Targeting The Third Reich Air Intelligence And The Allied Bombing Campaigns [Paperback]

Air Force Historical Foundation Award

When large formations of Allied four-engine bombers finally flew over Europe, it marked the beginning of the end for the Third Reich. Their relentless hammering of Germanytotaling more than 1.4 million missionstook out oil refineries, industries, and transportation infrastructures vital to the Reich's war effort. While other accounts have focused on operational details, this is the first book to reveal the crucial role of air intelligence in these dramatic campaigns.

Robert Ehlers reexamines these bombings through the lens of both air intelligence and operations, a dual approach that shows how the former was so vital to the latter's success. Air intelligence was essential to both targeting and damage assessment, and by demonstrating its contributions to the Combined Bomber Offensive of 1943-1945, Ehlers provides a wealth of new insight into the war.

Ehlers describes the close ties that developed between the Royal Air Force's precision intelligence arm and the U.S. Army Air Force's precision bombardment forces, telling how the RAF's photographic reconnaissance and signals intelligence steered both British and American bombers to the right targets at the right intervals with the right munitions. He shows that the greatest strength of this partnership was its ability to orchestrate all aspects of damage assessment within an effective organizational structure, so that by 1944 senior air commanderslike the RAF's Arthur Bomber Harris and the AAF's Carl Tooey Spaatzcould gauge the accuracy of bombing with a high degree of precision, analyze its effects on the German war effort, and determine its effectiveness in helping the Allies achieve strategic objectives.

Ehlers focuses on three key offensives in 1944against French and Belgian rail supply lines delivering German troops and supplies to Normandy, against German oil refineries, and against railroads and waterways inside thelC‘