2RHPZ
01-07-2005, 07:19 AM
Normandy a modern air campaign?
Air & Space Power Journal
Winter, 2003
by Thomas Alexander Hughes
Editorial Abstract: The air war for western France during World War II adds a relevant perspective to modern issues of command and control and the current stress on air and space operations centers. It also serves as a shining example of expeditionary air operations. Questions concerning the Normandy air war, as shaped by current beliefs, assumptions, and arguments about air warfare, mine a campaign rich in lessons that resonate for today's air warrior.
IN 2001 AND 2002, groups of Air Force officer and enlisted personnel assigned to United States Air Forces in Europe participated in staff rides in Normandy, France. These men and women traveled across terrain their air-arm ancestors flew above--and dominated--nearly 60 years ago as part of Operation Overlord, the climactic invasion of western France during World War II. These rides offered opportunities to learn something of the history and heritage of the Air Force, for seniors to mentor juniors, and for all to interact in informal settings. Along the way, stories of individual heroism, devotion to duty, and dogged determination rose from the old Allied airfields of England and Normandy. But these rides were more than elaborate retreats, important as those are to the body and soul of any organization. The rides also explored matters of the Normandy air campaign that resonate today. The air war for western France, long ago though it was, adds perspective to modern issues of command and control, underscores current stress on air and space operations centers (AOC), implies the transcendent characteristics of the simultaneity of airpower and effects-based operations, and offers a shining example of expeditionary air operations.
Change occurs over time, of course. But the relevance of the past is not a function of its proximity to the present. There is nothing intrinsically germane--or even current--in the happenings of yesterday; nor is there anything inherently irrelevant--or passe--in the events of millennia past. Rather, relevance is a function of the questions brought to bear upon past experience. In the case of the Normandy air war, questions shaped by current beliefs, assumptions, and arguments of air warfare reveal a campaign rich with resonance and ripe for anyone willing to ply the past to teach about air war today.
The Normandy Air Campaign
The term itself sounds strange: the Normandy air campaign. Military aviation that was proximate, in either time or place, to the invasion of western France goes by many names and even more descriptions. Before the invasion, there was the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO), the strategic attack on Germany by the US Strategic Air Forces and British Bomber Command. There was Pointblank, the refocusing of those attacks after early bombing efforts proved too costly. There was the Transportation Plan, which aimed to isolate the invasion area from German supply sources. There was the Oil Plan, a subset of strategic attacks deep into the Third Reich. As D-day neared, there was Fortitude, the Anglo-American deception plan that required thousands of sorties over Calais, France, to disguise the place of invasion. On D-day itself, there were thousands more sorties to carry airborne soldiers to their dramatic appointment with combat near Pegasus Bridge and Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Following the invasion, there was the massive effort to move two numbered air forces to the far shore; from their improvised expeditionary airfields came important developments in the air war, such as armed reconnaissance and armored-column cover. In July, Operations Goodwood, Charnwood, and Cobra featured thousands of Allied heavy and medium bombers, as well as fighter-bombers, working to blast holes through the tough German defensive crust. Before, during, and after D-day, there was Operation Crossbow, the Allied air strikes against Nazi V-rocket launch sites in Normandy and throughout Western Europe. And finally, there was a turkey shoot, when Allied planes rained destruction upon retreating Germans, creating not one or two but many highways of death.
The Normandy invasion demanded an immense effort from every combat arm. Military aviation associated with the assault included over 430,000 sorties; required the concentrated efforts of two American air forces and one English air force, as well as the occasional participation of British Bomber, Fighter, and Coastal Commands; and cost the Anglo-Americans at least 10,000 combat deaths and 30,000 total casualties among pilots and crews, (1) All this happened in some relation to the Normandy invasion. Yet, a perception persists that the air war in Western Europe is best viewed in relation to disparate parts. In memory and in literature, military aviation over western France occupies separate orbits: the strategic campaign against Germany; the tactical support for the ground assault; and the political campaign to strike Nazi V-1 and V-2 sites. Only occasionally are these orbits linked--and then usually in the language of distraction and disruption, with the objectives and requirements of one campaign diminishing the others.
This may make descriptions of the air war more facile, but it denies two related truths. One, in World War II as today, airpower's division into operational functions--its strategic, tactical, or support roles--is more apparent than real. Early airpower theorists postulated the unity of military aviation, and current concepts such as effects-based operations spring from renewed appreciation of airpower's indivisibility. No inherently strategic, tactical, or support function exists in any given plane or weapon. To suggest otherwise is to deny airpower's versatility. Two, whatever the time period, military aviation organizes and operates best against the backdrop of a theater campaign. As a matter of doctrine, military officers believe that this broader campaign "integrates the actions of assigned, attached, and supporting" forces. (2) The theater commander, called the joint force commander (JFC) in the current lexicon, "determines appropriate military objectives and sets priorities for the entire joint force." (3) He or she does this through a joint campaign plan that "describes how a series of major operations are integrated in time, space, and purpose to achieve a strategic objective." (4) In other words, the joint commander and his or her campaign organize all military action in a given area of responsibility, regardless of the relative scope or the precise nature of contributions each service arm may make to the effort.
From a modern perspective, then, the invasion of Normandy serves to codify and categorize the various air operations in Western Europe in the spring and summer of 1944. From the dark days after Pearl Harbor, the Anglo-Americans intended an assault on Fortress Europe. In late 1943, Gen Dwight Eisenhower became that operation's supreme commander. After that, the invasion's eventuality was never in jeopardy, even as great debates attended its particulars. As a matter of policy and strategy, an amphibious landing and subsequent drive into Germany were the center of Allied activity in the West. So only one air war and one air campaign existed in Western Europe during the months on either side of D-day. As a thoughtful participant wrote on the eve of the invasion, the pressure of war had molded all the air forces--indeed, all theater forces--into a single weapon: "Gone now were differences between strategic and tactical, between ground and air, between Army and Navy, between Americans and their Allies. All were welded into one compact, devastating fist, set to deliver the Sunday punch." (5)
Seeing airpower indivisibly and in relation to a broader theater campaign reshapes Normandy air operations. The facts are as they have always been. Time and chronology shift not one whit. The number of sorties flown, bombs dropped, and personnel assigned to aerial forces stays constant. Descriptions of various personalities do not change. The Herculean effort required to move air operations to the far shore remains Herculean. Yet, the overall picture transforms from a series of fragmented and competing operations into a single operation that forms a single campaign: the Normandy air campaign.
Command and Control of Air Operations
continue (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NXL/is_4_17/ai_113563538/pg_2)
Air & Space Power Journal
Winter, 2003
by Thomas Alexander Hughes
Editorial Abstract: The air war for western France during World War II adds a relevant perspective to modern issues of command and control and the current stress on air and space operations centers. It also serves as a shining example of expeditionary air operations. Questions concerning the Normandy air war, as shaped by current beliefs, assumptions, and arguments about air warfare, mine a campaign rich in lessons that resonate for today's air warrior.
IN 2001 AND 2002, groups of Air Force officer and enlisted personnel assigned to United States Air Forces in Europe participated in staff rides in Normandy, France. These men and women traveled across terrain their air-arm ancestors flew above--and dominated--nearly 60 years ago as part of Operation Overlord, the climactic invasion of western France during World War II. These rides offered opportunities to learn something of the history and heritage of the Air Force, for seniors to mentor juniors, and for all to interact in informal settings. Along the way, stories of individual heroism, devotion to duty, and dogged determination rose from the old Allied airfields of England and Normandy. But these rides were more than elaborate retreats, important as those are to the body and soul of any organization. The rides also explored matters of the Normandy air campaign that resonate today. The air war for western France, long ago though it was, adds perspective to modern issues of command and control, underscores current stress on air and space operations centers (AOC), implies the transcendent characteristics of the simultaneity of airpower and effects-based operations, and offers a shining example of expeditionary air operations.
Change occurs over time, of course. But the relevance of the past is not a function of its proximity to the present. There is nothing intrinsically germane--or even current--in the happenings of yesterday; nor is there anything inherently irrelevant--or passe--in the events of millennia past. Rather, relevance is a function of the questions brought to bear upon past experience. In the case of the Normandy air war, questions shaped by current beliefs, assumptions, and arguments of air warfare reveal a campaign rich with resonance and ripe for anyone willing to ply the past to teach about air war today.
The Normandy Air Campaign
The term itself sounds strange: the Normandy air campaign. Military aviation that was proximate, in either time or place, to the invasion of western France goes by many names and even more descriptions. Before the invasion, there was the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO), the strategic attack on Germany by the US Strategic Air Forces and British Bomber Command. There was Pointblank, the refocusing of those attacks after early bombing efforts proved too costly. There was the Transportation Plan, which aimed to isolate the invasion area from German supply sources. There was the Oil Plan, a subset of strategic attacks deep into the Third Reich. As D-day neared, there was Fortitude, the Anglo-American deception plan that required thousands of sorties over Calais, France, to disguise the place of invasion. On D-day itself, there were thousands more sorties to carry airborne soldiers to their dramatic appointment with combat near Pegasus Bridge and Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Following the invasion, there was the massive effort to move two numbered air forces to the far shore; from their improvised expeditionary airfields came important developments in the air war, such as armed reconnaissance and armored-column cover. In July, Operations Goodwood, Charnwood, and Cobra featured thousands of Allied heavy and medium bombers, as well as fighter-bombers, working to blast holes through the tough German defensive crust. Before, during, and after D-day, there was Operation Crossbow, the Allied air strikes against Nazi V-rocket launch sites in Normandy and throughout Western Europe. And finally, there was a turkey shoot, when Allied planes rained destruction upon retreating Germans, creating not one or two but many highways of death.
The Normandy invasion demanded an immense effort from every combat arm. Military aviation associated with the assault included over 430,000 sorties; required the concentrated efforts of two American air forces and one English air force, as well as the occasional participation of British Bomber, Fighter, and Coastal Commands; and cost the Anglo-Americans at least 10,000 combat deaths and 30,000 total casualties among pilots and crews, (1) All this happened in some relation to the Normandy invasion. Yet, a perception persists that the air war in Western Europe is best viewed in relation to disparate parts. In memory and in literature, military aviation over western France occupies separate orbits: the strategic campaign against Germany; the tactical support for the ground assault; and the political campaign to strike Nazi V-1 and V-2 sites. Only occasionally are these orbits linked--and then usually in the language of distraction and disruption, with the objectives and requirements of one campaign diminishing the others.
This may make descriptions of the air war more facile, but it denies two related truths. One, in World War II as today, airpower's division into operational functions--its strategic, tactical, or support roles--is more apparent than real. Early airpower theorists postulated the unity of military aviation, and current concepts such as effects-based operations spring from renewed appreciation of airpower's indivisibility. No inherently strategic, tactical, or support function exists in any given plane or weapon. To suggest otherwise is to deny airpower's versatility. Two, whatever the time period, military aviation organizes and operates best against the backdrop of a theater campaign. As a matter of doctrine, military officers believe that this broader campaign "integrates the actions of assigned, attached, and supporting" forces. (2) The theater commander, called the joint force commander (JFC) in the current lexicon, "determines appropriate military objectives and sets priorities for the entire joint force." (3) He or she does this through a joint campaign plan that "describes how a series of major operations are integrated in time, space, and purpose to achieve a strategic objective." (4) In other words, the joint commander and his or her campaign organize all military action in a given area of responsibility, regardless of the relative scope or the precise nature of contributions each service arm may make to the effort.
From a modern perspective, then, the invasion of Normandy serves to codify and categorize the various air operations in Western Europe in the spring and summer of 1944. From the dark days after Pearl Harbor, the Anglo-Americans intended an assault on Fortress Europe. In late 1943, Gen Dwight Eisenhower became that operation's supreme commander. After that, the invasion's eventuality was never in jeopardy, even as great debates attended its particulars. As a matter of policy and strategy, an amphibious landing and subsequent drive into Germany were the center of Allied activity in the West. So only one air war and one air campaign existed in Western Europe during the months on either side of D-day. As a thoughtful participant wrote on the eve of the invasion, the pressure of war had molded all the air forces--indeed, all theater forces--into a single weapon: "Gone now were differences between strategic and tactical, between ground and air, between Army and Navy, between Americans and their Allies. All were welded into one compact, devastating fist, set to deliver the Sunday punch." (5)
Seeing airpower indivisibly and in relation to a broader theater campaign reshapes Normandy air operations. The facts are as they have always been. Time and chronology shift not one whit. The number of sorties flown, bombs dropped, and personnel assigned to aerial forces stays constant. Descriptions of various personalities do not change. The Herculean effort required to move air operations to the far shore remains Herculean. Yet, the overall picture transforms from a series of fragmented and competing operations into a single operation that forms a single campaign: the Normandy air campaign.
Command and Control of Air Operations
continue (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NXL/is_4_17/ai_113563538/pg_2)