The Mediterranean Crucible, 1942-1943: Did Technology or Tenets Achieve Air Superiority? World War II Africa and Operation Torch, Tunisian Campaign and Operation Husky, Radar and Air Intelligence

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This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. In Richard J. Overy's air power history The Air War, 1939-1945, he makes an unexpected claim for the way in which the Allies won air superiority over the Axis powers in the Mediterranean in the Second World War. Unlike the traditional analyses, which often stress the quality and quantity of aircraft and airmen as the determining arbiters of air superiority, Overy claims that air superiority was achieved through the employment of radar and intelligence. By means of a historical analysis of the first two major US operations in the Mediterranean theater, Operation TORCH (November 1942 - May 1943) and Operation HUSKY (July 1943 - September 1943), the author examines the role of air superiority and how it was obtained by the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in a coalition of Allied air powers. More specifically, the author investigates how the Allied forces employed the technology of radar, and the collection and application of intelligence, to defeat the Axis air forces and gain air superiority in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations between 1942 and 1943. The author concludes that technology and intelligence served as enablers to the centralized control of air power that informed Allied strategy and operational plans. Aided by technology, air planners and senior air leaders were able to make informed decisions regarding the allocation for the limited resources of the Allied air forces and thereby achieve and maintain air superiority in the Mediterranean.

The strategic implications of the Mediterranean theater were complex with many nuances at play among the Allied partners. In particular, the Mediterranean held both military and economic value for the Allies. The history of the Allied air forces in the Mediterranean theater during World War II began shortly after Italy declared war on the Allies on 10 June 1940. The Royal Air Force (RAF) played the chief role in the opening air campaigns in this theater. The Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) for the Mediterranean was responsible for all RAF units in Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, East Africa, Aden and Somaliland, Iraq, Cyprus, Turkey, the Balkans, Greece, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf—an area of more than 4.5 million square miles. This vast region was the shortest route between Great Britain and Allied bases in Asia, via the Suez Canal, making it a vital military and economic logistic thoroughfare.

Chapter 3 discusses the initial employment of air power by the AAFs Twelfth Air Force and the RAF's Eastern Air Command in North Africa in Operation TORCH and the difficulties encountered in supporting ground operations, command and control issues, and the ensuing reorganization of all air forces in the Mediterranean. Chapter 4 focuses on the Allied invasion of Sicily, the strategic implications, and the role of technology to support the Allied air force. Chapter 5 analyzes the effectiveness of the air campaign in the Mediterranean theater by exploring the determinants that supported the achievement of air superiority in the Mediterranean. In the end, to determine if Overy's analysis is correct, this thesis will evaluate the effectiveness of technology (in the form of radar and intelligence gained from the ULTRA system) and its role in achieving Allied air superiority.