Cub Driver wrote:

What was the Survey's alleged ax?

Us Bus set out to prove that strategic bombing won the war, in order
to bolster the case for an independent USAF. Or so it is often said.

But it's also been said that it was an attempt by Army ground
officers to prove that bombing didn't do much to win the war.

I didn't realize the Survey was begun even before the war was
over in Europe, and four of the survey members were actually
killed in action. The members of the survey consisted of 300
civilians along with 350 officers and 500 enlisted men, so it
was a large effort.

Besides looking over targets themselves for the effects of the
bombings, they also looked for German war records as well, which
were found in offices, private homes, safe-deposit boxes, in
barns, caves, in one occasion a hen-house and in two occasions
coffins!

Given the generally favorable conclusions toward air power of
the survey, it seems a tough sell to call it an attempt to
degrade effectiveness of this form of war making.

But I've been unable to find, in my very cursory look, exactly
*who* did the survey; largely USAAF or Army ground personnel?
The list of "officers of the survey" in the report foreward
lists no rank along with the names, so they seem simply to be
civilians from the War Dept [along with the Sect'y as well].

Since so many people were involved in making the survey [in Europe;
there was a Pacific one too], it would seem any attempt to "spin"
the results would have to come from higher ups, in the overall
Army or War Dept command.


SMH



SMH