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Air War In The Mediterranean Skies

The contribution of Air Power to Mediterranean victory can be summarized statistically-so many tons of bombs dropped, so many enemy aircraft shot down. It can be summarized by the long list of campaigns won - Tunisia, Pantelleria, Ploesti, and so on. But over and above the bombs dropped and the battles won, the Air Forces in the Mediterranean made two great contributions to the Allied cause everywhere; for here was the primary crucible for the development of tactical air power and here occurred the evolution of joint command between Allies. Combined command had its longest, most comprehensive and most consecutive history in the Mediterranean Theater. When the North African campaign began, Allied air forces were three separate entities.

In November 1942, in addition to Air Marshal Coningham's predominately RAF Tactical Air Force which was moving west from El Alamein, an American air force was arriving in western Algeria and Morocco and an RAF command landed in the Algiers area. Coningham's force had demonstrated without question the importance of an integrated tactical air force which acted as a whole. Unity of command, which was accepted at the Casablanca Conference, solved the problem of combining an independent RAF with AAF units subordinate to the Army by designating an RAF officer to be Allied Air Commander for Mediterranean operations.

The history of the air forces in the Mediterranean falls naturally into three phases. The first phase began at El Alamein with the RAF Desert Air Force and at Casablanca and Oran with the embryo Twelfth, and ended when both converged in Tunisia and joined under General Spaatz's command as the Northwest African Air Forces. The career of the Mediterranean Air Command, assembling all the various Allied air forces in the Mediterranean under one management for the first time, comprised the second phase. With mounting strength, Mediterranean Air Command and Northwest Africa Air Forces combined in an operational command post to conduct the Tunisian campaign, the invasion of Sicily, and the conquest of Southern Italy as far north as Cassino. The third phase extended from the creation of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces in December 1943, until enemy forces surrendered in May 1945.

Adapting the air-ground tactics of El Alamein, the Twelfth Air Force strove for complete air superiority over the enemy. Interdiction of German supply lines to Tunisia was the next selected objective, and this was accomplished by bombing ports, sinking ships, and shooting down the aerial convoys which Germany used as a desperate last resort to strengthen her African forces. Close support of ground troops in the final break-through was its third operation as a tactical force.

The same pattern was repeated in Sicily and then in Southern Italy. The spectacular strafing of 200 German bombers at Foggia enabled the Salerno beachhead to be established without significant air opposition. And when the Salerno battle was at its crisis, Allied forces mustered more than 1,000 air sorties daily for two days in succession,an unprecedented effort that assisted in halting enemy counter-attack.

Rome-Arno, 22 January - 9 September 1944 The terrain for the first 100 miles north of Rome was not nearly as favorable for the enemy's defensive purposes as that farther south. The Fourteenth and Tenth Armies did construct two defensive belts across central Italy, the Dora and Trasimeno (Frieda) Lines, in the attempt to halt or at least slow the Allied advance, but both were overrun by the end of June. Despite increasing resistance Allied casualties were low, and by 21 June the Germans had been pushed 110 miles north of Rome, a stunning advance compared to the five months of agonizingly slow and bloody gains the previous spring. Alexander optimistically predicted in late June that at that rate of advance the Allies could take Leghorn, Ancona, and Bologna within weeks and be in the Po valley by late summer, ready for an assault into Austria and the Danube valley. In spite of the handicaps posed by growing shortages and obstacles presented by the enemy, the Fifth and Eighth Armies continued to advance. Cecina fell to the 34th Division on 1 July, after some of the heaviest fighting seen since before Rome. The FEC captured Siena on 3 July, and Volterra fell on 8 July to the 1st Armored Division. The newly arrived U.S. 91st Infantry Division, under Maj. Gen. William G. Livesay, entered action for the first time on 12 July and helped the 34th and 88th Infantry Divisions and the U.S. Japanese-American 442d Regimental Combat Team capture the port of Leghorn on 19 July before reaching the banks of the Arno with the rest of the Fifth Army on 23 July. On the Eighth Army front, the Polish Corps captured the vital port of Ancona on 18 July, while the British 13 Corps began its advance on Florence, taking that city on 5 August. Having failed to stem the Allied advance between Rome and the Arno, Field Marshal Kesselring was not optimistic that his battered, mixed force of infantry, armored, Luftwaffe, and foreign units could halt any Allied thrust short of the Gothic Line north of Florence and the Arno. His concern was exacerbated by the fact that the Gothic Line was not scheduled for completion until December 1944. Yet late in July and early in August Alexander, Clark, and Leese called a halt in offensive operations to allow Allied units, many of which had been in continuous action since May, to rest, refit, and prepare for a late-summer assault on the Gothic Line. The midsummer halt provided a much-needed breather for the Germans as well, who now redoubled their efforts to complete their Gothic Line defenses. It was during this lull in activity, as both sides prepared for what would be the final battles of the war, that the Rome-Arno Campaign officially ended. The Allied operations in Italy between January and September 1944 were essentially an infantryman's war where the outcome was decided by countless bitterly fought small unit actions waged over some of Europe's most difficult terrain under some of the worst weather conditions found anywhere during World War II. Given such circumstances, the growing Allied superiority in materiel, especially in armored and air forces, was of little consequence, and ground troops were forced to carry out repeated, costly frontal assaults that quickly turned the campaign into a war of attrition on a battlefield where the terrain heavily favored the defense. Chronic shortages of troops and materiel throughout 1944 exacerbated the already difficult tactical situation in Italy and became worse as the year wore on, ensuring that the limited Allied forces available would not obtain a quick, decisive victory, but would rather slowly grind down their well-entrenched and determined enemies. The Allied air forces aided ground operations by providing close air support and by disrupting enemy supply lines and communications, but their efforts were not decisive as demonstrated during the bombings of Monte Cassino and Operation STRANGLE. To critics of the Allied effort in Italy, the repeated ill-fated attempts to open the Liri valley, resulting in the disaster on the Rapido and the three costly assaults on Monte Cassino, as well as the desperate Anzio gamble, all indicated a lack of imagination on the part of both British and American commanders. Allied commanders, however, were limited in their options considering the political, logistical, and geographical aspects of the campaign. It is difficult to justify the heavy investment of Allied lives and materiel into the Mediterranean theater during 1944. The Italian campaign, which the Americans had always considered a subsidiary effort, had become for both sides a major drain of men and materiel, especially after the liberation of Rome, when Operations OVERLORD and ANVIL reduced the theater to secondary importance within the overall Allied strategy. While the Allies did tie down a significant number of enemy divisions in Italy, it was often not apparent during 1944 whether it was the Allies or the Germans who were actually doing the tying down. Even though hundreds of miles of territory had been liberated by the summer of 1944, the Rome-Arno Campaign did not end the war of attrition. The multinational Allied armies in Italy faced a further nine months of campaigning, under conditions similar to those they had endured during the previous year.

With the movement of the war away from North Africa onto the Italian mainland, the air structure needed reorganization. Created in December, the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces within a Few months achieved full strength, especially in heavy bombers. Its combined aircraft flew 54,000 sorties to support landing troops at Anzio, and one month later played an important part in stopping the German counter-attack that threatened to push the beachhead back into the sea.

The capture of the air bases on the planes of Foggia in the early stages of the Italian campaign may go down in military annals as one of the keys to the liberation of Europe, for it was from that "soft underbelly" that the strategic heavy bombers were based which helped destroy Hitler's war machine. Even before the activation of the Fifteenth U. S. Strategic Air Force, Flying Fortresses and Liberators were using Foggia as a staging area for flights to targets beyond the range of bombers based in England.

The Fifteenth Air Force was activated November 1, 1943, and the next day flew its first mission, bombarding the Messerschmitt fighter plants at Wiener Neustadt, Austria. It was obvious from the beginning that the success of strategic operations depended on air superiority providing freedom for our heavy bombers to range over enemy territory. Germany had converted its aircraft industry to fighter production and moved it as far from the Britain-based threat as possible-to Bavaria, Austria, and Hungary. The Fifteenth Air Force, like the Eighth, had to knock the Luftwaffe From the air while attacking the Nazi war machine. In its first year, 3,635 aircraft fell before the fire power of the bombers and fighter escorts, and 2,016 more enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground.

Carefully integrated with the Eighth Air Force and the RAF Bomber Command in England, attacks by the Fifteenth ranged from southern France through Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans. Milestone in operations was the execution of the first shuttle mission to Russia, bombing Hungarian railyards en route to Soviet bases. But undoubtedly the most significant achievement of the Strategic Air Force was the battle of Ploesti - the No. 1 oil target in Europe.

The destruction of Ploesti oil between April and August, 1944, was part of a comprehensive program directed toward the systematic liquidation of all major Nazi oil production centers. There were still 21 crude and synthetic oil targets in Mediterranean Allied Air Forces territory after Ploesti's fall, and these were the particular province of Fifteenth AAF heavies. By mid-March 1945, only six were operating, and by April, production of Axis oil was 10 per cent what it had been at the start of the campaign one year previously.

The most significant demonstration not only of what tactical air power could do in a decisive airground offensive, but what it should do, was reached in Operation DIADEM, the great combined air and land action which began on May 12, 1944, when Allied foot soldiers surged forward into action from Cassino to the sea and in six weeks caused German withdrawal to the Pisa-Rimini line. Considering the previous stalemate of the Italian campaign, this was a resounding military feat. Air superiority was essential - and we had it. By the time DIADEM proper was under way, the Luftwaffe was able to fly only 700 sorties in the first week of battle as against 20,000 sorties flown by the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces.

Out of the Italian campaign came this conclusion, established more firmly than ever and later proved again in France: that in the absence of an effective enemy air force, the primary role of tactical air power is to operate against enemy supply lines in the rear rather than in the immediate battle area. When General Montgomery and Air Marshal Coningham used their small air force in North Africa to nip Rommel's tenuous and over-extended supply lines - cutting roads, downing air transports, sinking ships, and strafing motorized transport all the way from Alamein to Tunis, they provided the first real proof of the wisdom of this doctrine.

Attacks on Italian marshalling yards were the major means of disrupting the enemy's flow of supplies. But, although these yards were soon blasted into uselessness, the tracks between them still carried materiel to the foe. As it was imperative that all rail lines be cut, quickly and simultaneously the AAF went ahead with its plans for daylight precision bombing of "small" targets as well as the marshalling yards. By the time Operation STRANGLE (the aerial offensive immediately preceding the joint air-ground DIADEM) began, "bridge-busting" policies had been adopted and a concerted program to knock out all German communications was on. Within a Few weeks' time the enemy began to gasp for breath, becoming short of gasoline, ammunition, and food.

In terms of effort, operations-STRANGLE and DIADEM were expensive, totalling together 137,949 effective sorties and the expenditure of 84,603 tons of bombs. In terms of aircraft losses, however, the campaigns were economical beyond hope. Mediterranean Allied Air Forces lost a total of only 803 planes or about one-half of one percent of total effective sorties.

During the early spring of 1945, German General Kesselring began devious surrender negotiations for his Italy-based forces. He was, however, recalled to the Western Front in mid-March and negotiations broke down with his successor, Von Vietinghoff, who planned to pull back into Austria. Our air power had isolated the battle area by the "bridge-busting" pattern over the Po River and the Brenner Pass, and was readied for operations in close support of ground forces. We had an effective combat strength of 4,393 planes against 130 of the once overwhelming Luftwaffe.

In April 1945, Fifteenth AAF heavies carpetbombed in front of the Eighth Army with 1,692 tons of fragmentation bombs. Accuracy was rated "superb." Late-that afternoon, the British Eighth Army attacked across the Senio River. Next day, heavies again carpet-bombed, dropping 1,792 tons. On the 14th the U. S. Fifth Army attacked southwest of Bologna to be assisted the following day by 1,235 heavy bombers. From then on there was no stopping the Allied advance. Backed up against the bridgeless Po, the Germans left practically all of their heavy equipment and swam across. Beyond the Po, there was no organized enemy resistance. In three weeks, fighters and fighter-bombers destroyed 4,226 motor transport vehicles and damaged 4,401. The Germans disintegrated, divisions and corps surrendering en masse. By the end of April, there were 137,000 German prisoners, and on May 2nd, General Von Vietinghoff surrendered his remaining Forces.

For the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces the war was over. It and its predecessor organizations had dispatched 1,178,243 sorties since the opening of the North African campaign in November 1942, had dropped 674,195 tons of bombs, shot down 8,721 enemy aircraft, and destroyed 4,888 on the ground. And - for victory it had paid the price of 9,347 planes, and 3,863 American airmen known to have been killed in action.

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