WORLD WAR II

U.S. Military Services

U.S. Army Air Force

Abrams, Leonard N. Our Secret Little War. Bethesda, MD: International Geographic Information Foundation, 1991.

According to Surveillant 3.4/5, this is the "story of Leonard Abrams and his career in the joint British-American V-Section model shop which constructed scale models of strategic/tactical targets and battlefields based on aerial reconnaissance photographs." The dates covered are October 1942 to November 1945.

Rip, I&NS 8.4, notes that Our Secret Little War is "illustrated with 32 pages of interesting, and in many cases never before seen, black-and-white photographs of the three-dimensional scale models, as well as the only color photograph of the 1:5,000 scale Normandy (Cabourg-sur-Dives) model used in planning the D-Day invasion."

Bailey, Ronald H. "All-Seeing Eyes in the Sky." In The Air War in Europe. World War II Series. New York: Time-Life, 1979. [Petersen]

Barker, Edward L. "Air Combat Intelligence." Naval Intelligence Professionals Quarterly 5, no. 1 (1989): 11-15.

Brugioni, Dino. "Hiding the Aircraft Factories." Air Force Magazine 66, no. 3 (1983): 112-115.

Petersen: "Camouflage of West Coast installations against Japanese bombing."

Brugioni, Dino. "Photo Interpretation and Photogrammetry in World War II." Photogrammatic Engineering and Remote Sensing 50, no. 9 (1984): 1313-1318. [Petersen]

Craven, Wesley F., and James L. Cate, eds. The Army Air Forces in World War II. 7 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953-1965.

Petersen: "Some coverage of intelligence and reconnaissance, as well as target selection. See especially volumes I and II."

Ellis, John. Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War. New York: Viking, 1991.

Surveillant 1.6 notes that this book includes "[s]everal references to ULTRA intelligence, Air Technical Intelligence Group, Sorge, Stalin, and German intelligence."

Franco, Arnold Clement, as told to Paula Aselin Spellman. Code to Victory: Coming of Age in World War II. Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1998.

White, IJI&C 12.2, notes that the author was "a cryptanalyst with the (Morse Code) Detachment A of 3rd Radio Squadron Mobile (G) [German]. This unit operated as an intercept and intelligence service working on German Luftwaffe voice and wireless telegraph (W/T) communications."

According to Kruh, Cryptologia 24.1, the 3rd RSM was assigned to the 9th Air Force. The author "describes his work" and produces "a fascinating volume of reminiscences that evokes the realities of war."

Haines, William W. Ultra and the History of U.S. Strategic Air Force in Europe vs. German Air Force. Westport CT: Greenwood, 1980. Frederick, MD: University Press of America, 1986.

Nautical Brass Bibliography says that this book explains "[h]ow Enigma messages reporting on German shortages of manpower and equipment were taken advantage of by the U.S. Air Force."

Kreis, John F., et al., eds. Piercing the Fog: Air Intelligence in World War II. Bolling AFB, Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996.

Jonkers, AIJ 17.1/2, notes that "[w]hen war broke out in 1941, no intelligence system existed to provide Army Air Forces with the information to conduct effective war in Europe and the Pacific. This is the story of how intelligence organizations were built to collect, process, produce and disseminate intelligence to air command decisionmakers and forces."

For Kruh, Cryptologia 21.2, this "is an outstanding volume, which is fully documented with extensive footnotes." Christensen, I&NS 11.4/763/fn. 8, refers to this work as "an excellent account of air intelligence's short comings."

Mahncke, NWCR, Autumn 1998, finds the book's "extensive coverage of the North African, Chinese, and Pacific theater air campaigns ... especially valuable, for they are often overshadowed by the continental European campaign."

Leary, William M. Fueling the Fires of Resistance: Army Air Forces Special Operations in the Balkans during World War II. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1995.

MacCloskey, Monro. Secret Air Missions. New York: Richards Rosen, 1966.

According to Constantinides, MacCloskey commanded the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force squadron responsible for agent and supply air drops into Italy, southern France, and the Balkans during World War II. The book "is a cross between a unit history and a collection of letters to home." Although the author could have included more on the unit's missions, "air support of intelligence operations has not often been described at this operational level."

Mierzejewski, Alfred C. "Intelligence and the Strategic Bombing of Germany: The Combined Strategic Targets Committee." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 3, no. 1 (Spring 1989): 83-104.

Overy, R.J. The Air War, 1939-1945. Braircliff Manor, NY: Stein & Day, 1981.

Petersen: "Heavy emphasis on intelligence."

Parnell, Ben. Carpetbaggers -- America's Secret War in Europe: A Story of the World War II Carpetbaggers 801st/492nd Bombardment Group (H) U.S. Army, Eighth Air Force. Rev. ed. Austin, TX: Eakin, 1993.

From advertisement: "The hitherto concealed story of a highly secret venture carried out by the OSS and the Eighth Air Force which assisted friendly underground groups by flying thousands of tons of arms and supplies as well as agents behind enemy lines."

Knouse, http://home.att.net, views this as "the definitive book on the operation," and advises buying the revised edition.

Putney, Diane T., ed. Ultra and the Army Air Forces in World War II: An Interview with Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987.

According to Sexton, Powell served as Ultra liaison officer with the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe. Here, he gives "valuable insights into the use made of ULTRA in target selection and Anglo American intelligence cooperation."

Bates, NIPQ 13.3, notes that the interview "is heavily footnoted. Each time he mentions an individual a footnote provides a short biography. When he mentions an operation, battle or event, it is described in a footnote."

Reese, John R. "A Case Study in Operational Intelligence." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 11, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 73-92.

The author looks at the estimates done at U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) relative to the Germans' ability to bring on line and utilize jet aircraft, specifically the Me 262, to counter Allied air superiority. He concludes: "While the results remain open to question, rarely have intelligence analysis and targeting doctrine been so neatly applied as in the case of the Me 262."

Smith, David M. "The Use of Decrypted German Weather Reports in the Operations of the Fifteenth Air Force Over Europe." Cryptologia 23, no. 4 (Oct. 1999): 298-304.

From "Abstract": "German weather reports were decrypted swiftly enough to enable 15th Air Force meteorologists to use them, together with reports from Allied and neutral sources, to predict the rare times of the perfectly clear weather required to bomb targets visually in Central Europe."

Smith, Myron J., Jr. Air War Bibliography 1939-1945: A Guide to Sources in English. 5 vols. Manhattan, KS: USAF Historical Foundation, Military Affairs/Aerospace Historian Publishing, 1976. [Petersen] 

Staerck, Christopher, and Paul Sinnott. Luftwaffe: The Allied Intelligence Files. Dulles, VA: Brassey's, 2002.

Tate, Air & Space Power Journal 19.1 (Spring 2005), finds that "the authors have produced a fine historical document. They include both background information and ... detailed data" on various German aircraft. Their "analysis addresses [each] aircraft’s war record, performance characteristics, and intelligence history -- the latter reflecting the amount of actual information we had on German aircraft during the war."

Stanley, Roy M., II [Col./USAF]. World War II Photo Intelligence. New York: Scribner's, 1981.

Pforzheimer: "This book is ... copiously illustrated with over five hundred photographs appropriate to the text. While essentially a 'coffee table' book, it has merit for the historically minded professional intelligence officer."

U.S. War Department. Army Air Forces. Ultra and the History of the United States Strategic Air Force in Europe versus the German Air Force. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1980.

See William W. Haines, Ultra and the History of U.S. Strategic Air Force in Europe vs. German Air Force (Westport CT: Greenwood, 1980. Frederick, MD: University Press of America, 1986). Nautical Brass Bibliography says that this book explains "[h]ow Enigma messages reporting on German shortages of manpower and equipment were taken advantage of by the U.S. Air Force."

Warren, Harris G. Special Operations: AAF Aid to European Resistance Movements, 1943-1945. Washington, DC: Air Force Historical Office, HQ Army Air Force, 1947. Washington, DC: Military Affairs, 1947. [pb]

Knouse, http://home.att.net, comments that this work is "[h]eavy on supply of the Partisans in the Mediterranean Theater and [has] a good deal of information relating to the 406th Night Leaflet Squadron, which operated out of Cheddington and on Detached Service at Harrington."

Weaver, Michael E. "International Cooperation and Bureaucratic In-fighting: American and British Economic Sharing and the Strategic Bombing of Germany, 1939-41." Intelligence and National Security 23, no. 2 (Apr. 2008): 153-175.

The U.S. Army Air Corps "clashed with the Army over access to economic data. Its need for economic intelligence merged with its political goal of making strategic bombing its primary mission."

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