On Second Thought

How successful was the U.S. air assault on German oil? The most flattering part of the answer had been given in the overall report of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (TIME, Nov. 5). But the full report of the Survey's oil experts, released only this week, added some critical qualifications.

Most startling were the estimates of U.S. bombing accuracy, which were a long way from such ebullient claims as A.A.F. General Henry H. Arnold's 1943 statement: "We did it ... aiming our explosives with the care and accuracy of a marksman firing a rifle at a bull's-eye. ..." A typical 1944-45 score, in the coldly factual language of the new report: 3.5% hits in a factory area covering three and a half square miles (see chart).

The experts also found serious flaws in the work of Allied intelligence--primarily a failure to grasp the significance of the vast, interlocking chemical-oil-rubber-explosives complex, which flourished from a single, synthetic root.

Said the report: "While it is true that lack of gasoline alone stalled the German war machine . . . there is considerable evidence that, had synthetic oil, rubber and chemicals been considered as a single target group, the same results could have been achieved more expeditiously."*

Even within the limits of the job as it was conceived, U.S. bombardiers were briefed only one time out of three to drop their bombs on such critical points as compressors and conversion plants, which would have put the factories out of operation for months. Most of the time, the aiming points assigned were water mains and pipelines, which could quickly be repaired.

Bombs & Scrap Iron. At most plants, the experts found that the bombs which had been dropped were too light for maximum destruction. Incendiaries were sprinkled only sparingly on the inviting wreckage of fuel dumps. So many bombs were duds that one bomber in six which fought its way from England to Germany and back actually delivered nothing more devastating than a load of scrap iron.

Compared to the R.A.F.'s, U.S. bombing technique was deficient in one respect. U.S. bombardiers all dropped their loads on signal from the lead plane, shortening both the pattern and length of their raids, and easing the problems of German damage control squads.

But despite these criticisms, the oilmen did not deny the ultimate effectiveness of the crushing weight of bombs unloaded by Allied airmen. The rubble of German industry proved the irresistible power of air assault. No German countermeasures had done more than postpone destruction. The only defense against air attacks, the oilmen concluded, is to keep them from ever starting.

* A strike on the Buna works at Huels, never repeated, showed the vulnerability of the German rubber industry by reducing the Wehrmacht's stock of tires to six weeks' supply.

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