31. Q. Were you familiar with General Smart’s opinions with respect to the ability of the Army to defend western Germany?
A. I believe that he felt that there were some deficiencies particularly in the area of troop quality and training. Not to mention the lack of heavy artillery and anti-tank guns.
33. Q. General were you familiar with this letter, 2CL-41 (Revised), which is Exhibit 4, before this examination?
A. Yes, I remember this letter. Although it was prepared by the Operations Section of the General Staff I had opportunity to review it and recall having initiated some minor changes in the earlier drafts; although at this time I have no particular recollection of what those changes were.
34. Q. Were there so far as you can recall, any other directives of a general nature affecting the security or providing for the security, of units in western Germany in effect in the months preceding the attack?
A. I do not now recall whether or not there were. In general such directives if there were any, were prepared by the Operations Section and I would have seen them and had opportunity to comment before their issuance.
35. Q. Do you recall whether, at the time that is in the months preceding the attack, you considered this letter, Exhibit 4, to adequately provide for the security of Army had the instructions therein been fully complied with?
A. I recall that we were not entirely satisfied with the arrangements for coordinating air warnings and air operations from the different services along with anti-aircraft and other associated tasks and that some discussions and conferences to better perfect arrangements were in progress under the general guidance of Captain DeLany, the Operations Officer. On the whole, I must have thought that the security arrangements set forth in this letter were satisfactory; or else I would have initiated action to effect a change.
“What’s this hearing about, Joe?”
“They’re trying to find a scapegoat for losing Germany.”
“Damn! Who are they zeroing-in on?”
“General Smart.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.”
“Amen, brother.”
“What’s wrong sir?”
“We’ve got another war on our hands, a war of tactics.”
“How so sir?”
“Please indulge me Major. I’m just thinking out loud. Not only are two powerful factions fighting to decide how the fighters are to be deployed, but we also have more ideas over how the airfields should be defended. One side believes that the anti-aircraft gun and the VT fuse, will solve all of our problems and that the combat air patrols over all the airfields will no longer be necessary. Basically this faction posits that the airfields can defend themselves. I’ve seen the studies, and the VT fuse is wonderful. The statistics do not lie. The Americans have used it quite effectively in the battles against the Japanese kamikaze even though the kamikazes did still get through at times.”
“Once you get that question out of the way, we still have to decide whether to use the fighters in a ‘Big Wing,’ as Bader and Leigh-Mallory have proposed, or in smaller, squadron-sized units such as Dowding and Park have proposed. Being outnumbered four-to-one is going to make it a very hard decision I’m afraid I’m leaning towards the ‘Big Wing’ strategy. We just cannot afford to be wrong in this.”
“Forgive me for being presumptuous sir, but may I play the devil’s advocate? Couldn’t we experiment? In the original Battle of Britain, No.11 Group used the Fighter Tactics and No.12 Group used the ‘Big Wing,’ as they had more time to prepare. Both seem to have worked in their various areas given the situations that the commanders were presented. Another consideration is that of course, our radar is much better now, so we will have much more time to prepare.”
“Yes I suppose that given the increased amount of time our new radar installations will give us we will have ample time to detect any formations. Keeping that in mind, the ‘Big Wing’ will most likely be the best solution for our current problem. The extra time provided by the more powerful radar will allow us to form the ‘Big Wing’ much quicker and therefore, intercept the Soviet aircraft that much sooner. We will also be able to concentrate our forces to attack the enemy where he is the weakest.”
“Yet another problem to consider is how can we best base our fighters? Do we disperse them, or concentrate them, guarding them with heavy anti-aircraft defenses? If we disperse them, there is less chance that they will get caught taking-off or landing, but it will be more difficult to concentrate them into large formations. If we concentrate them in the few large airfields then we are going to have to rely on our anti-aircraft defenses to protect them. Additionally, there is the fact that, if we concentrate them they will be able to form ‘Big Wings’ faster to reach the enemy earlier and in the force required to mount an effective defense.”
“We are still are going to have to shoot down four of their aircraft for every one of ours that they shoot down before the Reds will be convinced to stop. Ivan is no stranger to heavy casualties. By comparison to the kind of casualties that they have taken over the years, we will have to inflict a horrendous rate of loss in order to convince Stalin that attacking us is sheer folly. That is something the Americans do not seem to understand. Compared to ours, the casualties they’ve suffered have been slight. Compared to the Russians, they were minuscule. I do believe the American leadership understands this but the average American will become very upset if their casualty rate is anywhere near what we and the Soviets have suffered. I doubt the American public will stand for it for long.”
“You are probably right sir. American politicians have quite a dilemma on their hands but I would suggest sir, that that is not our problem at the moment.”
“Yes… yes, of course. I get side-tracked easily these days. Basically we are faced with a number of decisions that we must make and you must make them with haste.
1. ‘Big Wing?’ Or squadron-sized formations?
2. Heavily defended airfields and no combat air patrol? Or use our limited resources for combat air patrol?
3. Disperse our fighters? Or concentrate them in a few well-defended airfields?
4. Do we meet them over the channel? Or after they start their return? We don’t want to be in the same airspace as the VT fuse, not without special considerations.”
“The first decision must be whether we’re going to use the ‘Big Wing’ strategy or not. I have a feeling this will bring about the same heated discussions that occurred during the first Battle of Britain. Both sides insisted that they were right and in the end, it was some misplaced bombs hitting London that caused the Hun to change his tactics. They stopped hitting our airfields and radar after we retaliated and bombed Berlin. Many historians believe that this was the turning point, as the Luftwaffe was poised to clear the skies of our fighters. It was never really was conclusively proven whether the ‘Big Wing’ was effective or not.”
“Another factor to consider is that the Soviets outnumber us by four-to-one whereas the Germans only outnumbered us by a factor of three-to-two. I believe this makes it imperative that we go with the ‘Big Wing’ strategy. And if we go with the ‘Big Wing,’ that means that we will have to go with concentrating our fighters so they can get organized faster in order to reach the Soviet formations before they can do too much harm. That, of course, leads me to the conclusion that we must have smaller numbers of heavily-defended airfields in close proximity to each other relying on the anti-aircraft guns and the VT fuse for airfield defense.”