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Home > Fact Sheets > Air Offensive Over Europe: The Objectives
AIR OFFENSIVE OVER EUROPE: THE OBJECTIVES
Public opinion about the employment of our air power over Europe has oscillated between extremes. In the jubilation over the fall of Pantelleria, some analysts forecast a similar fate for Axis dominated territories on the continent. Then, after 60 of our bombers failed to return from the air battle over Schweinfurt, October 14, 1943, the same analysts decided that our prospects were gloomy indeed.
At Pantelleria, the garrison of the Spadillo airport placed a white cross on the ground. For the first time in history, a fortified position of that strength surrendered directly to an air force. But the air attack on Pantelleria was conducted under virtually ideal laboratory conditions. The island is only 32 miles square; the blockade by the Royal Navy was complete; fighter protection for our bombers was continuous against negligible air opposition.
Moreover, on landing we discovered that another kind of garrison could have continued to fight. Its casualties were surprisingly light. Undamaged aircraft reposed in underground hangars that were almost intact. There was still water and food on the island. The will to fight, however, had been destroyed.
To destroy the will to fight is one of the secondary objectives of our air offensive against Germany; we do not expect white crosses to appear tomorrow on the runways at Templehof. Our primary concern, simply stated, is to make the coming invasion of Germany as economical as possible by drastically reducing the war potential of the Third Reich and its satellites.
Our strategic air plan is predicated on the fundamental fact that our bombers can fly deep into enemy territory, drop an effective load of bombs, and return to base without losses disproportionate to the damage accomplished. We have proved that we can do this.
Our first step in the strategic bombing offensive is the destruction of the enemy's fighter strength. This is the logical operation to be carried out while we are developing our bases and building up our bomber fleet. It is a course dictated not only by logic but by the prime necessity of protecting our own aircraft.
Fighter strength can be knocked out on the ground, in air combat or in the various stages before it rolls off the production line. We know that the nearer to the final assembly stage we attack enemy aircraft, the less time he will have to replenish his front line strength. Conversely, the farther away from the assembly stage his fighter aircraft industry is bombed, the more time he will have to take remedial steps. For quick results, we take out the assembly plants, but for some of the more lasting effects we concentrate on a system of targets deeper in the industry. The destruction of a plant making steel for airplanes is felt in a matter of weeks while the destruction of a coal mine does not affect the industry for months.
This report was prepared by the Army Air Forces and is dated Jan. 4, 1944.
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