Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support

: In December 1982, Maj. Gen. Perry McCoy Smith, then the Air Force Director of Plans, asked the Office of Air Force History to prepare a number of case-study volumes on various aspects of air warfare. For this volume, each author was asked to produce an original case study on a defined period or subject. The essays were to be based on all relevant published literature and on the key archival documents containing the record of how various air forces actually developed and applied their systems of close air support to ground combat. Each author also was asked to cover certain basic topics: initial doctrine, organization of forces, background and courses of the air-ground campaigns, communications systems, command and control systems, weaponry and technology, and the decisions and people that determined the course of action and shaped its outcome. A concluding retrospect draws generalizations from the experiences presented. The following cases studies are included: "Developments to 1939," by Lee Kennett; "The Luftwaffe Experience, 1939-1941," by Williamson Murray; "Soviet Air-Ground Coordination, 1941-1945," by Kenneth R. Whiting; "The Tunisian Campaign, 1942-1943," by David Syrett; "Allied Cooperation in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1945," by Alan F. Wilt; "The Battle for France, 1944," by Will A. Jacobs; "American Experience in the Southwest Pacific," by Joe Gray Taylor; "Korea, 1950-1953," by Allan R. Millett; "Southeast Asia," by John J. Sbrega; "The Israeli Experience," by Brereton Greenhous; and "A Retrospect on Close Air Support," by I. B. Holley, Jr.