencies in dissemination capability will not besolved either quickly or easily. Only significantinvestment will provide an efficient and capablesystem architecture. The ISR product and its ease ofuse might be considered much more easilyhowever, in that it should be relatively easy toensure data can be used much more readily once ithas been distributed. Ensuring the data also placesthe least burden on the distribution system shouldbe an important consideration too. The key is dataformatting. IMINT can be formatted so that data isdistributed in a bandwidth efficient manner and toensure that the data is in a format that can easily beopened and used by every user. Joint warfare isincreasingly likely, so improving interoperabilitybrings greater benefits. Anything that can be doneto improve product usability and ease ofdistribution will have significant dividends.

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Examination of one key UK ISR system willdemonstrate this issue. The RAF’s new RAPTORISR system, fitted to the Tornado GR4 and recentlyoperational in the Gulf, formats data coming off thesensor into a ‘primary imagery format’, PIF.RAPTOR’s PIF is not bespoke, and conforms toNATO’s ratified PIF standard, called STANAG7023. RAPTOR’s 7023 sensor data is taken into theData Link Ground Station (DLGS), via digital tapefrom the recce pod or off the high-bandwidthCommon Data Link (CDL), to be viewed andexploited. After an image analyst has analysed theinformation and turned it into intelligence, thisimagery product becomes a ‘secondary’ image file

and is saved in the NATO standard format forsecondary imagery called STANAG 4545 (NATOSecondary Imagery Format, NSIF). NSIF is alignedwith the US National Imagery Transfer Format,NITF 2.1, which is mandated for use on US military systems.

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Although such data standards exist and thereforeinteroperability should be assured, in practice thefirst interoperability hurdle has already arisen.Coalition partners are using the secondary imagerystandard as their primary imagery format, so theirground stations cannot take RAPTOR’s imagerydata until after the primary imagery has beenexploited and processed into secondary imagery. Inthis example, Allies at the theatre level are notinteroperable at the primary imagery level.Another hurdle must also be overcome. WhileSTANAG 4545 has been widely incorporated intocommercially available but quite specialisedimagery exploitation software, neither format hasbecome available on standard home/office userCOTS software. Even if the data file could be sentto an end-user, is unlikely that the informationcould be opened and viewed. To do so, theRAPTOR NSIF image file would need to beconverted, re-saved and then disseminated in amore commonly used format, for example a JPEGfile. Alternatively, all prospective end-users wouldneed to have an imagery exploitation softwarepackage pre-loaded on their IT systems.

The former solution — conversion of the imageinto a more common standard prior to

Two principal Allies are not interoperable at theprimary imagery level

A Tornado GR4A carrying the RAPTOR ISR system(AHB/RAF)

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dissemination — will undoubtedly incur a timeand workload penalty. However, if the imagerywas converted and saved in the commonly usedJPEG format, then this format offers an additionaladvantage by offering variable data compression. Ifthe data is compressed to 1/4 of its original size forexample, then the bandwidth or transmission timerequired for dissemination would be greatlyreduced. In the bandwidth ‘starved’ operationalenvironment, it seems likely that the time andworkload penalty of saving exploited images in acompressed JPEG file format is more thancompensated for by being able to distribute theimage files more efficiently and readily open, andview them once at the end-user point.

While we have only been able to look at one casehere, the importance that imagery formats have ininfluencing interoperability, distributionrequirements and the usability of an ISR productshould be clear. Unless commanders andequipment capability managers alike drive theneed to procure ISR systems that produce data in ausable, interoperable and easily distributed formatsuited exactly to all end-user requirements for thatimagery, then increasingly capable ISR collectionsystems such as RAPTOR will be creating nothingmore than a data stockpile and little in the way ofintelligence that is of real use to commanders,politicians and decision makers. There must be aclearer understanding of the benefits thatinteroperable format standards can bring tooperations and therefore increased emphasis on theneed to ensure system and data interoperabilitybetween Allies by military and politicalcommanders at the highest levels.

Delivering effect“In broad terms, the principal purposes of our forces . . .are to find and strike the enemy. The focusing ofintelligence collection and targeting effort, particularlyagainst fleeting targets, demands the full panoply of anintegrated capability to reduce the links between sensorsand effectors, to shorten and reduce decision loops”.(Maj Gen R Fulton, CM (IS), MoD)

The second challenge is delivering effect on thebattlefield, especially against difficult targets. Tofind and strike the enemy effectively, the key issuesoutlined by Maj Gen Fulton must be overcome:reducing links between sensors and shooters and

shortening and reducing DM loops. The find andstrike process begins with a sensor system findingthe target, then the application of C2 to exercise theDM process and, having decided to engage thetarget, the strike is carried out with a platform andweapon of choice. This process has been calledC4KISR, or, put in an element process order, ISR(find and fix the target), C4 (C2 and decision-making) and ‘K’ for kill. Examination of the processelements may reveal where ISR improvements mayimprove the whole ‘find-and-strike’ process.

The first element — ISR — is dedicated to findingthe target. In the ‘difficult target’ situation, fixed,static, relatively easy targets are not the issue butthe mobile and semi-mobile targets which offerlimited time and space for the whole find and strikeprocess. The start of the process may be cueing fromanother ISR asset, a SIGINT platform for example,or soon, ASTOR with its Ground Moving TargetIndicator (GMTI) radar. Whether cued, or simplytasked to reconnoitre a given area or location, anISR asset e.g. RAPTOR will image the areaattempting to find a target. Once imaging iscomplete, the RAPTOR operator now has threeoptions: to review the imagery in-cockpit, to datalink it to the DLGS for an imagery analyst to review,or to do nothing and return to the operatinglocation with the imagery recorded on tape.

The latter option, because of the transit timerequired, is unlikely to meet the timeliness beingsought within sensor to shooter operations. Thefirst two options may. If the Tornado navigatorreviews the imaged target area, finding andidentifying a target, then a target image and itsgeographical co-ordinates will be available. Thetarget image/location must then be acted upon andto do so it must enter the next step in the process,the C2 element. The target image must bedispatched to the next man in the loop, the DM. Inthe simplest of cases however, the DM might be thesame aircrew who has just found the target. In thiscase, the ISR and DM actors are one, and the targetdata need not be sent anywhere. However, this canonly be the case if the sensor actor has been enabledas the decision-maker. To be enabled, sufficientauthority needs to be delegated down to him/herin order to enable a positive engagement decision tobe made. In this simple case of sensor-to-shooter(S2S), not only has the need to distribute the target

Increasingly capable ISR collection systems such as RAPTORwill be creating nothing more than a data stockpile and littlein the way of intelligence that is of real use to commanders,politicians and decision makers

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target is approved the ‘effect’ element can then be carried out.

Strike! But with what and how?Minimising collateral damage and reducing therisk of civilian casualties are of the highest politicaland legal concern, yet this may clash with themilitary need to destroy targets and enemy militaryforce. Weapons that can be delivered so that therequired effect can be ensured but also, indelivering it precisely, that the risk of collateraldamage and civilian casualties is minimised arenecessary. The PGM is therefore increasingly theweapon of choice on the battlefield.

In the UK’s inventory, the standard PGM is thePaveway II laser-guided bomb (LGB). This is astandard 1000 lb bomb fitted with a laser guidancepackage and a weapon which can be carried by allof the RAF’s offensive attack aircraft. During theKosovo campaign, poor weather often constrainedthe employment of such weapons because the laserrequired to guide the bomb to the target could notsee through weather. As a result, the MoDupgraded LGBs with GPS guidance kits so thatthese weapons can now be employed in all weather(GPS LGBs are called Enhanced Paveways).

The employment of the weapon in either the GPSor laser-guided mode has a dependency on thetarget data required by the person/platformdelivering it, which will be a significantconsideration within the ISRC4K loop. The deliveryof the bomb in the non-laser GPS mode, permitting

delivery in poor weather conditions, is totallydependent upon accurate target co-ordinates. Thegreater the inaccuracy of the co-ordinates, thegreater the inaccuracy of the weapon. So, if theweapon can be delivered to an accuracy of 10 m,which is not unreasonable, then it follows that thetarget co-ordinates programmed into the weaponmust also be provided — ideally — to 10 maccuracy.

63These co-ordinates are sourced from the

sensor element of the S2S loop, so the weaponaccuracy requirement in turn drives the degree ofaccuracy with which target locations need to beobtained from the sensor’s image of the target. Inthe laser-guided, man-in-the-loop mode the case isvery different.

In a laser mode, typically guided using an on-board TIALD pod, then the target co-ordinatesneed to be known to a much lower order ofaccuracy. This is because the operator of the laserdesignator must acquire the target through theoptics of the pod and only if and when he has doneso will the LGB be released. The operator willacquire the target by knowing what the target lookslike, and its approximate co-ordinates, so that thefield of view of the guidance optics can be broughtto bear on that area with sufficient accuracy toallow target acquisition and confirmation. Therequirement to bring the optical field of view intothe approximate target area is much lessdemanding in terms of target location accuracy,with perhaps 500-1000 m rather than the 10 maccuracy being quite sufficient. However, the vitalrequirement for this type of delivery is for the laser

In the UK’s inventory, thestandard PGM is thePaveway II laser-guidedbomb (LGB)

A Paveway II LGB under thewing of a Harrier GR7 aircraft

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operator to know what the target looks like, so heor she needs to have an image of it. Therefore, if anLGB is going to be employed then the requirementon the sensor portion of the S2S loop is to providean image for the shooter’s use and not merelytarget co-ordinates.

Employment of an LGB not only requires an imageto be provided to the DM in the C4 process, i.e.from the sensor system into and up the commandchain, but also to get the approved target imageback down the command chain and finally to theshooter to deliver the desired effect. Needing to doso has an attendant impact on connectivity,bandwidth and data formatting considerations andonce again, the complexity, timeliness and overalleffectiveness of the S2S loop.

If an approved target image needs to be sent backto the cockpit, then it might be possible if theaircraft was fitted with an imagery-compatibleImproved Data Modem (IDM). The IDM wouldallow a ground agency to take the target image,ensure it was in an appropriate data format toallow efficient transmission to the aircraft (formatissues again!) and then transmit it to the platformvia radio. The RAF Jaguar is now fitted with animagery capable IDM and therefore such acapability could be employed relatively easily.Operational scenarios where Tornado/RAPTORsensor and Jaguar shooter combinations are taskedto conduct S2S operations on the battlefield couldthus be employed to great effect.

The analysis so far shows that there are two principalcases of PGM employment: either man-in-the-looplaser guidance or GPS-guided delivery with no man-in-the-loop (post weapon release). The decision orability to employ either of the two-weaponemployment methods drives the sensor productrequirement at the very beginning of the S2S cycle. Inthe first case, the man-in-the-loop is reliant upon theimage of the target in order to be able to work fromthe image to his view of the real world as seenthrough the guidance equipment optics, to find andacquire the target and then laser mark it for theweapon. His requirement for the target image (andonly approximate target co-ordinates) drives the needfor the sensor and the intermediate command chainto provide an image file.

In the GPS-guidance mode however, the operatorneed not receive an image of the target. Theweapon delivery is totally dependent on theaccuracy of the target location co-ordinates. In thismode, the operator will need to receive a data fileor voice message. Therefore, the requirement on theS2S chain is to provide and distribute data and notimagery. If it is assumed that the sensor systemproduced an image on which the target was found,thus beginning the S2S loop, then at some pointthis image can be translated into the simplerrequirements of a data message. Once the DM hasseen, assessed and approved the target on theimage, the image is largely redundant as only thetarget co-ordinate data now needs to be sent to theshooter. In this case, the imagery formatconsiderations are greatly simplified, thebandwidth requirement reduces and timeliness

A voice-data messagewill be relatively easyto get to the shooterplatform (typically viaan E-3 AWAC aircraft)but ensuring a targetdata file can get to theplatform is not nearlyso simple

E-3 AWAC

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should improve. A voice-data message will berelatively easy to get to the shooter platform(typically via an E-3 AWAC aircraft) but ensuring atarget data file can get to the platform is not nearlyso simple.

In most of the UK’s current front-line aircraft fleet,ground target data files are not routinelytransferred to or from an aircraft; however, therecent integration of the IDM into the Jaguar wascarried out to provide exactly such a capability. TheJaguar IDM fit was born from the requirement toreceive target data from a ground Forward AirController (FAC). The FAC can be equipped with aradio linked to a computer equipped with an IDMcard. In this manner, the FAC can enter target co-ordinates into a task message, which can then besent via the IDM and radio to the aircraft. Thismethod could also be used to send S2S target datamessages from a suitable point in the C2 chain onceengagement had been authorised. This does meanthat the C2 node needs to have such equipment butthis should certainly be possible. Such a solutionprovides for the case where the engagementdecision must be taken off-board the sensorplatform. However, in the case where the decisioncan be taken on-board then the target data must besent from the sensor/DM platform to the shooter.

Target data could be sent from the sensor platformvia a simple voice message but doing so issusceptible to the normal vagaries of air-to-airvoice communications and success is reliant on theshooter crew receiving the target co-ordinatescompletely and accurately, noting them down andthen entering them into the weapon computer withno mistakes or inaccuracies. This process is neitherideal nor efficient, so, if the sensor platform couldsend a data message to the shooter, and that datamessage could be accepted, read and entereddirectly into the weapon aiming computer, thenthis would offer far less likelihood of error and amuch higher probability of success. This process isexactly the functionality that the Jaguar IDM has inorder to carry out IDM-based FAC operations. TheS2S requirement is for the sensor platform to becapable of sending such a target data message. Ifthe sensor system is Tornado with RAPTOR, thiswould entail integration of IDM into Tornado sothat a targeting message could be sent to a shooter.If this integration was carried out, then it might

also be possible to send a RAPTOR target imagethrough the IDM, which might offer sufficientflexibility for both man-in-the-loop and GPS-guidance shooter operations.

It has been shown that is possible to get the vitaltarget data message to the shooter, whether directlyfrom the sensor platform or from the C2/DM chainonce an engagement decision has been taken by theempowered commander. In both cases, IDM ispotentially capable of carrying this out; it simplyneeds to be at a suitable point in the C2 chain, or topermit direct data transmission to a shooter, also inthe sensor platform. If fitted in the sensor platform,IDM should also permit imagery transmission fromsensor to shooter platforms.

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Earlier discussion showed how the GPS weapon isdependent on the accuracy of the target co-ordinates for success and in the S2S scenario, thatthese co-ordinates will be extrapolated from thesensor image of the target. Accordingly, the sensorsystem must be able to provide coordinates to thelevel of accuracy required for the weapon as if not,then an imagery-based, man-in-the-loop, laser-guided weapon operation may be the only type ofattack that can be carried out.

Geo-coordinate data of a location viewed onimagery has only quite recently become available.

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At one time, inaccurate platform location data wasall that was available, but often today even thesensor system has its own GPS fitted, RAPTORonce again being such an example. A complexreconnaissance management system fed with suchaccurate positional data and linked to an inertialsensor system, allows the sensor to be pointed andscanned very accurately. Imagery embedded withaccurate co-ordinate data can then be obtained,whether viewed in the cockpit or in the groundstation. Two particular factors affect the accuracy ofthe geo-coordinate data embedded within theimagery file. Firstly, a problem arises from the factthat the accurate positional data is GPS based,which does provide accurate location, but only inthe two-dimensional plane; it is relativelyinaccurate in the 3rd, vertical plane.

66Secondly, the

location data is determined by algorithms in thereconnaissance management system that assume aflat earth: there is no allowance made for the realworld or terrain profiling.

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These two problems can induce quite significantgeo-coordinate errors. Any sensor-system heighterror is approximately replicated in positional erroron the ground, thus (if the sensor is looking aboutthe 45 degree depression angle) a 1,000 ft heighterror in the sensor system will translate to a 1,000 ftpositional error in ground location data and evenmore at shallower depression angles (which wouldbe more typical for medium stand-off ranges).Therefore, any improvement that can be made tothe system height accuracy will also benefit the geo-coordinate data accuracy of the imagery.

The second factor, theflat earth problem,means that if theimaging is carried outover a portion of theearth’s surface whichconsists of relatively flatterrain, such as theArabian desert, then thegeo-coordinate accuracyshould be quite good asthe real world will moreclosely resemble the flatearth software model.However, if the imagingis carried out over thehills of Kosovo, then animage of a target locatedin such terrain will bequite inaccurate as thelocation data on theimagery will still bebased upon flat earth

even though the target is situated well above it onthe actual terrain present. Any reduction in thisinaccuracy would require representation of theearth’s surface within the reconnaissancemanagement system so that points on the imagecould be correlated with the real world terrainelevation beneath and an accurate geo-coordinateposition for the target would be derived.

Such a terrain profile is already widely available ina dataset called Digital Terrain Elevation Data(DTED): this is a grid system of area squarescovering the earth’s surface with a post at eachgridline intersection that reflects the terrainelevation at that point.

67This grid of posts and their

elevations is held in the DTED loaded into theaircraft. If such data could be embodied into thesensor system, then a significant improvement tothe target geo-coordinate accuracy might beachieved. Modification work would be required tothe sensor system and this would involve somecost outlay, but it should be a relatively simpleupgrade and certainly more cost effective thanprocuring a whole new sensor system.

Overall, improving the height accuracy of thesensor system would reap some benefit in imagerytarget location accuracy. If DTED could also beincorporated into the sensor system, then a furtherand probably more significant improvement of the imagery target location accuracy should beachievable.

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ConclusionThe aim of this paper was to demonstrate how ISReffectiveness could be maximised. Capable ISRsystems are already in service, so making better useof what we already have would bring benefits freefrom procurement expense and time delays. Thepaper reviews the past decade of conflict, drawingout what was possible, what remains challengingand the implications borne out of the changingnature of conflict and its impact on ISR capability.

The Gulf conflict showed an overall lack of ISRcapability. Very few assets offered night, all-weather or stand-off imaging, being largely stillconfigured for the Cold War. The rapid pace of theconflict demanded faster intelligence, but the lackof data links and effective communications meantinformation demand outstripped supply. A poorcommunications structure also hindered theintelligence sharing so vital in a coalition conflict.BDA was poor, partially because analysts were nottrained to analyse weapons effects nor to make re-strike recommendations, but particularly becauseISR assets were not managed effectively to ensureimaging was closely co-ordinated with strikes. Thisalso hampered the media campaign, as unexpecteddemands were placed on the military to providepre- and post-strike imagery.

In Bosnia, the environment, terrain and forcedisposition were all very different to the Gulf. Amuch wider range of targets were tasked for ISRcoverage. Although imaging was often severely

Kosovo is reportedas the first trulyjoint conflict, aninformationrevolution withsignificantemployment ofPGMs, flexiblesurveillance andreconnaissanceand real-timesituationalawareness

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hampered by the environment, new capabilitiessuch as J-STARS and Predator SAR could providenight, all-weather imaging and real-timetransmission via data links. In more conventionalareas, dissemination had still not been solved, withthe task-to-imagery cycle still taking as long as 48hrs. Commanders needed to show those targetsattacked and the damage caused but poor BDAtasking hindered this requirement. Such coveragewas increasingly important given the political driveto ensure minimum collateral damage and civiliancasualties and to quash false enemy claims.Showing post-strike imagery also demanded pre-strike imagery for comparison, but it was theincreasing use of PGMs that was really driving thedemand for immediate pre-strike imagery,particularly against mobile or semi-mobile targets.Such targets demanded imagery offering accuratetarget locations which could be downloadedrapidly into the intelligence system. New digitalISR systems offered such possibilities but were alsoplacing increasing and significant demands oncommunications bandwidth.

Kosovo is reported as the first truly joint conflict,an information revolution with significantemployment of PGMs, flexible surveillance andreconnaissance and real-time situational awareness.The campaign was also characterised byunprecedented high-level political interest withmuch tighter control of targeting. Such political,and legal, oversight drove the need for significantpre-strike target imaging so that collateral damageand civilian casualty risk could be assessed beforeauthority to strike was given. Timely post-strikeimagery was then required, both for military BDAand also because winning the media campaign wasvital. The key issue was the desire to find andstrike difficult fleeting targets rapidly before theydisappeared. The ability to find and engage such ademanding target was seen as vitally important,requiring effective sensor-to-shooter operations.Overall, the growing importance of ISR and theincreasing digitisation of ISR systems placed anincreasing burden on communications and reducedinteroperability.

The shortfalls seen in these recent conflicts, placedin the context of the changing way in which the ISRproduct is being used, showed two key areas inwhich to focus: ISR product dissemination and

sensor system employment to bring desiredoffensive effect to bear. Product disseminationcomprises two components: the product itself andits means of dissemination. The latter — thecommunications architecture — will require timeand significant financial investment to improve,ensuring the product can be fully used by thosethat need it should be more easily solved. The keyis IMINT interoperability through appropriate dataformatting. If every user, especially in anincreasingly joint environment, can access the dataand use it, then this element of ISR effectivenesscan be maximised.

Standardised IMINT data formats do exist but do notnecessarily ensure interoperability as nationsinterpret and mandate standards in differing ways.As a result, two key allies may not be interoperableat all. Correct implementation of standards shouldoffer interoperability but do not necessarily offerusability. Bespoke software is likely to be required toopen and exploit such data and few users are likelyto have such IMINT exploitation software on theircomputer systems. If imagery products wereconverted into a format such as the common JPEG,then notwithstanding the likely time penalty indoing so, all end-users could exploit the file. Such aformat also offers data compression, the significantbenefit of which is that less burden is placed on thecommunications architecture. In this way,maximising ISR effectiveness can be seen asmandating data formats which offer maximum easeof use, both for the military and for the media whileminimising the communications bandwidth burden.Delivering effect, especially against difficult targetsis the second significant challenge. To find andstrike effectively demands reduced links andtimeliness across the sensor-to-shooter process.Firstly, ISR assets search for targets in tasked areas,perhaps cued by other assets. With a target found,an image of the target and co-ordinates areavailable but still on-board the ISR platform. Thisdata must be acted upon and sent off-board to thenext actor, the DM. In the simplest case though,this is not so, the ‘sensor actor’ can also be the DMand may have sufficient delegated authority toallow engagement. If not though, the data must bepassed to the DM who, given today’s legalimperatives, will need to assess the target forcollateral damage and civilian casualty risk inaccordance with prescribed criteria. An approved

85

target then needs to be sent from the DM to theshooter. The level of command where the targetengagement authority rests therefore partly dictatesthe complexity of the S2S process.

Risk of collateral damage and civilian casualties isalso driving the preference for PGMs. The UK’sPGMs are either laser or GPS guided: the latter istotally dependent on accurate target co-ordinates.These are derived from the original sensor image.Such accuracy is not required in the laser mode asthe operator guides the weapon, but he/she mustidentify the target to do so and therefore needs atarget image. Weapon choice, laser or GPS-guided,dictates whether a target image or target co-ordinates are needed, which in turn, drives the linkcomplexity, and thus timeliness and overalleffectiveness. The RAF Jaguar is now fitted withthe IDM, offering the potential for receipt of eithertarget data or an image. Equivalent equipment inthe C2/DM chain or integrated onto the sensorplatform would enable such an operation.

For the GPS weapon, imagery data accuracy isvital. Two particular factors reduce such accuracy,inaccuracy in sensor platform altitude and earthsurface modelling. At medium altitudes, the sensorsystem is deriving altitude from GPS yet this is

inherently inaccurate in height. The sensor’smanagement system will model the earth’s surfaceas flat whereas in reality the target sits above it onreal terrain; both factors lead to inaccuracies inimage target location co-ordinates. The formerfactor is less significant but the latter may be.Integration of DTED into the sensor softwarewould permit significantly more accurate target co-ordinate derivation.

In summary, maximising ISR effectiveness couldfirstly be achieved by adopting suitable datastandards allowing both ease of use and minimalcommunication system burden, and secondly, byfocussing on the interplay between shooter weapondata requirements, delegation of DM and sensor-to-DM-to-shooter links. If these two aspects areunderstood and actively managed, thenmaximising ISR effectiveness will ultimatelymaximise delivery of effect in the battle space.

The RAF Jaguar is now fittedwith the IDM, offering thepotential for receipt of eithertarget data or an image

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Notes1 Sweetman (1991), p.3292 Waters (1993), pp.37-503 Ibid. p.414 Ibid. p.425 Id.6 Id.7 Waters (1993), p.468 Ibid. p.429 Id.10 Id.11 Id.12 Ibid. p.4913 Wanstall (1991), p.83314 Waters (1993), p.4215 Ibid. p.4416 Id.17 Mann (1994), p.418 Ibid. p.719 Waters (1993), p.4820 Covault (1996), pp.44-4621 Id22 Id. Also Fulghum (1996), p.2423 Id.24 Covault (1994), pp.27-2825 Lum (1995), p.5726 Fulghum (1996), p.4127 Ibid. p.2528 Covault (1994), p.2829 Bailey interview30 Id.31 Sweetman (1994), p.34-3632 Covault (1994), p.2733 Lum (1995), p.5434 Id. p.5435 Id.36 Sweetman (1994), p.3637 Covault (1994), p.2738 Fulghum (1996), p.4039 MOD Kosovo: Lessons, Chap 640 Ackerman (1999), p.4941 MOD Kosovo: Lessons, Chap 6, p.442 Ibid. Chap 7, p.143 Ibid. Chap 6, p.844 Ibid. Chap 7, p.2 45 Ibid. Chap 6, p.546 Id.47 Ackerman (1999), p.4948 MOD Kosovo: Lessons, Chap 6, p.749 MOD Kosovo: Lessons, Chap 7, p.2

50 Ibid. p.6, e.g. on only 21 out of the 78 days of the campaign was

the weather judged to be favourable for air operations.51 Ibid. p.852 MOD Kosovo: Lessons, Chap 7, p.453 Ackerman (1999), p.4954 Ibid. p.5055 Ibid. p.5156 Boyce (2002), p.3

f57 Cook, N et al JDW, Sep 11, 200258 Ibid. pp.67-6959 DSTL advice.60 Fulton (2002), p.6961 Targeting advice from JFHQ J3 Tgts62 JFHQ J3 Tgts63 Simplification: there will be additional flexibility as a result of the

weapon’s lethal damage radius e.g. if the lethal damage radius of

the weapon is 100 m then co-ordinates with a 100 m accuracy, less

the inherent inaccuracy of the weapon (10m in this example) should

still result in achievement of the desired effect; many other factors

come into play too.64 Goodrich technical advice.65 From tactical, not strategic imagery.66 http://www.nima.mil/publications/specs/printed/89020B/

89020B.pdf: vertical accuracy for ‘P’-code GPS is 27.7m, 156m for

C/A code.67 www.nima.mil68 Goodrich technical advice.

87

The SE5a was the most famous of all the Royal AircraftFactory’s designs of the First World War and saw widespreadservice with the RFC and RAF

89

By Wing Commander ‘Jeff’ Jefford

NCO Pilots in the RFC/RAF 1912-18NCO Pilots in the RFC/RAF 1912-18

HHave you ever asked yourself why we takeit for granted that all RAF pilots (and,what we used to call, navigators) are

commissioned? Since relatively few aircrew areactually required to command anything, it is self-evident that it cannot have much to do with thedisciplinary requirements of the military hierarchy.The short answer is that we do it as a response tomarket forces, primarily the need to recruit andretain high grade personnel. Until pay wasspecifically ‘decoupled’ from rank by the

innovative approach adopted in 2003, this link hadalways been regarded as being immutable. As aresult, it has followed (at least since 1950) that allpilots had to be officers in order to permit thesystem to pay them something approximating to‘the rate for the job’ that was a far cry from whatthe Air Council of 1946 had in mind.

In the immediate aftermath of WWI it had beendecreed that all pilots would be officers (and,conversely, that the vast majority of officers would

be pilots), some of them Cranwellian careerists, therest serving on short service commissions. The all-officer policy did not survive for long, however,and as early as 1921 the Service began to train ahandful of airmen pilots who were automaticallyupgraded to sergeant on gaining their flyingbadges. By 1929, 20% of all RAF pilots were NCOsand by 1938 this had risen to 32%. Entry into theRAF per se ceased on the outbreak of war to bereplaced by recruiting into the RAFVR andthereafter all prospective aviators were trained asairmen. Commissioning policy permitted up to33% of wartime pilots to graduate as officers(although the actual figure was usually less thanthis) with subsequent commissioning in the fieldpermitting the total to rise as high as 50%, the other50% being NCOs or warrant officers.

The end of the war was seen to provide an idealopportunity to ‘right a personnel applecart’ thathad been seriously upset by the pragmaticdemands of WWII. Bear in mind that the 50%officer/NCO breakdown applied to navigators aswell as to pilots, and that there were similararrangements (although the proportions differed)applicable to all of the other aircrew trades: none ofwhich had even existed before 1939. The AirCouncil’s early post-war vision of an idealpeacetime flying branch was one which would berun by a small officer corps manned initially bywartime veterans who would gradually bereplaced by Cranwell graduates (all of them pilots)with the numbers being topped up as required bycommissioning from the ranks. All other aircrew(the vast majority, including most pilots) weregoing to have non-commissioned status. Thisscheme was actually implemented, but it proved tobe so unpopular, and such a disincentive torecruiting, that it had to be abandoned in 1950 infavour of the now familiar 100% officer policy.

It is plain from this brief survey of the last 80 yearsor so that the status to be afforded to pilots, and toall other aircrew categories, is a question that hascaused a lot of heart-searching in the past. Indeedits origins can be traced back to the earliest days ofthe RFC, provision for non-commissioned pilotshaving been made from the outset. At the time ofits conception in 1912 the new Corps was expectedto have an eventual strength of seven squadrons,each of which was to have had 12 aeroplanes and26 pilots, half of them officers, half not.

1The first

non-commissioned pilot, Cpl Frank Ridd, gainedhis Royal Aero Club (RAeC) Certificate on 4 June1912. Others were to follow but their numbersnever actually kept pace with those of officers sothat by the time that war was declared officer pilotsalready outnumbered those without commissionsby almost five to one.

2

Furthermore, in the light of experience, the RFChad refined its requirements by mid-1913 so that itnow employed what were known as First andSecond Class pilots, the qualification standardsbeing published in September.

3In practice, some

non-commissioned personnel progressed no furtherthan becoming Second Class pilots. In essence, thismeant that they had passed the tests associatedwith the RAeC Certificate and had demonstrated

Cpl Frank Ridd, the RFC’s first non-commissionedpilot, had one of the legendary two-digit ServiceNumbers (26). Having been awarded RAeC CertificateNo 227 on 4 June 1912, he was a flight sergeant withNo 3 Sqn when war was declared but subsequentlybecame a PoW

It is quite clear that by 1913 the RFC can have had no seriousintention of using its non-commissioned pilots operationally

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an awareness of only some of the technical aspectsof aviation. First Class pilots had to have passedexaminations in a much broader range of topics atthe CFS, in addition to having accumulated anadequate number of flying hours.

Even so there were marked distinctions within theFirst Class classification. Officers had to pass in alleight subjects examined at Upavon, whereas non-commissioned pilots were not tested on the theoryof flight or on meteorology. Neither were theyrequired to demonstrate knowledge of troop

formations nor an ability to identify warships.Beyond an ability to map-read and use a compass,they were also not required to be familiar withaerial reconnaissance procedures and techniques.Whatever its initial intentions may have been,therefore, it is quite clear that by 1913 the RFC can have had no serious intention of using its non-commissioned pilots operationally.

That this was already de facto policy when war wasdeclared is reflected in a contemporary typewrittenminute in which the Director General of MilitaryAeronautics notes that, having been enlisted as 2ndClass Air Mechanics, “certain civilian pilots” wereto be immediately given their three stripes, “theintention being to use them as NCO pilots with theReserve Aeroplane Squadrons”.

4He subsequently

added, in manuscript, “or, if found fit, with theExpeditionary Force” but this was clearly anafterthought. None of these men appears to havefound their way to France and, although there wereinevitably a few exceptions to the rule, this policyremained essentially unchanged throughout thewar. Until 1917 there was no prohibition on thetraining of non-commissioned pilots but themajority of those who did manage to qualify wereassigned to second-line units where they served as,for instance, ferry pilots at Aircraft Parks or staffpilots at the School of Aerial Gunnery.

A return of all officers and aircrew serving with theBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF) in September1915 noted only two NCOs, both of them with No 3Sqn.

5A similar headcount made in February 1916,

but reflecting all officers and aircrew serving withthe RFC, shows that just over 30 non-commissionedpersonnel were carried on the strength of UK-basedunits as pilots, most of them still undergoingtraining, but there were still only three NCO pilotsflying with operational units in France: one eachwith Nos 1, 3 and 5 Sqns.

6Despite the considerable

expansion of the corps over the next two years,

Sgt Thomas Mottershead originally enlisted as an airmechanic in August 1914. He began flying training in May1916, gaining his Second Class Certificate a month later andhis First Class Certificate on 9 June. In July he was sent toFrance to fly FE2bs with, first, No 25 and then with No 20Sqn. He was eventually shot down on 7 January 1917 in an action that earned him a VC, the only one gained by anon-commissioned aviator in WW I. Sadly the award was announced posthumously. The ribbon worn in thephotograph is that of a DCM gazetted on 14 November 1916

I knew what time I was going up but I didn’t even know what job Iwas on until the observer came out . . . He did all the reporting –what he’d found, what he’d seen, what he’d photographed. I wentto the sergeants mess and I had no further contact

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although more NCOs were trained, they continuedto represent only a tiny proportion of the totalnumber of pilots available.

7

In mid-1916 it was ruled that all holders of SecondClass Certificates would have to qualify to FirstClass standard within six months or becomeuncertificated.

8Several more concessions were soon

granted. For example, a retrospective clause whichhad been a feature of the new regulation wasremoved so that pilots already holding SecondClass Certificates needed to re-qualify only at thatlevel, the obligation to upgrade being confined tonewly qualified pilots. Similarly, the six-monthlimit was waived for any Second Class pilotsalready serving with an Expeditionary Force.Perhaps as an added incentive, however, at muchthe same time it was also announced that corporalsand air mechanics qualifying as First Class pilotswould be automatically promoted to sergeant.

9

Nevertheless, the thin end of a wedge could be

discerned here and the evident reservations overthe utility of the two-tier system would eventuallylead to questions being asked about the real valueof having any non-commissioned pilots. In thisgeneral context the Bailhache Committee

10noted in

November 1916 that: “Every pilot must now be anofficer. There are a few exceptions”.

11What the

writer had presumably been trying to convey viathese two mutually contradictory statements is thatdespite the RFC’s overwhelming preference forofficers, a handful of NCO pilots was still beingtrained, in addition to the relatively small numbersthat were already on strength.

The employment of sergeant pilots on operationspeaked during 1917. There were for instance, atotal of 27 of them on the strength of the squadronsserving with the BEF in March,

1224 in May

13and 28

in August.14

All of these NCOs were overborneagainst each unit’s current establishment which bythen provided for a total of 21 pilots per squadron,all of whom were to be commissioned: oneSquadron Commander and two ‘spare’ FlyingOfficers with the headquarters, and a FlightCommander and five Flying Officers for each ofthree flights. By August 1917 there were 47squadrons in France, reflecting an overallrequirement for 987 officer pilots. There wereactually 970 on strength, which, allowing for the 28sergeants, represented a ratio of officers to NCOs ofthe order of 35:1.

15

Since there was no official establishment forsergeant pilots, it would seem likely that theprimary function of the handful serving in Francemay have been to provide a cushion to ensure that asquadron would remain fully operational if therewere any delay in providing replacement officers.This is not to say that NCO pilots were used only asmakeweights and those squadrons which hadsergeants on strength certainly made full of use ofthem. It is worth noting, however, that very fewNCO pilots were carried on the books of single-seatfighter squadrons until the summer of 1918. Of 32NCOs at the front in the late summer of 1917, forinstance, one was flying Pups and three Nieuports;all of the others were driving two-seaters.

16

Long before this however, the RFC’s practice ofemploying officer pilots — almost exclusively — hadbecome policy. In June 1917 the War Office

Sgt Ernest Albert Cook was typical of the handful ofNCO pilots who flew on operations. When he joined No45 Sqn in France on 1 April 1917 he had a total of 34 hrsand 55 min flying time in his log book of which only 65minutes had been on the Sopwith 1 Strutters that he wasto fly in combat. He had two dual rides with a FlightCommander followed by two solo trips, damaging hisaircraft on both occasions. Thereafter he got the hang ofit and went on to become a sound squadron pilot until hewas shot down and killed on 5 June

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announced with immediate effect: “the training ofnon-commissioned officers and air mechanics aspilots will be discontinued”. Special cases, shouldthere be any, would still be entertained but, ingeneral, all successful applicants for flying trainingwere now to be posted initially to a Cadet Wing foreventual commissioning. This regulation was not tobe applied retrospectively, but any serving NCO pilot

could apply to become an officer; if recommended, hewas to be directly commissioned in the field withouthaving to go through the cadet stage.

17

It is not known to what extent it influenced thedecision to cease training NCOs, but one of theproblems associated with sergeant pilots was thatsome of the more Edwardian- (even Victorian-)minded among the officers will have found itdifficult to work with them on anything like equalterms, which did little to foster the close workingrelationship that was so essential in the air. No 6Sqn’s Sgt G Eddington described it thus:

18

“I knew what time I was going up but I didn’t evenknow what job I was on until the observer came out —always an officer in my case. I said, ‘Good morning, Sir’and we got on with our job. When we came down he gotout and went to make his report. He did all the reporting— what he’d found, what he’d seen, what he’dphotographed. I went to the sergeants mess and I had nofurther contact.”

Sergeants never represented much more than 3% ofthe available pilots in France and, despite thecontinued expansion of the RFC, the universalcommissioning policy meant that their numbersactually began to decline from the autumn of 1917.By January 1918, there were only fourteen of them,this figure contrasting markedly with that for non-commissioned back-seaters of whom there were nofewer than 231.

19

For a time, it looked as if things were about tochange again. Within a few weeks of the RFC’sannouncing that it did not intend to employ anymore NCO pilots it had been obliged to reconsiderthis decision. There were two reasons. First,aviation was not the only field in which high grademanpower was required. The terrible casualty ratein the trenches meant that capable and competentyoung men with leadership qualities were urgentlyneeded by other branches, particularly the infantry,and it was being argued in some of the corridors ofthe War Office, that the RFC’s 100% officer pilotpolicy could be sustained only at the expense of therest of the Army.

The second reason was the July 1917 decision todouble the size of the RFC. While it might have

Having enlisted in the REs in 1910, James McCuddentransferred to the RFC in 1913 to become an engine fitter. Hewent to France with No 3 Sqn on the outbreak of war andsoon began to fly as an observer, being formally recognisedas such on 1 January 1916. He returned to the UK soonafterwards to train as a pilot, gaining his wings at the end ofMay. The photograph dates from this period, at which timeMcCudden was a sergeant. Commissioned while flying DH2s with No 29 Sqn, he later flew SE5as with Nos 56 and 60Sqns. When he died, in a flying accident on 9 July 1918, hewas Major J T B McCudden VC DSO MC MM CdeG andthe accredited victor of 57 aerial combats. His brother,William, had also qualified as a pilot, only the fourth RFCNCO to do so, as early as August 1912. He too was killed ina flying accident, on 1 May 1915

The prospect of half-a-dozen sergeants turning up to flySopwith Camels prompted the immediate establishment of amess for their exclusive use. Very odd

93

been realistic to expect to be able to find enoughsoldiers with the potential to permit the ‘old’ RFCto operate on an all-officer basis, it was doubtfulwhether this ideal could be realised with the newlyprojected 200-squadron force. The staffs foresaw arecruiting crisis and, although it would involve areversal of policy, reinstating NCO pilots, this timein comparatively large numbers, would provide anobvious solution to the problem.

Before implementing such a sweeping change inpolicy it would clearly be necessary to ascertainwhether it would be acceptable to front-linecommanders and in August the War Officesubmitted an outline proposal to the CinC BEF andsought his opinion on it.

20Initial calculations

indicated that, considering only the 44 squadronscurrently serving with the BEF, it might be possibleto replace as many as 290 of the commissioned

pilots with sergeants. Such a substitution wouldalso save 143 batmen although this might have hadto be partially offset by the provision of a numberof cooks and waiters to cater for the increasednumbers of NCOs.

Having first consulted with Trenchard, FieldMarshal Haig eventually agreed to theintroduction of significant numbers of NCO pilots with the proviso that the measure should be tried“purely as an experiment, subject to afurther recommendation at some future date as to its permanent adoption”. The CinC went on toindicate that he was prepared to accept onecomplete flight of NCO pilots in each of therecently enlarged 24-aircraft corps reconnaissancesquadrons and up to 50% of all pilots in daybomber squadrons. He was less enthusiastic aboutNCOs flying fighters but, on a trial basis, he wasprepared to have one flight of sergeants in one two-seater squadron and one flight in each of six single-seater squadrons. For night bombing duties,however, Haig considered that all pilots “must beofficers”. He imposed two other conditions. First,that the influx of NCOs was to be provided in asingle group, not piecemeal, and, secondly, thatseparate messing facilities for sergeant pilots wereto be provided on units associated with the trial.

21

With hindsight, the second of Haig’s conditions is curious — more for what it implied than for what it actually said. After all, every unit alreadyhad appropriate messing facilities for NCOs,although this did not necessarily always provide an appropriate environment. George Eddingtonagain:

22

“I couldn’t make friends. I had nothing in common – Ididn’t have access to the officers mess; I didn’t knowwhat they thought. In the sergeants mess they were allfitters and riggers — I wasn’t in their world any morethan they were in mine.”

Nevertheless, well over 200 non-commissionedback-seaters were already serving in France at thebeginning of 1918 and no one had ever thought itnecessary to make any special domesticarrangements for them. Yet the prospect of half-a-dozen sergeants turning up to fly Sopwith Camelsprompted the immediate establishment of a messfor their exclusive use. Very odd.

Sgt William Robinson Clarke was the first (possiblythe only) black West Indian to serve as a pilot in theRFC. Born in 1895 he came to the UK from Jamaicato enlist in the RFC as an air mechanic. After servicein France as a driver with a kite balloon unit, he wasaccepted for pilot training and eventually flew RE8swith No 4 Sqn. On 28 July 1917 he was wounded,and rendered unconscious, in combat with fiveGerman fighters. His observer, 2/Lt F P Blencowe,managed to gain control of the aircraft and pull off aforced landing, in which he too was injured, on theright side of the lines

94

London signalled its acceptance of the CinC’sconstraints in November, but in view of the criticalimportance of short range tactical reconnaissanceand artillery spotting in the eyes of the army-oriented RFC, the option of using sergeants forcorps work was not taken up.

23In effect therefore, it

had been agreed that the number of NCO daybomber pilots could be increased as required up toa maximum of 50% of establishment and that theuse of a proportion of sergeants in selected fightersquadrons would be tried on an experimentalbasis. In practice, although a few sergeants did flywith bomber squadrons they never representedanything like half the overall strength and the aimof the trial began to focus increasingly on thesingle-seat fighter pilots.

Since there had been an embargo on the training ofairmen pilots since the previous summer, thisconstraint had clearly had to be lifted, and althoughthe programme must already have been under wayby then, a formal announcement was made inFebruary 1918 to the effect that training could bereinstated in batches of up to 10 per month,although, in view of the manpower situation ‘noskilled mechanics’ could be accepted.

24

Early administrative difficulties were experienced inthe training of NCO pilots and the plan soon beganto slip. In January 1918 London notified GHQ BEFthat the single-seat pilots were not now expected tobecome available until 15 March and that it wouldbe the end of April before any two-seater pilotswould be ready.

25

By then, however, the trial had been more clearlydefined and it had been decided to concentratesolely on the single-seaters. The project nowembraced 24 pilots who had been trained on SE5aaircraft and 12 trained on Camels; they were allnow due to reach France on 25 March. Inanticipation of their arrival HQ RFC issuedinstructions that Nos 1, 24, 41, 43, 60 and 70 Sqnswere to prepare the necessary accommodation (twoNissen huts per unit) and arrangements were madeto provide the additional domestic staff (one cookand one steward per unit).

26This directive was

promptly short-circuited by receipt of a letter fromthe Directorate of Training announcing that “thetraining of NCOs on other than 2-seater machineshas not proved to be an unqualified success andthere is no doubt that they have proved slow intaking to Scouts”.

27The upshot was that the trial

was postponed indefinitely. It had not beenabandoned, however, and the training staffspersevered throughout the summer.

In the event it would be September before the trialcommenced. By then it had evidently been decidednot to concentrate on single-seaters and only twosuch units (Nos 84 and 203 Sqns) were nominatedto participate in the experiment. The other unitsinvolved flew two-seaters in the fighterreconnaissance role (Nos 11 and 48 Sqns) and asday bombers (Nos 103 and 206 Sqns).

In preparation for the arrival of the pilots involvedin the trial, the orders concerning the provision of

If a man is of the right type and good enough to be afighting pilot in a fighting unit, he should be commissioned

Sgt Ernest Elton originally enlisted as an air mechanic in1915. Eventually accepted for pilot training, he joined No22 Sqn early in 1918 and promptly proceeded to accountfor 10 enemy aircraft in 32 days while his variousobservers shot down another six. This performance madeElton the top-scoring NCO pilot in the RFC/RAF andearned him the DCM and MM but, a little surprisingly, hewas not commissioned and was on his way back to Franceas a flight sergeant with No 39 Sqn when the war ended

95

separate accommodation were reissued and, sincetwo-seater units were now included, theinstructions noted that any NCO observers onstrength were also to be accommodated in themesses being provided for sergeant pilots. Nomention was made of the NCO observers flyingwith other squadrons.

28

The new arrivals were initially to be heldsupernumerary to the nominal strength of eachunit, being progressively absorbed against theestablishment as replacements for officers whowere lost or posted. As intended, most of the initialinflux of sergeants did arrive in groups but thesewere supplemented by a gentle trickle of additionalpilots to offset wastage. As a result, most unitswere exposed to more NCOs than the nominal sixrequired by the trial. Apart from stipulating thatthese men were not to be transferred to othersquadrons, HQ RAF deliberately did not lay downany policy as to how they should be employed. Itwas specifically left to the discretion of BrigadeCommanders to decide whether to integrate theminto their existing squadron organisations, or toconcentrate them within all-NCO flightscommanded by an officer.

29

Although details are incomplete, 32 of at least 44pilots who participated in the trial have beenidentified and, of these, we know the dates ofseven of their RAeC Certificates, the earliest ofwhich was issued in May 1918.

30While this does

not exclude the possibility that some of the traineeswho were reported to have been making slowprogress back in February/March may still havebeen involved, it seems more likely that theeventual participants were a much later batch whowould have had the advantage of being instructedin accordance with Smith-Barry’s philosophy whilepassing through a far better structured sequenceand in the process, and just as importantly,accumulating at least twice as many flying hours astheir less fortunate predecessors.

Had the serious shortage of pilots anticipated in1917 actually materialised there can be little doubtthat the delays experienced in mounting the trialwould not have been tolerated and that manysergeant pilots would have been sent to France,regardless of their capabilities. In practice, themanpower problem had been solved, largely by the

Dominions. An initial trickle of mostly SouthAfrican and Australian cadets, arriving in the UK tobe trained as pilots during 1917, had become a floodby mid-1918 and by that time substantial numbersof pilots were also beginning to graduate from theflying schools that had been set up in Canada bythe RFC. When the output of the considerablyexpanded facilities in Egypt was added to the total,it seems possible that the number of officer pilotsbeing turned out by the RAF’s global trainingorganisation might even have begun to exceed itsrequirements by the summer of 1918, much as itwas to do again in 1944.

Against this background, little real urgencyappears to have been attached to the NCO trial.Now that the original dynamic underpinning it,had evaporated, the main reason for sustaining theenterprise was probably scientific curiosity. Thesuspense date for reports on the experience gainedfrom the trial was 10 November 1918 and at leastfive of those submitted have survived.

31

There was almost universal agreement that theseparate messes had been a serious mistake. It wasconsidered essential that all pilots should share thesame domestic facilities, partly because that waswhere flying was constantly discussed, allowingnewcomers to soak up the experience of the olderhands and partly because it was where ésprit decorps was consolidated. In view of the ‘class’problems, of course, this more or less implied thatall pilots needed to have similar social status.Unsurprisingly, none of the reports advocated thatthey should all be sergeants.

Opinions as to the overall capabilities of thesergeants involved in the trial varied considerably.For instance, Lt-Col T A E Cairnes, OC 22nd Wg,had considered that all of No 84 Sqn’s NCOs hadbeen good pilots and Brig-Gen C A H Longcroft,GOC III Bde, seems to have been equally contentwith those flying with No 11 Sqn who had “provedthemselves to be quite as good as the averageofficer pilot”. Brig-Gen E R Ludlow-Hewitt, GOC XBde, was rather less enthusiastic about theexperience of No 103 Sqn whose NCOs had been“thoroughly satisfactory when working informations led by experienced Officers” but lackingin “initiative and enterprise when flying alone onReconnaissance or Photography”.

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On the other hand, although No 206 Sqn’s style ofoperation will have been very similar to No 103Sqn’s, its CO, Maj C T Maclaren, had considerablereservations about the performance of hissergeants, even on bombing raids since “they donot keep good formation and when attacked areinclined to split up rather than packing together”.While acknowledging that two of his sergeants hadbeen satisfactory, in general he was of the opinionthat “there is a marked difference between theNCO pilot and the Flying Officer, particularly withregard to reconnaissance and photographic work”.Maclaren had tried his men with bothcommissioned and non-commissioned back-seatersand had concluded that the two-NCOscombination did not “possess the necessaryintelligence and initiative for the carrying out oftheir work successfully” and he had no doubt that“the absence of the spirit of the officer in commandof the machine is largely felt”. While the provisionof a commissioned observer did improve matters,such mixed crews still tended to performindifferently, because “there is not the completeunderstanding of two Officers”. This was clearly anoblique reference to the sort of problems that werealmost bound to arise as a result of the ‘class’distinctions that were embedded withincontemporary British society and it confirmed thetestimony offered by Sgt Eddington from the otherside of the social divide.

The most damning report came from OC 48 Sqn, MajK R Park, who had received a total of nine sergeantpilots. He had had four of them posted home forfurther training and had recommended that a fifth beconsigned to the trenches! Of the remainder, heconsidered only three to have been satisfactory. Park’sassessment led him to draw a very interestingconclusion. He was of the opinion that his three goodNCOs had been the equal of officer pilots and herecommended that if a man is “of the right type andgood enough to be a fighting pilot in a fighting unit,he should be commissioned”. Much the same viewhad been reflected by both Cairnes and Maclaren. Thelatter, noting that his two satisfactory NCOs had bothbeen educated at Public Schools, failed to“understand how they came out as NCOs as theirflying is beyond reproach”.

With little else to go on, the RFC’s preference forcommissioned pilots had always been based largely

on instinct. The feedback from the formal attemptto assess the capabilities of NCO pilots hadprovided positive, if unscientific, evidence that thecorps had been right to trust its judgement. Whiletheir assessments will have been almost entirelysubjective, three very experienced unitcommanders had independently drawn the sameconclusion, that a good pilot needed to possessmuch the same personal qualities as thosetraditionally associated with a commission. Thistended to confirm the long-standing assumptionthat the terms pilot and officer were, in manyrespects, synonymous. The same was actually trueof contemporary back-seaters, apart, perhaps, fromthose whose duties were confined solely togunnery in those day bomber squadrons thatusually operated in formation.

Two further points should perhaps be made. First,while the trial had focused on a specific group ofNCOs, others had still been reaching France via theusual channels, as they always had done, albeit inever-decreasing numbers.

32When the fighting

stopped in November 1918 only 35s of the 1,879pilots on the strength of front-line units stationed inFrance, and operating under the control of HQ RAF,were NCOs:

33less than 2% of the total. If the

sergeants flying with units associated with the NCOtrial are discounted, however, there were only two,or about 0.1%.

Secondly, the Armistice had been signed just fourdays before the last report on the NCO trial hadbeen rendered. Since further intakes into trainingceased almost immediately and the staffs soonbecame preoccupied with the problems associatedwith demobilisation, it seems unlikely that the,now largely irrelevant, reports will have attractedmuch attention. Nevertheless, anyone who didread them (and who was also able to read betweenthe lines) might have been able to predict that theclose correlation between commissions and, at leastsome, aircrew trades that had been highlighted bythe trial might well present a difficulty in the future.The problem was that if a peacetime air force wereto commission almost anyone who flew, most ofthem would actually have no one to command. Thiswould make their being officers a little pointlessand thus undermine the whole ethos of thecommission. On the other hand, if it did not offercommissions on a fairly generous scale, it might not

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be able to attract sufficient volunteers of thenecessary calibre. This peculiarly ‘air force’problem was to crop up again and again over therest of the century, and despite several attempts itcould be argued that it has never really beensatisfactorily solved.

Which takes me back to my original question.

Acknowledgements: The photograph of Elton isreproduced courtesy of Cross & Cockade Internationaland those of Ridd and Clarke courtesy of the Royal AeroClub Collection.

Notes: Documents identified as AIR and WO are held bythe National Archives (née the Public Record Office) at Kew.

1 AIR1/119/15/40/62. Memorandum on Naval and MilitaryAviation presented to both Houses of Parliament on 12 April 1912. 2 Brett, R Dallas, History of British Aviation 1908-1914, (Surbiton,1988 – reprint of 1933 original) lists the recipients of all 863 RAeCCertificates awarded prior to the outbreak of war. Of these, 305had been issued to military, and 101 to naval, officers. Bycomparison only 47 non-commissioned army personnel and 39naval petty officers had qualified as pilots. 3 WO123/55. A pamphlet, entitled Tests For First And SecondClass Pilots Certificates For Officers And Men, was published withArmy Orders for September 1913.4 AIR1/122/15/40/131. Minute by Sir David Hendersondated 5 August 1914. The seven men involved were sworn in atFarnborough on the 9th.5 AIR1/2148/209/3/191. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the BEF as at 15 September1915. The two NCOs listed were Sgts F Courtney (2891) and WWatts (1831).6 AIR1/1290/204/11/70. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC, dated February 1916.The three NCOs concerned were F/Sgt T Carlisle (351), Sgt TBayetto (4808) and Sgt J Noakes (4469) respectively.7 Comprehensive records of the numbers of officer and NCOpilots trained during WWI do not appear to have survived butsufficient documentary evidence exists to provide a reasonableimpression of the balance between them. On qualifying for theirflying badges the CFS issued all commissioned pilots with an RFCGraduation Certificate, NCO pilots receiving a very similardocument called a Flying Certificate; each series was numberedindependently. It is known, for instance, that Sgt E A Cook’sFlying Certificate No 175 was dated 7 April 1917 while 2/Lt H DArkell’s Graduation Certificate No 5,321 was issued on 26 June.While the dates of these documents differ by several weeks, theyare close enough to show that officer pilots outnumbered NCOsby more than 30 to one, this ratio remaining more or less constantthroughout much of the war.8 AIR2/9/87/7956. Directorate of Air Organisation (DAO)letter 87/7956(AO1a) dated 25 June 1916. Subsequentcorrespondence amending the rules as initially published is on thesame file.9 AIR1/405/15/231/46. DAO letter 87/RFC/12(AO1a) dated3 August 1916.

10 In the summer of 1916 a Committee on the Administrationand Command of the RFC was appointed, under thechairmanship of Mr Justice Bailhache, to investigate a variety ofserious criticisms raised in the Press and the House of Commonsby a group of activists with Mr Noel Pemberton-Billing MP actingas their chief spokesman. Taking evidence from May, theCommittee’s final report, which substantially exonerated thecorps and its commanders, was dated 17 November.11 AIR2/9/87/7661. From the unpublished Appendix A to theFinal Report. 12 AIR1/1297/204/11/139. Nominal rolls of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas, datedJanuary-April 1917.13 AIR1/1297/204/11/140. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas, dated June 1917.14 AIR1/1301/204/11/158. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas, datedAugust 1917. 15 Ibid.16 AIR1/1036/204/5/1455. An enclosure on this file indicatesthat there were 32 NCO pilots flying with squadrons and a furtherseven held in reserve at Nos 1 and 2 Air Depots; unfortunately,this list is undated but there is ample circumstantial evidence toindicate that it was compiled circa late August or early eptember 1917.17 AIR1/391/15/231/32. DAO letter 87/RFC/564 (O.2) dated 7 June 1917.18 Eddington’s personal recollections are in the Sound Archivesof the Imperial War Museum. The extract reproduced here istaken from Steel, Nigel and Hart, Peter, Tumult in the Clouds,(London, 1997). 19 AIR1/1214/204/5/2630. Nominal roll of officers and non-commissioned aircrew serving with the RFC overseas, datedJanuary 1918.20 AIR1/520/16/12/1. War Office letter 79/9962 dated 18 August 1917.21 AIR1/1078/204/5/1678. GHQ letter OB/1826/E/1 dated 6 September 1917.22 See Note 18.23 AIR1/1078/204/5/1678. War Office telegram 45677 dated 14 November 1917.24 AIR1/399/15/231/40. DAO letter 79/9962 (O.2) dated 15 February 1918.25 AIR1/398/15/231/39. DAO letter 79/9962 (O2) dated 8 January 1918.26 AIR1/1078/204/5/1678. HQ RFC letter CRFC 2022/1Gdated 6 March 1918.27 Ibid. Brig-Gen H D Briggs informed HQ RFC of the problemsbeing experienced in training NCO pilots on single-seaters in AirMinistry letter 79/9962 dated 5 March 1918.28 Ibid. HQ RAF letter 2567(A) dated 30 August 1918.29 Ibid.30 In 1910 the Royal Aero Club had been recognised as theBritish licensing authority for all pilots and the completion of theelementary phase of military flying training was marked byqualifying for one’s ‘ticket’. By August 1916 the demands of the,still very basic, RAeC test no longer reflected the level of skillrequired of a military aviator. The Club’s certificate had thereforebecome virtually irrelevant and it was agreed that the RNAS andRFC would thenceforth endorse the abilities of their pilots on theirown cognisance. Until then most (but not all) RFC pilots had

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been registered with the RAeC, thereafter registration becamemerely an option that was not always taken up. This wouldexplain why only seven of the 32 pilots known to have flown inthe NCO trial appear to have been recognised by (i.e. taken thetrouble to register with) the RAeC. 31 AIR1/1036/204/5/1455. Reports to HQ RAF, submittedeither directly or via Brigade HQs, representing the views of Nos11, 48, 84, 103 and 206 Sqns are on file.32 For example: Sgt J Matthews and FSgt J Helingoe had arrivedin France with No 148 Sqn in April 1918 as had Sgt H N Lee of No88 Sqn; Sgt H H Wilson joined No 99 Sqn in June and at the end ofAugust, Sgts H W Tozer and A Haigh reached France with No 110Sqn; Sgt A O Hall was posted to No 70 Sqn on 5 September 1918and, just as hostilities were ceasing, the redoubtable FSgt ErnestElton was on his way back to France with No 39 Sqn. This list isnot presented as being exclusive; there will probably have been (a few) others.33 AIR1/1163/204/5/2532. HQ RAF return of numbers ofaircrew by unit. Although undated, the assignment of squadronsto wings and brigades fixes the date as being no earlier than 1 November and no later than the 9th.

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