The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

T H E A I R C O R P S P R E P A R E S F O R W A R , 1 9 3 9 - 4 1
the foundations of the war machine and national morale. This they
proposed to accomplish by blockade, subversive activities and propa-
ganda, and aerial bombardment. T h e bomber offensive should be
carried out on a scale far beyond any previous attempts-should be
limited, in fact, only by the number of aircraft which could operate
from United Kingdom airfields-and to that end the production of
heavy bombers should be given highest priority once the needs
of defensive security had been met. By concentrated bombardment of
transportation centers and the industrial areas surrounding them, it
was thought that cumulative efforts would seriously weaken the Ger-
man ability and will to resist.
In fact, it seemed possible that these methods alone might induce
Germany to sue for peace and that the role of the British army could
be limited to that of an armv of occupation. Nevertheless, a land army
should be prepared to invade the continent and Germany itself. T h e
British chiefs of staff did not envisage the use of the vast numbers of
infantrymen used in 1914-18. Rather the invading force would be
made up largely of armored divisions, which would in a war of move-
ment liberate one area after another, turning each over in turn to local
patriots who had been secretly armed in advance. T h e British were
not willing to say this task could not be done without active American
participation (though men like Wave11 and Auchinleck were publicly
saying just that),12’ but certainly the process would be accelerated if
“the American bomber effort would increasingly swell the air offen-
sive against Germany and in the final phase American armoured
forces would participate.”
Whatever the immediate reaction of the US. leaders may have
been, their formal reply, requested by the British and submitted in a
memorandum of 2 5 September,13’ indicates that they interpreted the
review as diverging significantly from the strategy advocated in ABC-I
for the defeat of Germany. They professed an adherence to the list of
offensive means prescribed by that document, whether America
entered the war or not, and they felt that the objectives described in
the review were lacking in precision. They gave an itemized com-
ment, paragraph by paragraph, but their most important criticism
was centered on two general points. First, they took exception to the
bombing objectives, decrying the apparent emphasis on attack upon
civilian morale. Second, they believed that too much faith was placed
in the “probability of success solely through the employment of
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