In 1938 the USAAC staged what was largely a publicity stunt during a wargame on the East coast by sending a flight of three B-17s to intercept the Italian liner Rex about 600 or so miles out to sea as an obstensive demonstration of their ability to perform "coastal defense." The event was well publicized as there were reporters on the bombers including an NBC team with radios reporting live. Previous instances where the USAAC had "shown up" the Navy in some way were brought to a head with this incident. The US Navy saw as its perogative command of the sea and defense of the nation far beyond its coasts. They saw this USAAC stunt as a direct assault on their mission and role in any future war. The next day the US Army Chief of Staff General Malin Craig was called by both Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William Leahy and given an earful about the "violation of the Navy's prerogative of controlling the sea approaches." Craig assured the Navy that the Air Corps would henceforth be restricted to operating no more than 100 miles from the US shoreline. This was obstensively put into a written order although there is no remaining copy of such. Historically, this order was only occasionally enforced and eventually ignored. But, what if it wasn't? What if the USAAC was now forced into abiding by this directive? Historically, the Secretary of War Harry Woodring cancelled additional orders for B-17s some time after the Rex incident. Only intervention by Roosevelt resended it. What if that cancellation stood? I suspect that the USAAC would have entered WW 2 looking alot more like the Soviet Air Force or Luftwaffe than the strategic bombing force it did historically. First, there would have been no useful amount of B-17s in service, if any. The B-24 would have been still born. If anything, the USAAC would have had just pursuits and twin engine bombers for the most part along with other relatively short ranged aircraft supporting them. While it likely would not have changed the outcome of the war, it would have significantly changed how America fought it.
I have to disagree with your conclusion. While the USAAC fostered the fiction that the B-17 was a "coastal defense" aircraft, it had few illusions about actually using it that way. The B-17 was always viewed as a "strategic bomber" by the Army Air Corps and that is the way they intended to use it in the event of war. The proof is that, even though they were technically responsible for coastal defense (including ASW) up to 100 miles offshore, they never trained Army pilots in that role prior to WW II. The "coastal defense" nonsense was a cover story to keep the B-17 program from being killed by the pacificists and isolationists in Congress who wanted nothing to do with an offensive weapon like a strategic bomber. As for the B-17 being used in WW II, that would have happened anyway, no matter what Roosevelt and Woodring had decided. There were only a handful of B-17's (less than 200) available before the war broke out and, in any case, these weren't the models the Army Air Corps considered battle worthy. As the only modern four engine heavy bomber in production, the B-17 would have been produced during WW II pretty much as historically. The B-24 came about because Consolidated Aircraft was asked by the Army to accept a contract to build B-17's. After visiting Boeing, Consolidated engineers decided they could do better and proposed the B-24 instead. The Army liked the idea of a second type of strategic bomber and accepted. But even if they hadn't, the Navy needed long range patrol aircraft and would have developed something like the B-24, which they, in fact, used in large numbers throughout the war. It's specious to claim that the US Army Air Corps would have fought the war with "just pursuits and short range aircraft" because for two decades prior to WW II the Army Air Corps had dedicated itself to a doctrine of long range strategic bombardment.
The AAC had already closed down its Tactical Air Force units and experiments as a independante entity. Later in 1939 & 1940 the specs given out for the twin engine bombers were tantamount to stratigic aircraft in anyone elses airforce. It would have taken a lot more than a Presidential order concerning just one model to end the AAC's ideas for stratigic bombing. The POD is earlier when the AAC thought it had to make a choice between tactical and stratigic aircraft and doctrinal development. Had the tactical support people won out then aircraft like the Shrike would have been the basis for development rather than the B10. Considering US aircraft technology development, and the energy the tiny AAC put into its stratigic development program one might guess that comparable results be obtained in the tactical department by 7 Dec 1941. That is instead of 4000 frontline aircraft deisgned for a stratigic or heavy bomber war there would be a larger number of tactical aircraft preparing for combat. Note that smaller aircraft mean more airframes & engines available so the gross number of aircraft available is larger. By Jan 1943 the USAAF had just short of 11,000 first line aircraft and a bit under 4,700 overseas. One would guess that the ability of the tactical airforce would well exceed the stunted embryonic tactical side of the USAAF that was being patched thgether in 1942. There had been a lot of experimentation and thought about tactical support operations in the 1920s. Drawing from AAC experiments and USMC combat experince in Nicaragua items like air/ground communications and command control were anticipating WWII. How would this look in combat ops? Consider the Tunisian campaign. After the full establishment of the forward airfields in March 1943 the Allied air forces there pounded the Axis reinforcements and supply moving from Italy to Tunisa into oblivion. Bombing the ports airfields and railroad terminals in Italy Sicilly and Tunisia disrupted the Axis supply effort. Sinking the cargo ships and shooting down the transport aircraft effectively cut off the Axis armys supply. With strong tactical airforce the Axis supply can leave italy with little interfereance from the USAAF. (I expect the British would not change their role and continue to pound italy even harder.) Once the Axis material and men arrive in Tunisa they are confronted by a much more effective tactical airforce and pounded just as hard as they attempt combat ops. I'm nt going to try for a stratigic vs tactical airsupport debate. My take is in the end Axis war material is destroyed at the same level or better as in our timeline. The main difference is the location and the interaction of the US ground forces with this bombing.
i'm smiling now to think that the US trans-atlantic bomber was designed not to nuke europe in the event of a german victory in western europe, but rather to literally pole vault the US Navy.
Carl, One of the primary advocates of tactical aircraft in the USAAF was George Kenney. As a captain in the late 1920's and early 1930's, he conducted experiments in the application of tactical airpower; the results of these experiments later bore fruit in the Southwest Pacific when General Kenney's 5th. Air Force confronted the Japanese. The interesting thing was that Kenney successfully used aircraft and equipment originally designed for strategic bombing to conduct a tactical war. For example, Kenney worked out a technique for using B-17's to skip bomb ships. Much of Kenney's improvisation was due to the fact that there were no real strategic targets in the Southwest Pacific and he had to adapt the equipment he had to the destruction of the targets he was provided. There is a fascinating book about the 5th. Air Force and the kind of warfare it was forced to conduct titled "A War of Their Own" at http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil/Books/Rodman/rodman.pdf
Yes I am aware of Kenny. His focus with the 5th AF seems to have been on interdiction of the Japanese LOC striking ships, ports, and supply storage. What else the 5th AF did in tactical support I am not certain. Its been a while so I'll have to check, but when Krueger expressed his desires for tactical air support for the 6th Armys operations on Leyte & Luzon the 5th AF rejected them. Instead Kruger requested and got a USMC air wing for his CAS. For the Okinawa campaign Buckners 10th Army AF was commanded (Maj Gen Geiger) and staffed in part by USMC officers who were experinced in nothing but CAS.. Kennys sucessfull interdiction of the Japanese Sea Lines of Communications was very much like the sucessfull interdiction of the Axis SLOC to Tunisia. Which Dolittle described as a 'stratigic air operation'.
Read the book I referenced; it details the tactical operations of the 5th. Air Force including the interdiction of the SLOC's which was definitely not a "strategic" effort. The 5th. Air Force also was extremely successful in countering the Japanese efforts to establish and maintain tactical air bases in the Southwest Pacific, and in destroying the Japanese logistical network in the Solomons and elsewhere. Although it's downplayed in the book, the 5th, was also very active in striking Japanese artillery concentrations and troop facilities.
I have read it. We have a difference in definitions here, by tactical I am refering to air operations in direct support of the ground force within the ground commanders area of influence. Air strikes on targets largely choosen by the tactical & operational ground commanders. The term Close Air Support comes close to what I am talking about, tho there are some overlaps. Beyond that interdiction of the SLOC & specifically sinking Japanese ships had stratigic effects that went far beyond the local effect on ground operations, although the 'tactical' effect was there. Historians like Ellis (Brute Force) & Costello (Pacific War 1941-45) discuss the loss of Japanese ships in the South Pacific mostly in stratigic terms & their effect on the overall war effort. That Japans cargo fleet constituted a stratigic vulnerability as well as a local tactical vulnerability was understood by the US military leaders in the Pacific. Attacking the cargo ships covered the entire spectrum from stratigic thru tactical objectives. As I wrote earlier Dolittles staff when executing the same sort of missions as the 5th AF in support of the Tunisian campaign argued with the ground commanders that they were not going to give priority to tactical missions as those were less effective & effcient. By 'tactical' they meant CAS & avoided that mission type as far as practical. In the first chapter of Rodman it is described how in the 1930s "attack" missions are defined as interdiction or isolation missions & not CAS. The extract provided on page 6 of chap 1 illustrates this. In the first chapter of Rodman it is described how in the 1930s "attack" missions are defined as interdiction or isolation missions & not CAS. The extract provided on page 6 of chap 1 illustrates this. As far as I can tell the development of the tactical side of the Army Air Corps in the 1920s was directed at missions within the tactical ground commanders battle area. The methods used by the US Marines in Nicaragua were influenced by the AAC discussion and experiments. That seems to have faded out in the 1930s. Getting back to the 5th AF & Rodman. There are a few brief refences to direct support of ground forces in the text. Not enough to form any clear picture of the nature of the CAS conducted by 5th AF. What is clear in Rodman is that everything he decribes as tactical or "attack" missions had to be worked out from little usefull previous experince. Kenny & his men were drawing on experince in the 1930s & perhaps 1920s as well. But, it seems clear in Rodmans book that the myriad technical details for tactical air support & CAS were largely unknown and the remainder not understood. This is the core of my intial posts here. Had the AAC paid closer attention to the attack missions closer to the ground battle in the 1930s Kenny, & my fathers leaders in Europe, would not have been starting so far behind on the learning curve in 1942-43. And, the ground forces would not have to wait until 1944 to see effective large scale direct or close support.
A big part of the problem regarding tactical air support and in particular close air support was one politics and vision amongst the top leaders of the USAAC. Their long term vision was to make the Air Corps a seperate service like the Luftwaffe or RAF was. They wanted to become divorced from the US Army. To do this they had to prove, or so they thought, that air power had a distinct and seperate mission divorced from ground warfare. The Rex intercept was one small incident in that drive. That is why the US Navy reacted so violently to it. The USAAC was stepping on the toes of the Navy's strategic mission area. If tactical air support were the primary mission of the USAAC then there was no justification for it being a seperate service. It was just an adjunct of the Army; flying artillery if you will. The US Navy and Marine Corps managed their air power differently. The USMC became responsible for their own air support while the Navy retained the strategic mission of sea control. The two meshed their air components fairly well as a result. The USAAC/USAAF/USAF and Army had a much more acromonious divorce. The Air Force demanded control over all armed aircraft and virtually all air missions in land warfare. The Army as a result was forced into using helicopters as an alternative to give them the close air support the USAF all-to-often failed to properly provide. Had the USAF given up the close air support mission handing it to the Army things probably would have been better, both then and today.
Amen BTW. Have you continued your study of the Quiberon Bay operation? Other than the amphib transport problem I thought it a sound concept. Even the latter might be solved if the POD were set back far enough for preperation. Betting back to topic. I suspose were the development of a stratigic air weapon, the B10 & B17 projects neglected then the development of heavy bombers and 'stratigic' attack capability would be slow and less sucessfull by the US. One possiblity would be the adaptation of British heavy bombers for USAAF use. Perhaps even production of a modified version of a British model in the US? This POD does not preclude the USN developing long range heavy aircraft, although they would be configured for a different mission. Still the USN developments might serve as a basis for a USAAF heavy bomber program. Alternatly the USN might actually take over the stratigic bombing role vs Japan.
Well, Not to get caught up in a semantics discussion, but I use the term "strategic" in the sense of having to do with matters that involve a belligerent's ability, or willingness, to continue to conduct warfare, whereas the Term "tactical", to me, denotes those factors which affect the battlefield in a more or less direct fashion. Bombing an oil refinery, a hydroelectric installation, an aircraft plant, a shipyard, or a rail marshaling yard would be a strategic attack, whereas destroying a ship or train carrying supplies or reinforcements to the front, attacking an enemy airfield in the theater of operations, bombing an artillery ammunition dump, or destroying an infantry strongpoint would be a tactical application of airpower. To my way of thinking "close air support" is a subset of "tactical" air support. Since there were really no targets in the Southwest Pacific which would really satisfy the definition of "strategic", then the 5th. Air Force had no other choice, as Rodman points out, than to wage "tactical" air warfare. Rodman does describe the adaption and evolution of tactical doctrine by the 5th. Air Force. One must remember that the 5th AF was a stepchild, wanted neither by the USAAF which was intent on establishing it's independence of the Army through the success of a strategic bombardment arm, nor by the Army command in the Southwest Pacific which needed attack planes, not the long range bombers with which the 5th AF found itself equipped in the early days. The 5th. AF, thanks to the all-consuming "strategic" drive of the USAAF, found itself with a doctrine and equipment which was not suited to the type of warfare and targets available in the Southwest Pacific. It would have been nice had the 5th AF found itself in the kind of situation for which the USAAF had planned and developed it's equipment. Unfortunately that was the environement that prevailed in the ETO, but not in the SWPA. Neither did the SWPA exactly fit the vision of the attack aviation enthusiasts like Kenney, which was also based on what they imagined a future land war in Europe might be like. While it may be true the loss of Japanese shipping had strategic effects on Japan, the same coud be said of the loss of individual tanks, or aircraft; any loss has a cumulative "strategic" effect. But it was the immediate tactical effect of the loss of cargo's troops and equipment on the outcome of local battles that the 5th. AF was more concerned about MacArthur was fighting a war of attrition, but his immediate concern was winning each and every battle as it occurred, and that is what the 5th. AF was tasked with supporting. Neither MacArthur nor Kenney were concerned in more than a general sense, if the ships they sank hurt the Japanese war effort; what they cared about was how badly it damaged the efforts of the Japanese troops they faced in New Guinea and Rabaul. In that sense, the war the 5th AF fought was a tactical air war. I'm not sure that CAS doctrine would have been all that far along if attack aviation had received more attention in the 1920's and 1930's. The USMC started developing it's own CAS before the war, yet it took an appreciable amount of time to develop the high degree of effectiveness seen in the latter stages of the Pacific Campaign. Part of this was the need to develop technology, part was the need to adapt doctrine and training to the needs of the infantryman on the ground. No one could have predicted the ground fighting, as it developed in the Pacific, that was beyond the pre-war experience of any US armed force. Perhaps that may have been less true of the European ground war, but to be honest, the ground fighting did not not become truly intens in Europe until mid-1943, so we are talking about a year of development time. And don't forget, CAS was an issue that the USAAF actively fought as being contrary to their desire to be independent of the Army ground commanders. The USMC didn't have a similar obstacle to overcome. In my opinion, the mindset of the USAAF prior to, and during WW II, was such that they were going to develop strategic bombardent as their Holy Grail, no matter what setbacks they encountered. The fight with the Navy over coastal defense was a minor distraction, they really didn't want that mission except as cover for developing, in the days of pacificism and isolationism, heavy, long range bombers. The USAAF didn't want the tactical misson either, but refused to countenance the development of real "attack" or CAS aviation lest it draw off funds and resources which they needed for "straegic bombardment" development. The same thing happened in Britain, with even more damaging results involving naval aviation. We here in the US are fortunate to have escaped with the minor detrimental effects on CAS and tactical air development.
I would define the two a bit differently and in doing so get at the crux of the argument air forces were making in the 1930's about their role in future warfare. Strategic air power is that applied independently of sea or land power. That is, air power that acts on its own to influence the outcome of a war the way land or sea power does. The reality of WW 2 was that air power applied this way had limited results and a very, very high cost until the advent of stand off and nuclear weapons. The Allied strategic bombing campaigns were some of the most costly in material and manpower of any undertaken during the war. They failed to end the enemy's ability to wage war nor did they shut down his economy. If anything, of the results that were obtained the most effective were not ones Allied air leadership had defined as particularly important strategic goals. The most obvious was the destruction of the German transportation system. Tactical air power is applied in support of land or sea operations. This could be anything from operational destruction of lines of communications such as bombing railways that lead into the battle zone down to close air support at the front line. At sea, tactical air power defends ships and bases while offensive air power is a means of projecting it further from the ships or carriers that launched the strike. I agree that the USAAC wanted to develop strategic bombing regardless of other missions, even to the exclusion of them. This myopia was necessary if the political goal of forming a seperate branch of service for the Air Force was to be realized. For USAAC/F leadership that had this envisioned it didn't matter much whether their results outside of strategic bombing were useful as these would not lead to their desired political goal. What prevented this myopia from overwhelming the USAAC/F was the advent of WW 2. Results suddenly did matter. Initially when the USAAC/F proved inept and ineffective the leadership recognized the danger of losing war (for an independent service) because they refused to effectively fight the battle. Tactical air power suddenly mattered. It mattered because it was necessary to win the war at hand like it or not. The problem became that the USAAF was not prepared ideologically, strategically, tactically, or materially to fight the war they now had to fight. Strategic bombing was not going to win on its own. It was horrifically costly as well. The Army was livid at being abandoned by its air service on the battlefield. Many of the aircraft the USAAF started the war with proved to be the wrong ones to actually fight it with. In a sense, the USAAF had to relearn its entire roll in warfare within the framework of WW 2. It wasn't an easy lesson to learn or swallow. The US Navy and Marine Corps faced no such fight in their use of air power. Both started the war with a very clear conception of exactly what their air power was for. For them it was only a matter of getting the right equipment in place. They needed no new strategic vision nor any real big shifts in tactical theory to accomplish their missions.
I don't disagree with your way of distinguishing between strategic and tactical air warfare. Though I'm not sure it would hold true in every case, I think it is a useful distinction. I would point out that the 5th. AF, with very few exceptions, engaged in air operations designed to support (or at least substitute for) either ground operations, or naval operations in the SWPA. I certainly agree that strategic bombardment in WW II did not live up to the expectations raised for it by the advocates of strategic airpower. The idea that strategic bombardment, in and of itself, could win the war, was never vindicated. In retrospect, the advocates of long range bombardment of the enemy's homeland and destruction of his economy, industrial plant and infrastructure as all that was necessary to win a war, were wrong. I also pretty much concur with your analysis of the dilemma facing strategic bombardment advocates after the outbreak of WW II. It was obvious, especially in the PTO, that before strategic bombardment could even begin to be applied as a strategy, the tactical air battles had to first be won, and if the USAAF didn't do it, the Navy/USMC would, at the expense of the big bomber aficionados. I believe what saved the day for the strategic bombing advocates and those who dreamed of an independent air force, was the atomic bomb. Only the atomic bomb made strategic bombing a viable economic proposition; the huge fleets of heavy bombers were never really practical in terms of the blood and treasure they cost compared to their real world results.
Part of the problem in using either, or actually these several, definitions is the battlefield the effects overlap. As I pointed out earlier the stratigic effect of each cargo ship sunk had more important stratigic effects in the longer run than the tactical or operational effect. In a sense the sinking ship counted on two different score sheets. Another aspect is the placement of the divsion between stratigic and tactical. when I breifly touched on planning at the divsion/corps level the border was just above with the effects directed and executed at the next level considered stratigic. That was one of those times I saw the concept of a intermeadiate 'Operational' level disposed of. Anyway now that we have covered a couple pages with a conversation over definition perhaps it is time to return to speculation on delopment of a tactical airforce vs a stratigic airforce?
Well, I'm not sure I agree with you that sinking ships was more important in a strategic context than in a tactical context. MacArthur certainly wouldn't have agreed; he was just concerned about keeping the Japanese troops in his theater of operations hungry and poorly supplied. And because MacArthur was Kenney's boss, that's what Kenney was concerned about as well. The sinkings that the 5th. AF inflicted on Japan's merchant marine in the SWPA had more immediate effect on the battlefield than it did on Japan's economy. Sinking Japanese ships in the SWPA was analogous to bombing railheads and military truck convoys in Europe because ships were the only way the forces in the field could be kept supplied. The Japanese also bombed US ships for the same reasons, but no one ever contended that the Japanese bombers were engaging in "strategic bombing" when they did so. Or do you think they were? As for developing tactical air doctrine and equipment, I think that had to wait for the war since not only was there scant interest in the USAAF, but there was no conception of how tactical air warfare might play out. The concepts were too limited because there had been no time to develop them in WW I. I think the same might be said of strategic bombardment, as well. So many of the ideas espoused by the advocates of strategic bombardment proved either totally wrong or simply too optimistic.
First a look at Jpanese cargo ship losses. These are a combination of numbers from Ellis ‘Brute Force’ and Blair ‘Silent Victory’. Blair provides 63 pages of summary of the post war JANAC study of Japanese shipping losses to US submarine attack. What this shows is a severe loss in cargo & oil transport as early as 1943. Implicit in these numbers is a ill affordable loss in manufactoring capacity, steel, and other materials in the ships sunk. Submarine credit are post war JANAC credit. Aircaft credit are postwar estimates .................1941................. 1942...................1943...................1944 Built in Year...........................945,374 ...........878,113...........1,734,847 (Oil transports.........................20,316.............254.927.............624,920) Afloat @.......... 5,996,657.....5,818.873.........4,876,169...........2,719,897 end Year Net loss.........................................3%...............16.2%.................44% Submarine..............................687,571 .........1,498,605.........2,682,353 Aircraft...................................434,400.............321,200.........1,207,500 The backstory to these numbers is in the overall shortage of cargo ships Japan started the war with. The six million tons available in late 1941 was roughly two million tons short of gross requirements for both industrial and military needs in the spring of 1942. This was bad enough, but Japans strategy revolved around the war ending by the summer of 1942. After than military requirements for cargo ships would drop to early 1941 levels, and forigen ships could be again contracted to make up any deficit. The necessity to divert over two million tons of cargo capacity to military needs in the latter half of 1942 was a staggering blow. The loss of over one millions tons from the expected capacity of seven millions tons at the end of 1942 was a second and equally crippling blow. Japan had stockpiled a considerable reserve of some critical materials. Of course this did not cover all needs, and the requirement to shift to a long term war economy drew down these stocks much faster. Part of the deficit was offset by mandating extreme poverty for the home population from 1943, however the bottom line was that industrial production could not be kept at any sort of level that Japans leaders might have hoped for. Note the numbers Ellis gives for Japans oil production and consumption. In million tons .................1941.................1942.................1943...................1944 Imported Indonesia....8.37.................10.52..................14.5....................5.0 China.........1.94.................1.69....................1.79...................1.58 Synthetic...1.22.................1.5.................1.05.................1.23 Used........22.58...............25.8................27.8..................19.4 The deficit was made up part by drawing down on the reserve and part by restricitng use not related to essential military production. A effort was made to reverse from the more effcient oil to coal, but this failed. In anycase the use of coal to replace oil in critical tasks meant coal was not available for other essntial tasks. The effect on Japans industrial production of the 1942-43 loss of cargo ships can be seen in the output of several essential items. Production of all of these were dependant on the import of both the ore and the energy. In million tons .................1942.................1943...................1944 Iron ore.....7.4....................6.7....................6.0 (Imports) Steel..........8.0....................8.8....................6.5 Coal..........6.4....................5.2....................2.6 (Imports) Aluminum..103...................141....................110 (in ,000 meteric tons) Trucks...35,864..............24,000................20,356 The point here is that Japans industrial production stagnated & then declined from mid 1942 to mid 1944, before the massive submarine campaign and bombing campaigns took effect in the latter half of 1944. The connection between the wastage of the cargo fleet in the South Pacific in 1942-43 is fairly clear. Quotes from Japanese industrial leaders in Costellos ‘The Pacific War 1941-45, Ellis, & elsewhere say the same. Production goals were unobtainable due to the inability to import the fuel and raw materials. Whatever the intent of the USAAF & USN leaders in making air attacks on Japans cargo ships in the South Pacific, the stratigic effect was siginificant.
Actually tactical or close support techniques were under development during WWI. Certainly the efforts were sometimes crude but the experince and lessons were there. In the 1920s world wide, both on and off the battlefield development continued. The US AAC was experimenting with techniques for supporting ground combat in the 1920s. Incuding the use of dive bombing techniques. Those ideas were validated and refined by the US Marines in Nicaragua between 1927 & 1931. However earlier both the British and French had been following the same path on the North West Frontier of India & in the Morrocan Rif War in the early 1920s. As you say he concept of aircraft as a independant stratigic strike force took over. In many but not all airforces it pushed aside the development of combined arms air/ground teams by the mid 1930s. This was the basis of my early comment on Gardners WI here. If the US AAC takes the other route and continues development of tactical attack and CAS or combined air/ground techniques up to 1940 what are the possible outcomes?
I have Blair's "Silent Victory", Costello's, "The Pacific War", and also "Alden's "US Submarine Attacks in WW II", which is a synthesis of JANAC, USSBS, and other post war research projects, in my library. You are preaching to the choir on Japanese shipping losses. I in no way, dispute the figures. What I do dispute is the notion that every Japanese ship lost was lost to strategic air attack. The Japanese sank US ships by air attack, but, even though those loses affected the US strategically, neither were they accomplished through strategic air attack. The 5th.AF in sinking Japanese ships in the SWPA was carrying out tactical air attacks because the purpose was not to cripple Japan's economy, but to deprive the Japanese forces in the field of needed supplies, munitions and reinforcements. The loss to Japan's economy is indisputable, but a secondary reason, nevertheless. I will grant that the 5th. AF did inflict losses which, cumulatively, had a significant strategic effect on the Japanese economy, but that alone does not make the 5th. AF attacks "strategic" in nature. I think the problem we are having in comibng to an agreement on terms is that there is no dividing line between tactical air attack and strategic air attack; air attack is a continuem from close air support of infantry in the field to strategic attacks on economic targets in the enemy's country. Every loss in the field hurts the enemy's economy, just as every economic target in the enemy's homeland that is bombed eventually helps the opposing infantry on the field of battle. The fact that Japan's planners chose to start a war with a deficit in the logistical shipping area meant that any losses of shipping would be sorely felt in the economy, but again that alone does not make the 5th. AF's attacks stratigic in nature, any more than the carrier raids which sank Japanese shipping at forward bases were "strategic" air attacks.
Again, I don't dispute the fact that tactical air attack started in WW I, long before "strategic" air attack theories began to percolate through the various air forces. But in most cases, tactical air attack theories and doctrine stagnated because air commanders realized that they had no future in a type of attack that they viewed as perpetually under the control of ground commanders, not to mention the chronic shortage of funds which caused them to focus almost all of their efforts on strategic bombardment development. My point, which I think you missed because I didn't make it forcefully enough, is that it didn't matter which type of attack the USAAC focused on pre-war; the contingencies of the war would have forced development of tactical air, close air support, intermediate (for lack of a better term) air support, and strategic bombardment, because all of these missions presented themselves during the war. The 5th. AF is a good example; it enjoyed no "strategic" targets in the SWPA, but plenty of CAS and tactical air targets, and for that reason it developed doctrines for attacking these types of targets. Had the USAAC decided, for whatever reason, to develop tactical air attack doctrine, it would still have had to develop, and field, heavy long range bombers because there were targets of that type which were worthwhile to bomb during WW II. As I have pointed out before, air warfare, in a global war, presents a complete continuem of target types from CAS opportunities to true strategic bombardment targets; the air force that wants to win needs to be preapred to strike the enemy in each and every category.
Flipping thru some of th paper on my shelves quite a bit jumpped out about the personalities & ideas in the AAC of the early to mid 1930s. I'd originally thought the fork came in the late 1920s, but perhaps the neglect of the tactical side set in a half decade later. I dont have much material on the developments after Folouis departed the scene, other the usual stuff on the big bomber program. Aside from a decision to reduce attention to ground support or tactical development there seems to be a drift in thinking from the practical nuts & bolts into a higher level of theory as the 1930s spun out.
