Spaatz’s
Air Ambush
Operation
Flax and Air Interdiction Lessons for Joint Warfare in the Indo-Pacific
PDF Version
By:
Grant T. Willis, 1st Lt., USAF | August 20th, 2024
“An army can be defeated by one of the
two main alternative means-not necessarily mutually exclusive: we can strike at
the enemy’s troops themselves, either by killing them or preventing them from
being in the right place at the right time; or we can ruin their fighting
efficiency by depriving them of their supplies of food and war material of all
kinds on which they depend for existence as a fighting force.”
– Wing Commander
J.C. Slessor Air Power and Armies,
1936
Old Lessons, New Students
World
War II is a subject that can be peeled like a never-ending onion, yielding ever
more as one peels into one of its infinite layers. For Air Power advocates, theorists, and modern-day
operators, the war offers a great deal to consider. From 7 December 1941 through September 1945,
the transition of the Army Air Forces into the most powerful air arm the world
had ever seen did not happen at the snap of a finger and the turn of a factory
wrench. It was the product of years of hard-earned
lessons, both in the air and on the ground.
Through the War’s many campaigns and operations can operators in today’s
growing security environment draw the necessary lessons to spark
innovation. What is old often becomes
new; however, a rebirth of general concepts are augmented by new weapons and
young airmen who must deploy them in battle.
Today,
the United States Air Force faces a myriad of challenges within the great power
sphere. The Russo-Ukraine War (Feb 2022-
Present), challenges the rules-based order and European post-1945 peace. Once again formations of tanks clash upon the
same ground Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin once sent massed armies to face off
along the Eastern Front. Furthermore, in
the Middle East, the Iran-backed court of villains have sparked a new
conflagration that represents a second continuous front of battle that
challenges the values of the Western American-led order. Finally, the Air Force today must once again
look to the Far East with concern as to what Chairman Xi Jinping and the
Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) will endeavor to accomplish regarding
their national objectives if one day they require control over the democratic
and free island of Taiwan. With the
world moving towards a series of parallel engagements, the U.S. Air Force has
the task of mitigating and deterring a break in the peace between the great
powers, alongside their Joint and Coalition partners through the application of
Air Power.
One
of the primary challenges the US Air Force faces in the Pacific is that of
defending against and defeating an amphibious assault. This is not a normal problem set for the
Americans and there are few modern examples from our own history we can draw
upon to look at what winning looks like.
The
macro level challenges, such as anti-amphibious operations, can be broken into
micro case studies which feed into that overall goal. For the purposes of this article on Air
Power, I wish to explore a specific case study from 1943. In the Western Pacific, both the PRC and its
armed wing known as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), encompassing all
domains of service, and the United States Military face a risk to logistics,
lines of communication (LOCs), resupply, and transportation of all the above to
various units engaged in battle.
Although a hypothetical war between the PRC and a U.S. -led Coalition in
the Pacific would be extremely destructive to all parties involved, we must
endeavor to have difficult conversations about what will be required to first
achieve deterrence and if said deterrence fails, to win. Taking a deeper look into what a land-based
air component can do to limit an amphibious force’s ability to resupply its
beachhead is necessary now, not later.
The
Air Force’s role in interdiction has always been a vital one in our
history. The dismantling of the enemy
supply chain and the effect the success of said interdiction can achieve varies
in our military history. From the
strafing of Hitler’s Panzers racing towards the Normandy beachhead to AC-130
gunships hunting North Vietnamese truck traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
the USAF has received many lessons in what right and wrong looks like. One such case study that is often forgotten
by Air Power operators and thinkers is the Allied aerial effort to cut Axis
supply lines to the front in North Africa, particularly the Campaign for
Tunisia in the Spring/early Summer of 1943.
This is not an advocation for the implementation of air interdiction,
that is already established doctrine.
This is an examination of a specific case study which, if used as a
historical tool, can serve to emphasize the continued refinement and innovation
of said doctrine to achieve greater success on the battlefield.
North Africa 1943
By Spring 1943,
the Axis position in North Africa had been squeezed into the former Vichy
French colony of Tunisia which encompassed the rough equivalent in size to the
U.S. state of Georgia. After the Allies
launched Operation Torch in November 1942 to secure French Morocco and Algeria,
the Axis rushed reinforcements to the Italian-German position. After the Axis defeat at 2nd El Alamein by General
Sir B.L. Montgomery’s British 8th Army, the Allied landings during Torch had
forced Berlin to decide to attempt to either evacuate the Italian and German
forces back for the eventual defense of Europe or reinforce their position and
continue to hold off the Allied thrust as long as possible. Hitler decided to send reinforcements. As Field Marshal Erwin Rommel executed a long
retreat from Egypt across the Libyan coast towards Tunisia, units were rushed
by sea and air to Tunisia. By March
1943, Heers Gruppe Afrika (Army Group Afrika) encompassed 2 Axis Armies
including 5th Panzer Army and Italian 1st Army.
The Axis position defending the approaches to Tunis could only continue
to resist the multiple Anglo, French, American Armies arrayed against them
through continuous and uninterrupted supply by maritime and air transport
across the 90 miles separating Tunisia from Sicily.
Allied
air success against Axis seaborne convoys from Southern Europe was highly
effective. Roughly a 60% average of
supplies intended to resupply Axis forces in Tunisia were sent to the bottom of
the Mediterranean and the Italian merchant fleet and Navy were suffering
greatly. Port facilities throughout the
Italian boot, Sicily, and Sardinia were regularly targeted by Allied bombers
from Algeria and the island of Malta continued to be a thorn in the side of
German-Italian convoys. Success in interdicting these supplies and
influencing the battle on land could only be executed through control of the
sea offshore, which ultimately must come from securing the skies above. General Carl A. Spaatz, U.S. Army Air Forces
(USAAF) commander of the Northwest African Air Force (NAAF) would attempt to do
just that.
Allied Schemes
Although
it was vital to focus Allied efforts to destroy maritime convoys, Spaatz
understood that another avenue of Axis reinforcement to the front in Africa
came from air convoys of transport aircraft flying in under fighter
escort. Finding these massed flights and
catching them in their short transit across the Strait of Sicily would be
difficult, but vital to not only the final severing of an Axis air bridge but
set back the Luftwaffe in precious cargo aircraft for other fronts for the rest
of the war.
Flying
from aerodromes in Naples, Palermo, Bari, and Reggio di Calabria, some 500
Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica planes made their
runs across the Strait of Sicily to Tunisian air bases at Sidi Ahmen and El Aouina. Through converging intelligence updates from ULTRA
and a skillful use of radar, Allied air planners organized a series of sweeps
designed to catch masses numbers of transports at once, maximizing the losses
they could inflict.[1] Through exploitation of
ULTRA intercepts, the Allies lulled the ever-efficient Germans into a sense of
safety by not attacking daylight air convoys to establish a sense of safety and
reliability. To avoid suspicion by the
Germans that their signals intelligence (SIGINT) had been completely
penetrated, the raids against Axis air supply convoys had to be timed sparingly
to cause maximum damage with little regularity.
Richard Davis describes the importance of the intelligence gathered on
the Axis supply situation in his work, Spaatz and the Air War in Europe,
writing, “Enigma [ULTRA] made it plain that his higher rate of fuel consumption
[the principal air transport cargo] and the increasing destruction of his
shipping had made the enemy critically dependent on air supply.”[2] Spaatz understood the importance of these
aerial convoys and rapidly directed plans to be drawn “to get after” the daily
parades of axis transport aircraft crossing the straits of Sicily and into
Tunisia.[3] In perfect German fashion, the flights became
regular and predictable, thus a series of air ambushes became possible to catch
masses of transports in the air and on the ground. P-40 “Warhawks”, P-38
“Lightnings”, and Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft were organized to jump
the transports in air while a mixture of Allied medium and heavy bomber units
smashed known departure and arrival airfields used by the enemy aircraft. The operational plans to intercept these
convoys were shelved during the Kasserine Crisis, but once the front
stabilized, the Axis air bridge became a priority once more. By April, the American-led NAAF in
conjunction with the British-led Desert Air Force (DAF) were ready to catch
these convoys in a series of strikes codenamed Operation Flax.
Operation Flax- Severing the Air Bridge
On
5 April 1943, the first Flax operation was launched with 26 P-38 “Lightning”
fighters and several flights of B-25 “Mitchell” medium bombers. They had caught and attacked 50 Ju-52
transports flying with 20 Me-109 fighters, 4 Fw-190 fighters, and 6 Ju-87 Stuka
dive bombers with 12 merchant vessels sailing below them. The German air convoy lost 11 of their
precious Ju-52s, 2 Me-109s, and 2 Ju-87s for the loss of only 2 American
P-38s. Meanwhile the B-25s had sunk 2
Seibel ferries, a destroyer, and claimed 15 of the naval flotilla’s fighter
escorts.[4] Simultaneously, American heavy B-24 and B-17
bombers hit airfields in both Tunisia and Italy causing significant damage and
destruction to aircraft on the ground.
The final tally for 5 April was estimated at almost 200 Axis aircraft
destroyed with over 40 of them on the ground (several of these being the giant
Me-323 six engine transport).[5] The allied total was only 3 aircraft lost and
6 missing. On top of loss of vital
aircraft, the Germans also lost valuable supplies for Heersgruppee
Afrika. After the raids of 5 April, the 2/JG26 historian wrote in his report,
“It was an attack such as I had never been experienced even by those hardened
by service in Africa! Bombs fell like hail on the airfield bursting like rolls
of thunder and enveloping the entire area like a creeping barrage.”[6]
On
10 April, a second operation was launched with a sweep by P-38s downing another
20 transports and later that same day, B-25s downed a further 25 enemy
aircraft. On the morning of 11 April,
P-38s caught a formation of Ju-52s flying at low level from Marsala to Cape
Bon. Another 26 transports went into the Mediterranean along with 5 of their
fighter escorts.
Late
in the afternoon of Sunday 18 April, P-40s of the U.S. 57th Fighter Group
sighted a massive formation of Ju-52 transports flying at low level to avoid
radar detection. Flying in three large
“V” formations, the 90 Luftwaffe aircraft were described by one American pilot
as “they were the most beautiful formation I had ever seen. It seemed like a shame to break them up as it
looked like a wonderful propaganda film.”[7] While one squadron provided overhead cover,
three other American squadrons pounced on the lumbering cargo planes while the
few escorts the Luftwaffe provided were overcome by the mass of American Warhawks. Some P-40 pilots observed desperate, and most
understandably, terrified Axis troops firing their small arms out of the
windows of the Ju-52s at the attacking American fighters.[8] The official Army Air Force history describes
the action on 18 April stating:
Operating from El
Djem, the 57th Group began its sweeps over Cap Bon on
17 April. On 18 April occurred the famous Palm Sunday massacre. At about 1500 hours the Germans
successfully ran a large aerial convoy into Tunisia, probably to El Aouina or La Marsa. On its way back, flying at sea level
(one of the Americans described it as resembling a huge gaggle of geese) with
an ample escort upstairs, the formation encountered four P-40 squadrons (57th
Group, plus 314th Squadron of the 324th Group) with a top cover of Spitfires.
When the affair ended, 50 to 70–the estimates varied–out of approximately 100
Ju-52’s had been destroyed, together with 16 Mc-202’s, Me-109’s, and Me-110’s
out of the escort. Allied losses were 6 P-40’s and a Spit. The Germans, who
admitted to losses of 51 Ju-52’s, worked intensively on the transports which
had force-landed near El Haouaria, and several of
them later took off for Tunis despite Allied strafing. Next day the bag was
duplicated on a smaller scale when 12 out of a well-escorted convoy of 20
Ju-52’s were shot down.[9]
The
next morning, to rub salt into the Luftwaffe’s wounds, a South African fighter
unit ambushed another formation of transports, splashing 15 more into the
drink. The USAAF official history noted
the British and Commonwealth contribution to Flax:
Fuel
was particularly short, and a decision was apparently taken to throw in the big
Me-323’s boasting four times the capacity of the Ju-52’s. This endeavor came to
an untimely end on 22 April when an entire Me-323 convoy was destroyed over the
Gulf of Tunis by two and a half Spitfire squadrons and four squadrons of SAAF Kittyhawks. Twenty-one Me-323’s were shot down, many in flames, as well as ten fighters, for the loss of four Kittyhawks. With Allied fighters, as he put it, "in
front" of the African coast, Maj. Gen. Ulrich Buchholz, the Lufttransportfuehrer Mittelmeer,
gave up daylight transport operations, although he continued for a time with
crews able to fly blind to send in limited amounts of emergency supplies by
night.[10]
By the end of the operation the
Luftwaffe had lost an estimated 432 aircraft.
These losses in the Mediterranean coupled by losses suffered attempting
to resupply the besieged German 6th Army at Stalingrad crippled the
Axis air transportation capability for the remainder of the war. With more production dedicated to the fighter
defense of the Reich and ill-fated adventures with jet and bomber aircraft, the
Luftwaffe could ill-afford such attrition.
General Spaatz had correctly identified the strategic nature of starving
the Axis bridgehead and what was necessary from the air to accomplish the
eventual surrender of all Axis forces in North Africa. The emphasis on anti-shipping interdiction as
well as counter-air interdiction provided the young Army Air Forces an
opportunity to showcase what joint air targeting could accomplish. The proper fusing of signals intelligence
exploitation and deliberate target identification produced fantastic results
that bore fruit on the ground.
Analysis and Lessons Applied
Of
Operation Flax, National Museum of WWII senior historian Dr. John Curatola
states, “As
German transportation assets dwindled with increasing pressure from both the
British and US forces on the ground, the DAK’s position in Tunisia became
untenable. Running out of fuel, ammunition, and other materials, the Germans
eventually evacuated through Tunis. By May, only a few forces remained. These
Allied attacks, combined with raids on departure and reception airfields,
significantly reduced German logistical capabilities. While Operation Flax’s
legacy was helping to strangle the Axis forces in Africa, it had a significant
effect on surviving Luftwaffe personnel. Knowing the Allied penchant
for attacking the transports over the strait, when it came time to evacuate
ground personnel, many of them avoided flying in a Ju 52, opting instead to
squeeze into the fuselages of departing Me 109s.”[11] The interdiction plan for Operation Flax was
a clear success story for counter air bridge operations. There are few examples in our history to draw
upon for case studies that showcase how successful such a counter air mobility
operation can be if it is well planned and executed.
General Michael A. Minihan,
commander of U.S. Air Mobility Command in a memorandum to his forces dated 1
February 2023 stated, “SITUATION.
I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. [Chinese President Xi
Jinping] secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022.
Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. United
States’ presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted
America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025. We spent
2022 setting the foundation for victory. We will spend 2023 in crisp
operational motion building on that foundation.”[12] Furthermore, he outlines his end state goal
of, “A fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready
to fight and win inside the first island chain. Maximize the use of the force
and the tools we currently have and extract full value from things that
currently exist. Close the gaps: C2, navigation, maneuver under attack, and
tempo.”[13]
Statements like those made by Gen.
Minihan and standing orders to all beneath Air Mobility Command (AMC) reveal
the mindset many commanders have when viewing combat readiness in the
Indo-Pacific. The fight to resupply and sustain forces is not one which the
USAF has recently needed to execute within a high threat and attritional
environment. The ongoing wars in Ukraine
and the Middle East have shown us that we may wish to be finished with wars,
but wars will never agree on our terms alone.
Page
19 of United States Joint Publication 3-03 Joint Interdiction states,
“Attriting inbound enemy forces and material may isolate forces directly
engaged with US forces allowing the Joint Force to generate a greater material,
informational, or physiological advantage.”
For the United States-led Pacific Coalition in a next Great War, taking
a series of lessons to prepare operators and commanders such as those
experienced by Goering’s Luftwaffe in the various Mediterranean Campaigns may
hold keys to unlock hard fought experience we need before the first shots are
fired.
The primary
lessons I would like to highlight to future warfighters from Operation Flax are
the following:
- Lack
of local air supremacy may force the Allies to execute calculated attacks
like what the NAAF had to execute due to sustained Axis air presence and
limited air base availability.
- The
value of Intel based surgical massed strikes against high value assets
with excellent timing which create lasting effects on the enemy’s ability
to exercise freedom of maneuver and action through the rest of the
conflict.
- The
value of “covering the bases” by taking out both naval and air lines of
supply. We must sever any method the enemy may turn to in order to resupply
its forces.
- The
PLA looks large on paper and very capable; however, they are only as
powerful as what force they can land on the beachhead(s) and how well they
can regularly and reliably supply them.
- Study
German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s notion of the “culmination
point”. Force the PLA to Reach the
culmination point or the point at which materially they can no longer
physically achieve their decided objective militarily.
- For
the U.S. we must be careful to not allow ourselves to reach this
culmination point ourselves.
“If one were to
go beyond that point [culminating point], it would not merely be a useless effort which it
could not add to success. It would in
fact be a damaging one, which would lead to a reaction; and experience goes to
show that such reactions usually have completely disproportionate effects.” – Carl von Clausewitz from
On War (Book
VII, Ch. 22.)
Continue Preparing for “The Day” and May It Never
Come
Scenes of mass
formations of C-17s, C-130s, and C-5s flying across the Pacific to resupply
besieged forward bases within the 1st and 2nd Island chains spark similar
images to what is possible based on the consequences of Operation Flax. We must
be careful to avoid such a similar trap the Allies sprung upon the Luftwaffe
while simultaneously attempting to catch our prey in a similar adventure across
the Taiwan Strait. Air mobility professionals should review this case study with
particular attention to how they can mitigate the outcome experienced by the
Luftwaffe. These lessons apply to both
U.S. and PRC for both sides trying to resupply forward units and the side that
closely examines this case study will properly prepare their people for victory. Amongst the many COAs within the Air Force’s
responsibilities during a great power war in the Pacific, land-based air
interdiction efforts will be an important piece of the joint puzzle that must
be put together to achieve overall success.
Looking to case studies such as the successful Allied operations to
sever the Axis air bridge to Tunisia in 1943 as well the failure of the
Luftwaffe to protect that bridge can light our path ahead with the ultimate
intent to Investigate the past, educate the present, and mold the future.
Sources
Consulted:
Hadley, Greg. “Read for Yourself:
The Full Memo from AMC Gen. Mike Minihan.” Air & Space Forces Magazine,
January 30, 2023.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/read-full-memo-from-amc-gen-mike-minihan/.
JP 3-03, Joint Interdiction, 2016.
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_03.pdf.
Mark, Eduard. “Aerial
Interdiction: Air Power and the Land Battle in Three American Wars.”
https://media.defense.gov/, 1994.
https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/21/2001329823/-1/-1/0/AFD-100921-022.pdf.
“Remembering Operation Flax:
Allied Disruption and Destruction of German Air Transports to North Africa.”
American Battle Monuments Commission, April 22, 2018.
https://www.abmc.gov/news-events/news/remembering-operation-flax-allied-disruption-and-destruction-german-air-transports.
Curatola, John. “Operation Flax,
April 1943: Severing the German Afrika Korps’ Lifeline: The National WWII
Museum: New Orleans.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, April 6, 2023.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/operation-flax-april-1943-severing-german-afrika-korps-lifeline.
Davis, Richard G. Carl A. Spaatz
and the air war in Europe, 1993.
https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/12/2001330126/-1/-1/0/AFD-101012-035.pdf.
“April 18, 1943, Goose Shoot –
‘The Palm Sunday Massacre.’” 57th fighter group. Accessed June 12, 2024.
http://www.57thfightergroup.org/history/goose_shoot/.
Craven, W.F., and J.L.
Cate. “Hyperwar: Europe: Torch to Pointblank August
1942 to December 1943 (Chapter 6).” Chapter 6: Climax in Tunisia. Accessed July
1, 2024. https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/II/AAF-II-6.html.
Author
Bio:
Lieutenant Willis is an U.S. Air Force
officer stationed at Cannon AFB, NM and a Fellow with the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers (CIPR). He is a distinguished graduate of the
University of Cincinnati’s AFROTC program with a B.A. in International Affairs,
with a minor in Political Science. He
has multiple publications with the Consortium, Nova Science Publishers, United
States Naval Institute’s (USNI) Proceedings
Naval History Magazine, Air University’s Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs (JIPA), and Air University’s Wild Blue Yonder Journal. He is also a featured guest on multiple
episodes of Vanguard: Indo-Pacific,
the official podcast of the Consortium, USNI’s Proceedings Podcast, and CIPR conference panel lectures available
on the Consortium’s YouTube channel.
[1] Mark, Eduard. “Aerial
Interdiction: Air Power and the Land Battle in Three American Wars.”
https://media.defense.gov/, 1994. https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/21/2001329823/-1/-1/0/AFD-100921-022.pdf.
Pg. 46.
[2] Davis, Richard
G. Carl A. Spaatz and the air war in Europe, 1993.
https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/12/2001330126/-1/-1/0/AFD-101012-035.pdf.
Pg. 190.
[3] Ibid., 191.
[4] Craven, W.F., and J.L.
Cate. “Hyperwar: Europe: Torch to Pointblank August
1942 to December 1943 (Chapter 6).” Chapter 6: Climax in Tunisia. Accessed July
1, 2024. https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/II/AAF-II-6.html. Pg.
189-190.
[5] Ibid.,
190.
[6] Curatola, John.
“Operation Flax, April 1943: Severing the German Afrika Korps’ Lifeline: The
National WWII Museum: New Orleans.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans,
April 6, 2023.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/operation-flax-april-1943-severing-german-afrika-korps-lifeline.
[7] “April 18, 1943, Goose Shoot –
‘The Palm Sunday Massacre.’” 57th fighter group. Accessed June 12, 2024.
http://www.57thfightergroup.org/history/goose_shoot/.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Craven, W.F., and J.L.
Cate. “Hyperwar: Europe: Torch to Pointblank August
1942 to December 1943 (Chapter 6).” Chapter 6: Climax in Tunisia. Accessed July
1, 2024. https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/II/AAF-II-6.html. Pg. 190-191.
[10] Ibid., 191.
[11] Curatola, John.
“Operation Flax, April 1943: Severing the German Afrika Korps’ Lifeline: The
National WWII Museum: New Orleans.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans,
April 6, 2023.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/operation-flax-april-1943-severing-german-afrika-korps-lifeline.
[12] Hadley, Greg.
“Read for Yourself: The Full Memo from AMC Gen. Mike Minihan.” Air & Space
Forces Magazine, January 30, 2023.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/read-full-memo-from-amc-gen-mike-minihan/.
[13] Ibid.