“Army-Air Operations” Coningham Talk 1943

Kyt · Jan 7, 2008

“Army-Air Operations”

Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham Talk to Assembled British and American General and Senior Officers

Tripoli, Libya Feb. 16, 1943

By early 1943, British forces had been dueling German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel across North Africa for many months. British air and ground leaders had accumulated hard-won lessons about command arrangements and had lashed together a unified air command and air-ground liaison system. For the British—RAF and Army alike—there were three truths. First, the air commander had to have centralized authority over air units. Second, the supreme requirement was air superiority. Third, airpower could be used to control enemy maneuver forces.

RAF Air Vice Marshal Arthur Coningham, the overall allied tactical air commander, delivered a now-famous summation of these lessons at a meeting in Tripoli. In the audience were many senior Americans, most of whom were aware that, in the Battle of Kasserine Pass raging not far away in Tunisia, many US aircraft were grounded by inept management by ground commanders. The ideas in Coningham’s speech soon became the touchstones of US tactical air employment doctrine, and remain so down to the current day.
Click to expand...

The Keeper File - January 2008

Log in or Sign up

“Army-Air Operations” Coningham Talk 1943

Kyt Άρης

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

“Army-Air Operations” Coningham Talk 1943

Thread Tools

Kyt Άρης

Share This Page

Useful Searches