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

P L A N S , P O L I C I E S , A N D O R G A N I Z A T I O N
prospect of direct intervention on the part of the United States.
Hence, though the bomber offensive was treated as a prelude to inva-
sion, it was conceived on a scale so huge as to obviate the mass battles
of World War I. This was indicated clearly a t the Atlantic confer-
ence of August 1941 when the British chiefs of staff expressed hope
that the air war alone might bring about a German collapse and limit
the role of ground forces to that of occupation troops; at worst, it
would be a matter of mobile armored columns and local ~ a t r i 0 t s . l ~ ~
This concept of war was common enough among airmen, but it was
something new that it should have governmental support. It did not
pass unchallenged. In succeeding months, the high priority given to
heavy bombers and the declared intention of using them exclusively
in a protracted strategic program evoked much argument in England.
Critics complained of the RAF’s failure to provide adequate close
support for ground operations in Africa, of stress on high-level bomb-
ing to the exclusion of dive bombing, of the preference shown
Bomber Command over Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm.157
Public indignation over the escape of the Scharnhorst and Gneisem
from Brest on I Z February 1942 brought editorial agitation for the
reorganization of the RAF and reconsideration of the question of
high-level bombing.158RAF estimates of the efficacy of its efforts
were sometimes challenged-as, for instance, in the highly publicized
mission against the Renault works near Paris on 3 March.lS9In sum,
the complaints followed the familiar pattern of objections to inde-
pendent air force operations which had originally stemmed from
interservice differences. The criticism was eagerly seized on by the
German propaganda machine. Thus, in April, a fake English voice
on one of Goebbels’ radio programs announced:
W e [British] should know better than anyone that the bombardment of
towns can’t bring the end of the war nearer. London withstood about as
heavy a bombardment as could be launched. ... T h e proper use of aircraft
is to support land forces in the actual battle zone, and as the RAF isn’t large
enough to fulfill all its tasks, it should be reserved for this purpose only.16’
Neither honest criticism nor propaganda brought any serious revision
of policy, nor apparently in majority public opinion. An air attach6
on Chaney’s staff reported in the same month that “the British public
have an erroneous belief, which has been fostered by effective RAF
publicity, that the German war machine can be destroyed and the
nation defeated by intensive bombing.” 161 The favorable attitude
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