Document created: 1 March 06
Air & Space Power Journal - Spring 2006

A Need to Know: The Role of Air Force Reconnaissance in War Planning, 1945–1953 by John T. Farquhar. Air University Press (http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress), 131 West Shumacher Avenue, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 36112, 2005, 210 pages, $21.00 (softcover).

John T. Farquhar’s Need to Know fills an important gap in airpower history and, more particularly, in the history of air-war planning. Farquhar maintains that limitations in US reconnaissance capabilities shaped war planning immediately following World War II. Since the Air Staff was unable to collect sufficient targeting information due to limited strategic reconnaissance, emergency war plans called for dropping atomic bombs on Soviet urban centers. “Therefore,” Farquhar argues, “the limits of strategic aerial reconnaissance was more than a tool of the war planners; the limits of strategic aerial reconnaissance shaped doctrine” (p. xxi).

The importance of tactical surprise in warfare warranted the need for better information on important enemy target systems. During World War II, precision-bombing doctrine required detailed information on target systems. Army Air Force Ferrets—heavy bombers modified for reconnaissance—identified German early-warning, coastal-surveillance, and ground-controlled intercept radar, thereby influencing Fifteenth Air Force war plans.

Following World War II, US military planners failed to understand the importance of photographic reconnaissance in preparing emergency war plans. Photoreconnaissance aircrews surveyed potential targets and provided analysts with information necessary to identify specific industries, plot air routes, and create target folders for bomber crews. According to Farquhar, inadequate strategic reconnaissance dictated that emergency war plans, such as Pincher, Broiler, and Offtackle, include atomic bombing against vital centers. He states that “whereas precision bombing doctrine targeted a specific industry within a city, [these emergency war plans] targeted a city to destroy a specific industry” (p. 72). Since these war plans depended upon a continuing US nuclear-weapons monopoly, the foremost intelligence concern was the Soviet nuclear-weapons program. Consequently, electronic evidence of a Soviet nuclear test in 1949 undermined confidence in US intelligence capabilities.

During the opening stages of the Korean War, enemy air defenses rendered existing strategic-reconnaissance aircraft obsolete. This concerned Strategic Air Command commander Gen Curtis LeMay. Existing war plans against the Soviet Union demanded visual, prestrike reconnaissance. Improved Soviet air defenses coupled with the low survivability of reconnaissance aircraft in Korea provided LeMay with another reason to rely upon the atomic bombing of Soviet cities to destroy Soviet industry. In Korea, Far East Air Forces (FEAF) command lacked necessary intelligence personnel to plan, collect, and analyze information. RF-80 and RB-29 crews provided essential tactical reconnaissance to field commanders; however, inadequacies in night photography limited them to daytime missions. Despite mapping over 12,000 miles of the Korean Peninsula and Chinese coast, RB-29 crews failed to identify the Chinese intervention in October 1950. Deficiencies discovered in Korea influenced changes in reconnaissance of the Soviet Union.

Clearly, John Farquhar is qualified to make these statements. He has logged 4,600 hours as a navigator in RC-135s with the 38th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, directed wing plans for the 55th Wing, and served as deputy head of military history at the US Air Force Academy. His arguments carry the weight of an experienced Airman and scholar. At some points in his book, however, he seems to veer off his topic into other areas of airpower history with only tangential importance to his thesis. I also think that Farquhar assumes a fair amount of technical understanding, which might be second nature for the Air Force officer, but for the scholar, much less so. Regardless, Farquhar’s thesis that “the limits of aerial reconnaissance shaped strategic doctrine” is well argued and well supported. Furthermore, he satisfies his stated purpose for writing this book, which was to fill a gap in the history of the Air Force. We might wonder, however, that, if the Air Force had sufficient strategic reconnaissance prior to finalizing the emergency war plans, whether that information would have altered strategic air doctrine in the early Cold War. I realize this is counterfactual, but I think Farquhar assumes a fair amount of causality here. Would having sufficient targeting information change the priority of targets listed or, more importantly, sustain nonnuclear precision bombing as a primary option? In 1945, XXI Bomber Command successfully undertook nighttime area attacks against Japan. Perhaps, instead of background history on the development of reconnaissance technologies in the European theater, a review of how reconnaissance influenced area bombing against Japan might strengthen Farquhar’s thesis. Either way, Need to Know is a wonderfully thought-provoking book for both the airpower historian and the Air Force professional.

Michael Perry May
Apache Junction, Arizona

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.