Up From Kasserine Pass Best use of Airpower

[spidge]

Very interesting piece on how the Air Forces in Africa, (USAAF) were taken out of the hands of US ground commanders.

US airpower was ready for its independence. The North African debacle kicked away the last obstacles.

Up From Kasserine Pass

By Rebecca Grant

Caesar had the Rubicon. Paul had the road to Damascus. For American airpower, there was the Battle of Kasserine Pass.
German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s February 1943 rout of American forces in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa turned out to be a watershed event. In this desperate battle in Tunisia, US Army doctrine tied airpower, as an auxiliary force, to the corps commander—with disastrous results. US forces fought without effective air superiority or timely air support.


Up From Kasserine Pass - September 2007

[jlemma]

I may be mistaken ...but didnt the British have air superiority in the African theater by the time the Americans entered the theater?

Regards...Joe

By Rebecca Grant

Caesar had the Rubicon. Paul had the road to Damascus. For American airpower, there was the Battle of Kasserine Pass.
German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s February 1943 rout of American forces in the Atlas Mountains of North Africa turned out to be a watershed event. In this desperate battle in Tunisia, US Army doctrine tied airpower, as an auxiliary force, to the corps commander—with disastrous results. US forces fought without effective air superiority or timely air support.


Up From Kasserine Pass - September 2007[/quote]

[Antipodean Andy]

To an extent, yes, Joe. Perhaps an accurate comment in relation to the eastern areas as opposed to the Atlas Mountains/more western areas where "local air superiority" was the problem.

British forces in North Africa had, in the eastern sector, created a tidy set of command arrangements. Ground-force generals worked well with their air counterparts, a fact duly recognized by Rommel. At the second battle of El Alamein in October 1942, no less an authority than the Desert Fox himself conceded in his private diary: “The British command of the air was complete.”

The problem, from the excerpts above and below, would appear to be chain of command and the meshing/coordinating of RAF/USAAF assets. The RAF (and associated Commonwealth units...and some USAAF units that were already in theatre), by this time, was well versed in working with the army/navy.

A Separate War
Eisenhower proposed a headlong Allied dash for Tunis in hopes of capturing that key capital city by December. From there, Allied forces were to cut off German supply routes and sea lines of communication and get ready for the next move—a thrust into Sicily and then the Italian mainland.

However, problems cropped up almost immediately. German aviation constantly denied the Allies local air superiority. The task of building airfields, difficult already, was slowed even more by the Luftwaffe’s harrying raids. Ramp space for dispersal was almost nonexistent.

Eisenhower in late November transferred his headquarters from Gibraltar to Algiers, and, soon, he gained a firsthand, up-close view of the air problem. In Algiers “the continuous din” of Luftwaffe night raids “made sleep impossible,” he later wrote in his memoirs.

The Allies strengthened the air defense of that city, but the Luftwaffe still bedeviled front-line troops. “Because of hostile domination of the air, travel anywhere in the forward area was an exciting business,” observed Ike. Troops complained to him, “Where is this bloody Air Force of ours?” The new supreme commander took it in stride, but resolved to take care of the problem.

“When the enemy has air superiority, the ground forces never hesitate to curse the ‘aviators,'" Eisenhower observed.

The experienced British smelled trouble right away. Tedder noted that “the US air [arm] was running a separate war,” meaning it was not flying in support of the overall Allied operation. For example, one US force on Nov. 27 refused to assist Britain’s First Army, even though Eisenhower’s guidance mandated it. The US commander did not want to give up his airpower.

Meanwhile Tedder, when at all possible, was diverting RAF night fighters, Hurricanes, and even bombers away from action in the east to help out in the west. Still, handling competing claims was growing more difficult. US bomber forces in England watched uneasily as the desert air forces took priority for supplies. In Tedder’s words, “It was clear enough that the existing air organization was almost crazy, with two air forces but no effective command.”

A big part of the problem was that the United States Army’s FM 31-35 doctrine on airpower—written in April 1942—was almost criminally vague.

Historian Shawn P. Rife, in a 1998 article in Joint Force Quarterly, commented, “Contrary to popular belief, FM 31-35 did not prescribe that air units should be either assigned or attached to ground units.” The problem was that the doctrine said little at all, and served no one well. According to Rife, ground force commanders were disappointed that they did not “own” airplanes. Airmen worried about airpower being watered down. Distress was widespread.

On Dec. 1, 1942, Spaatz reported to North Africa to take command of US Army air assets. That move, however, did not resolve the overall problem of uniting all British and American air forces in the Mediterranean arc. By early December, Eisenhower was seeking more B-24s and B-17s to provide battlefield support to his forces in North Africa, even though they were kept busy attacking Rommel’s supply lines at Tripoli.

The Germans were chipping away at Allied air strength. On Dec. 6, 1942, German aircraft destroyed six RAF Spitfires on the ground. Other attacks claimed five American P-38s plus 11 light bombers.

The solution, the airmen knew, was to shift US and British air assets around the Mediterranean Theater on an almost daily basis. That kind of movement, however, required unified command and planning at Eisenhower’s supreme headquarters.