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

T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I I
against the U-boat at sea. Patrol and hunting operations had time
and again proved futile, he asserted. T h e “killer” system, whereby
contact with a submarine is followed continuously and relentlessly,
required more vessels and planes than were available. The only way
he believed it possible to eliminate the U-boat menace was to wipe
out the German building yards and bases-“a matter which I have
been pressing with the British, so far with only moderate success.’) *
But even this form of offensive strategy would do little more toward
making the Atlantic safe for Allied shipping than a complete system
of convoy cover and escort could achieve.“
H e therefore proposed extending and intensifying the convoy sys-
tem as the most effective step toward reducing the submarine menace.
Specifically, he urged the Army to make available as air cover for
escorted convoys a total of 500 planes, 2 0 0 of which should be
deployed in the Caribbean and Panama Sea frontiers, where the
convoy system was being extended in order to protect the vital oil
and bauxite shipping from South America. These 500 planes, he felt,
were a bare minimum, but they would effectively supplement the
total of 5 5 0 patrol and 300 observation planes the Navy hoped to
employ in the four western Atlantic sea
On 7 July 1942, in a memorandum to the Secretary of the Navy,
the Secretary of War reopened the question of antisubmarine or-
ganization with a fresh proposal. H e called attention to the increasing
rate of shipping losses and to the current antisubmarine effort which,
he said, had proved “largely ineffective.” The trouble, he continued,
lay primarily in an inefficient system of command and control with
regard to ASV-equipped aircraft:
Authority and responsibility is at present divided between many commands
and echelons of command. The flow of communications through so many
channels inevitably consumes time and effort and interferes with the most
effective employment of the forces available. Centralized control to enable
the instant concentration of available forces at points of major threat is re-
quired. This situation has assumed such a critical aspect that drastic measures
should be taken immediately.*6
In order, therefore, to provide a greater degree of flexibility “than
appears to exist under the Naval District system and our Eastern De-
fense Command set-up,)’ and to take advantage of the mobility of
’It may be noted in this connection that from October 1942 until June 1943 the
Eighth Air Force had as its objective of highest priority the bombing of German
submarine shore facilities.
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