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From the foreword: WHEN JAPAN ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR on December 7,
1941, and Germany and Italy joined Japan four days later in
declaring war against the United States, intelligence essential for
the Army Air Forces to conduct effective warfare in the European
and Pacific theaters did not exist. Piercing the Fog tells the
intriguing story of how airmen built intelligence organizations to
collect and process information about the enemy and to produce and
disseminate intelligence to decisionmakers and warfighters in the
bloody, horrific crucible of war. Because the problems confronting
and confounding air intelligence officers, planners, and operators
fifty years ago still resonate, Piercing the Fog is particularly
valuable for intelligence officers, planners, and operators today
and for anyone concerned with acquiring and exploiting intelligence
for successful air warfare. More than organizational history, this
book reveals the indispensable and necessarily secret role
intelligence plays in effectively waging war. It examines how World
War II was a watershed period for Air Force Intelligence and for
the acquisition and use of signals intelligence, photo
reconnaissance intelligence, human resources intelligence, and
scientific and technical intelligence. Piercing the Fog discusses
the development of new sources and methods of intelligence
collection; requirements for intelligence at the strategic,
operational, and tactical levels of warfare; intelligence to
support missions for air superiority, interdiction, strategic
bombardment, and air defense; the sharing of intelligence in a
coalition and joint service environment; the acquisition of
intelligence to assess bomb damage on a target-by-target basis and
to measure progress in achieving campaign and war objecti ves; and
the ability of military leaders to understand the intentions and
capabilities of the enemy and to appreciate the pressures on
intelligence officers to sometimes tell commanders what they think
the commanders want to hear instead of what the intelligence
discloses. The complex problems associated with intelligence to
support strategic bombardment in the 1940s will strike some readers
as uncannily prescient to global Air Force operations in the 1990s.
First published in 2002. From the foreword: "This insightful work
by David N. Spires holds many lessons in tactical air-ground
operations. Despite peacetime rivalries in the drafting of service
doctrine, in World War II the immense pressures of wartime drove
army and air commanders to cooperate in the effective prosecution
of battlefield operations. In northwest Europe during the war, the
combination of the U.S. Third Army commanded by Lt. Gen. George S.
Patton and the XIX Tactical Air Command led by Brig. Gen. Otto P.
Weyland proved to be the most effective allied air-ground team of
World War II. The great success of Patton's drive across France,
ultimately crossing the Rhine, and then racing across southern
Germany, owed a great deal to Weyland's airmen of the XIX Tactical
Air Command. This deft cooperation paved the way for allied victory
in Westren Europe and today remains a classic example of air-ground
effectiveness. It forever highlighted the importance of air-ground
commanders working closely together on the battlefield. The Air
Force is indebted to David N. Spires for chronicling this landmark
story of air-ground cooperation."
Famous for leading the Doolittle (or Tokyo) Raid, America's first
strike against Japan in World War II, Jimmy Doolittle led a
remarkable life as an American pilot. This firsthand account by his
granddaughter Jonna Doolittle Hoppes reveals an extraordinary
individual: • An aviation pioneer who was the first to fly across
the United States in less than 24 hours and the first to fly
“blind†(using only his plane’s instruments). • A
barnstormer well known for aerobatics and a popular racing pilot
who won every major air race at least once. • Recipient of both
the Congressional Medal of Honor and Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• A four-star general and commander of both the 8th, 12th, and
15th Air Forces. • A scientist with a doctorate in aeronautical
engineering from MIT. Calculated Risk provides insights into
the public and private world of Jimmy Doolittle and his family, and
sheds light on the drives and motivation of one of America's most
influential and ambitious aviators. This updated edition contains a
new foreword written by Richard P. Hallion, a new afterword written
by Clarence E. “Bud†Anderson, and a new introduction by author
Jonna Doolittle Hoppes.
An expertly written, illustrated new analysis of the Desert Storm
air campaign fought against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which shattered
the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force in just
39 days, and revolutionized the world's ideas about modern air
power. Operation Desert Storm took just over six weeks to destroy
Saddam Hussein's war machine: a 39-day air campaign followed by a
four-day ground assault. It shattered what had been the world's
fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force, and overturned
conventional military assumptions about the effectiveness and value
of air power. In this book, Richard P. Hallion, one of the world's
foremost experts on air warfare, explains why Desert Storm was a
revolutionary victory, a war won with no single climatic battle.
Instead, victory came thanks largely to a rigorously planned air
campaign. It began with an opening night that smashed Iraq's
advanced air defense system, and allowed systematic follow-on
strikes to savage its military infrastructure and field
capabilities. When the Coalition tanks finally rolled into Iraq, it
was less an assault than an occupation. The rapid victory in Desert
Storm, which surprised many observers, led to widespread military
reform as the world saw the new capabilities of precision air
power, and it ushered in today's era of high-tech air warfare.
Using diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts, this vivid
narrative brings to life the struggle in the air over the island of
Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942. The battle of
Guadalcanal was the first offensive operation undertaken by the US
and its allies in the Pacific War. The three months of air battles
between August 20, 1942, when the first Marine air unit arrived on
the island, and November 15, when the last enemy attempt to retake
the island was defeated, were perhaps the most important of the
Pacific War. “Cactus,†the code name for the island, became a
sinkhole for Japanese air and naval power, as they experienced
losses that could never be made good. For 40 years, the late Eric
Hammel interviewed more than 150 American participants in the air
campaign at Guadalcanal, none of whom are still alive. These
interviews are the most comprehensive first-person accounts of the
battle assembled by any historian. More importantly, they involved
the junior officers and enlisted men whose stories and memories
were not part of the official history, and thus provide a unique
insight. In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas
McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his
collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to
create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island
of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.
The bombing campaign that was meant to keep South Vietnam secure,
Rolling Thunder became a byword for pointless, ineffective
brutality, and was a key factor in America's Vietnam defeat. But in
its failures, Rolling Thunder was one of the most influential air
campaigns of the Cold War. It spurred a renaissance in US air power
and the development of an excellent new generation of US combat
aircraft, and it was still closely studied by the planners of the
devastatingly successful Gulf War air campaign. Dr Richard P.
Hallion, a vastly knowledgeable air power expert at the Pentagon,
explains in this fully illustrated study how the might of the US
air forces was crippled by inadequate strategic thinking, poor
pilot training, ill-suited aircraft and political interference.
Orville and Wilbur Wright, two bicycle-making brothers from Dayton, Ohio, secured their place as the most famous names in aviation history when, on December 17, 1903, they made the first powered, controlled, and sustained heavier-than-air flight. But their success over the cold and windswept Carolina dunes that day has overshadowed their many other accomplishments before and after that historic flight. The Wrights' progression from theory to analysis to ground-testing components and wing shapes, and then to flight-testing kites, gliders, and their first powered aeroplane, marked the world's first successful 'X-Plane' research and development programme. They established a template all subsequent aircraft have followed, one still relevant in the era of hypersonic flight and drone research.
This book traces the Wright Brothers' story, from their first success on that cold December day throughout their glory years to their eventual eclipse by other aviators. It explores in detail the process that lead them to their pioneering craft and their many subsequent achievements over the following years, and highlights their enduring importance in the age of modern flight.
Using diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts, this vivid
narrative brings to life the struggle in the air over the island of
Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942. For 40 years
from 1961, the late Eric Hammel interviewed more than 150 American
participants in the air campaign at Guadalcanal, none of whom are
still alive. These interviews are the most comprehensive
first-person accounts of the battle assembled by any historian.
More importantly, they involved the junior officers and enlisted
men whose stories and memories were not part of the official
history, thus providing a unique insight. The battle of Guadalcanal
was the first offensive operation undertaken by the US and its
allies in the Pacific War. "Cactus," the code name for the island,
became a sinkhole for Japanese air and naval power, experienced
forces whose losses could never be made good. The three months of
air battles between August 20, 1942, when the first Marine air unit
arrived on the island, and November 15, when the last enemy attempt
to retake the island was defeated, were perhaps the most important
of the Pacific War. After November 15, 1942, the US never looked
back as its forces moved across the Pacific to the war's inevitable
conclusion. The Cactus Air Force is a joint project between the
late Eric Hammel and Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver,
and is unlike any other of the many histories of this event that
have been published over the years.
This is an authoritative history of flight Research at Dryden from
1946 to 1981. The history of flight research at the NASA Hugh L.
Dryden Flight Research Center is recounted. The period of emerging
supersonic flight technology (1944 to 1959) is reviewed along with
the era of flight outside the Earth's atmosphere (1959 to 1981).
Specific projects such as the X-15, Gemini, Apollo, and the space
shuttle are addressed. The flight chronologies of various aircraft
and spacecraft are given.
First published in 1992. From the foreword: "Search and rescue has
always been important to the United States Air Force, whose
aircrews deserve nothing less than the fullest possible commitment
to save them and return them home. The motto of Air Force search
and rescue, "So Others May Live," is one of the most compelling of
all military mottoes. It embodies this spirit of altruism and, as
events have proven, also indicates the service's intention to
furnish life-saving SAR for civilian as well as military purposes.
Search and rescue flourished during World War II as lifeguard ships
and submarines joined patrolling aircraft in saving lives and
sustaining morale, especially in the Pacific Ocean Areas. The
rotary-wing, turbojet, and avionics revolutions made modern SAR a
reality. Foreshadowed by the Korean War, the helicopter became the
principal form of air rescue vehicle in Vietnam. In three major
conflicts, SAR forces gained a reputation for bravery, dedication,
and self-sacrifice, as they ventured repeatedly into hostile
territory to pluck fallen aircrews to safety. The USAF rightly
continues to place a top priority on search and rescue, seeking
better ways to perform this function through the use of advanced
equipment and aircraft (such as the multipurpose MH-53J Pave Low
helicopter) and improved training of personnel. This reprint of a
classic work offers the reader an exciting and exacting history of
the evolution of combat search and rescue in America's longest and
most grueling war: the conflict in Southeast Asia."
This publication is part of a continuing series of historical
studies from the Office of Air Force History in support of Project
Warrior. Project Warrior seeks to create and maintain within the
Air Force an environment where Air Force people at all levels can
learn from the past and apply the warfighting experiences of past
generations to the present.
First published in 2002. From the foreword: "This insightful work
by David N. Spires holds many lessons in tactical air-ground
operations. Despite peacetime rivalries in the drafting of service
doctrine, in World War II the immense pressures of wartime drove
army and air commanders to cooperate in the effective prosecution
of battlefield operations. In northwest Europe during the war, the
combination of the U.S. Third Army commanded by Lt. Gen. George S.
Patton and the XIX Tactical Air Command led by Brig. Gen. Otto P.
Weyland proved to be the most effective allied air-ground team of
World War II. The great success of Patton's drive across France,
ultimately crossing the Rhine, and then racing across southern
Germany, owed a great deal to Weyland's airmen of the XIX Tactical
Air Command. This deft cooperation paved the way for allied victory
in Western Europe and today remains a classic example of air-ground
effectiveness. It forever highlighted the importance of air-ground
commanders working closely together on the battlefield. The Air
Force is indebted to David N. Spires for chronicling this landmark
story of air-ground cooperation."
Originally published in 2001. From the foreword: "In February 1999,
only a few weeks before the U.S. Air Force spearheaded NATO's
Allied Force air campaign against Serbia, Col. C. R. Anderegg, USAF
(Ret.), visited the commander of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
Colonel Anderegg had known Gen. John Jumper since they had served
together as jet forward air controllers in Southeast Asia nearly
thirty years earlier. From the vantage point of 1999, they looked
back to the day in February 1970, when they first controlled a
laser-guided bomb strike. In this book Anderegg takes us from
"glimmers of hope" like that one through other major improvements
in the Air Force that came between the Vietnam War and the Gulf
War. Always central in Anderegg's account of those changes are the
people who made them. This is a very personal book by an officer
who participated in the transformation he describes so vividly.
Much of his story revolves around the Fighter Weapons School at
Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada, where he served two tours as
an instructor pilot specializing in guided munitions. But he also
takes a look at other "Fighter Mafia" outposts in the Pentagon and
elsewhere. Readers meet young Mafiosi like John Jumper, Larry
Keith, Ron Keys, Joe Bob Phillips, Earl Henderson, Moody Suter,
John Corder, Jim Brown, John Vickery, Jack Lefforge, Jack Ihle,
Stump Bowen, Dave Dellwardt, Tommy Dyches, John Madden, and Dick
Myers. As one might expect to find in a fighter pilot story, there
is a lot of fun along the way. For a distilled example, consult the
appendix on "Jeremiah Weed" (replete with instructions for drinking
"afterburners"). Colonel Anderegg's book is likely to please anyone
with an interest in fighter pilots and how they molded today's Air
Force.
Originally published in 1988. From the foreword: "The twentieth
century witnessed the emergence of three-dimensionality in war:
surface forces now became prey for attackers operating above and
below the earth and its oceans. The aerial weapon, prophesied for
centuries, became a reality, as did air power projection forces.
This insightful book by Warren A. Trest traces the doctrinal
underpinnings of the modern United States Air Force, the world's
only global air force. We-the men and women who serve in the Air
Force, but also our fellow airmen in America's other military
services-are the heirs and beneficiaries of a long heritage of
doctrinal development and military thought. Our predecessors
pursued a vision of airborne global reach and power that often put
them at odds with those who could not break free of the confines of
conventional thought and lock-step traditionalism. Fortunately,
they had the courage of their convictions and the faith in their
vision to continue to pursue the goal of global air power despite
such resistance. Today, America is a genuine aerospace power, and
that pioneering vision dating to the days of the Wright brothers,
has expanded to encompass operations in space and between the
mediums of air and space. As we approach the new millenium, it is
well to ponder the lessons and the history of how a small group of
truly gifted airmen transformed their nation's military
establishment, and, in so doing, the world around them."
Illustrated.
First published in 1999, this book is an institutional history of
flight training by the predecessor organizations of the United
States Air Force. The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane, built
and successfully flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in 1909, and
paced both lighter-and heavier-than-air aeronautics in the Division
of Military Aeronautics of the Signal Corps. Americans flew combat
missions in France during World War I and during World War II.
During this first era of military aviation, the groundwork was laid
for the independent United States Air Force. This document is
primarily based on official documents that are house in the
National Archives and Records Administration. It is the first
definitive study of this important subject.
From the foreword: "In the 1930s the Air Corps Tactical School at
Maxwell Field, Alabama, was the birthplace and nurturing ground for
American air doctrine. The work undertaken at the school became
manifest in the skies over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the
Pacific in the Second World War. Those who studied and taught there
were the same individuals who prepared America for war, and then
led its airmen into combat. This band of men spawned and shaped the
independent United States Air Force in the postwar era. Their
influence is still felt today, for they developed the airpower
doctrines and institutions that enabled the United States to
prevail in the Cold War. Their strategic vision, evolved from the
thoughts of Douhet, Mitchell, and Trenchard, is now embodied in the
Air Force's notion of Global Reach-Global Power. The legacy of the
Air Corps Tactical School continues on with the comprehensive
programs of the Air University, the world's premier airpower
training institution. From flight within the atmosphere to flight
within space, American airmen fly their missions based on
principles enunciated in the lecture halls of Maxwell Air Force
Base."
First published in 2000. From the foreword: "Since the fall of the
Berlin Wall, a series of geographically localized crises caused by
political, religious, or ethnic unrest; outright military
aggression; and natural disasters has replaced the relative
stability that characterized international relations for more than
fifty years of the Cold War. For the United States Air Force
(USAF), this has meant short-notice deployments, airlifts, and
other operational missions conducted in reaction to local crises.
Such missions-once of secondary importance to nuclear deterrence or
preparations for theater war-have come to dominate Air Force
operations. The result has been recognition that global aerospace
power and mobility are central to effective American crisis
intervention in the post-Cold War world. This recognition has led
the U.S. Air Force to restructure itself as an Expeditionary
Aerospace Force, exploiting diverse core competencies consisting of
global air and space superiority, rapid global mobility, precision
engagement, global attack, information superiority, and agile
combat support. Via rapid-response air expeditionary forces, the
U.S. Air Force can furnish global power and presence for
humanitarian or combat purposes-"bombs or bread or both"-in hours
to any spot on Earth. A traditional precept of USAF doctrine has
been that the service must always be prepared to assess its roles
and missions in light of new and ever-changing national policy and
strategy. Recognizing that doctrine is largely a distillation of
knowledge gained from historical experience, the Air Force
Historical Research Agency has compiled this record of USAF
contingency operations covering the last half-century. This book is
an effort to meet the needs of Air Force commanders and other
decision makers for a useful reference work on contingencies. One
of an ongoing series of reference works, it is organized in the
style of the recently published The United States Air Force and
Humanitarian Airlift Operations, 1947-1994. It adds to the history
of the Air Force by providing statistics and narrative descriptions
of the Air Force's most significant contingency operations over the
last fifty years."
From the foreword: WHEN JAPAN ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR on December 7,
1941, and Germany and Italy joined Japan four days later in
declaring war against the United States, intelligence essential for
the Army Air Forces to conduct effective warfare in the European
and Pacific theaters did not exist. Piercing the Fog tells the
intriguing story of how airmen built intelligence organizations to
collect and process information about the enemy and to produce and
disseminate intelligence to decisionmakers and warfighters in the
bloody, horrific crucible of war. Because the problems confronting
and confounding air intelligence officers, planners, and operators
fifty years ago still resonate, Piercing the Fog is particularly
valuable for intelligence officers, planners, and operators today
and for anyone concerned with acquiring and exploiting intelligence
for successful air warfare. More than organizational history, this
book reveals the indispensable and necessarily secret role
intelligence plays in effectively waging war. It examines how World
War II was a watershed period for Air Force Intelligence and for
the acquisition and use of signals intelligence, photo
reconnaissance intelligence, human resources intelligence, and
scientific and technical intelligence. Piercing the Fog discusses
the development of new sources and methods of intelligence
collection; requirements for intelligence at the strategic,
operational, and tactical levels of warfare; intelligence to
support missions for air superiority, interdiction, strategic
bombardment, and air defense; the sharing of intelligence in a
coalition and joint service environment; the acquisition of
intelligence to assess bomb damage on a target-by-target basis and
to measure progress in achieving campaign and war objecti ves; and
the ability of military leaders to understand the intentions and
capabilities of the enemy and to appreciate the pressures on
intelligence officers to sometimes tell commanders what they think
the commanders want to hear instead of what the intelligence
discloses. The complex problems associated with intelligence to
support strategic bombardment in the 1940s will strike some readers
as uncannily prescient to global Air Force operations in the
1990s.," Illustrated.
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