If there was little threat from the jets or the flying bombs, there was no point in keeping that sharp an eye on them. What the Air Corps calledareconnaissance assets,” the P-38s and the B-26s fitted out as photographic reconnaissance aircraft, which were presently spending countless hours looking for jets and or flying bombs, or facilities that might build or house them, could be diverted to “more productive” activity.
Eighth Air Force could not just assign their reconnaissance aircraft where they wanted to. They–and SHAEF–were operating under a mandate from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that gave OSS requests for intelligence gathering the highest priority.
Unless they could get the Joint Chiefs to revoke the mandate, which was very unlikely, the only option they had was to get the London station of OSS to agree that the reconnaissance was no longer necessary. They had pulled out all stops to do just that.
The Air Corps brass had a clear position, The Germans weren’t close to fielding operational jet fighters. Even if sometime in the bye-and-bye they did actually manage to put a “handful of operational aircraft up, ” they would scarcely be effective against the wall of machine-gun fire a “block” of bombers could set up.
The Air Corps had made a concerted effort, at an enormous expenditure of materiel, to locate German jet-propelled aircraft and or flying bombs and had been unsuccessful. It was therefore logical to presume that even if the Germans had such Buck Rogers experimental weaponry on their drawing boards, they were a long way from getting them into the air, much less operational.
It therefore followed that it was no longer necessary to continue the expenditure of reconnaissance assets at the present level.
Reconnaissance would not be discontinued, of course. It would continue whenever assets could be spared from other, more pressing utilization.
The Air Corps paraded their experts, both professional airmen and commissioned civilians. All of them had decided–either professionally or because they knew which side their bread was buttered on–that the two-star generals were right.
The Navy didn’t give much of a damn. Neither the jet fighters, because of their limited range, nor the flying bombs, because they could not be precisely aimed, posed any threat to ships at sea that they could see, the Navy quickly caved in.
That left in effect a hung jury. Against one wise and highly experienced major general and his experts stood one inexplicably difficult retreaded light colonel, and one ex-fighter pilot, still wet behind the ears.
Canidy believed, and Stevens trusted his judgment, that the current intelligence–actually the lack of it–proved that the Air Corps had not been able to find where the Germans were building or testing their jets and their flying bombs. It did not prove there were no jets.
Nothing the Air Corps had come up with disproved Donovan’s–and now Canidy’s–belief that there were jets and flying bombs. Unless something was done about them, the jets were going to shoot down B-17s and B24s by the hundreds. And the flying bombs would certainly be sent against London, maybe even New York. In that case, more, not less, reconnaissance was necessary.
“General,” Stevens said finally. “I’m afraid that the OSS must non concur with the conclusions drawn in your draft report.”
“In other words, Colonel, you are putting your judgment, and that of your major, against everything we’ve shown you here?”
“General, with respect, the OSS has information that makes the existence of operational German jet aircraft seem far more likely than your people believe.”
“But which considerations of security make it impossible for you to share with us, correct?” the general asked icily.
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid that’s the situation,” Stevens replied.
“Then there is not much point in going on with this meeting, is there?
“Sir, I would suggest that everything has been covered,” Stevens said.
The general nodded, and simply got up and walked out of the room.
If the meeting was to be considered a battle, Canidy thought, the Air Corps had lost. But the OSS’s victory, if that’s what it was, was worse than hollow. A large number of men, men like himself, men like Doug Douglass, were going to die because the OSS–which in fact meant Canidy, Richard-insisted on photographing every spot in Germany that looked likely to contain something interesting about jet airplanes and flying bombs.