SZ/AEAF/3/3/12 - Plan for the employment of the strategic bomber forces in the remaining period prior to "Overlord"

SZ/AEAF/3/3/12

Item

Plan for the employment of the strategic bomber forces in the remaining period prior to "Overlord"

1944

6 pp.

Headed "Copy" and annotated in MS by SZ [circa 1974] "This is from Bufton's stable, before D-Day. I recognise it as I've referred to it in one of my Pre D-Day minutes". The paper was written after General Eisenhower had formally accepted the Transportation Plan.

The paper is a typescript draft which offers three alternative target systems to the A.E.A.F. Transportation Plan "the entire operational maintenance system of the G.A.F [German Air Force] in France, Belgium and Holland", military camps and dumps - targets suggested by the Army; and "26 transportation targets (bridges) which will... effect the canalisation of enemy traffic". These targets, it is argued, have the added benefit of causing few France civilian casualties than the Transportation Plan.

The paper refers to appendices A,B, and C, which are absent. The text indicates that appendix A is a list of G.A.F air fields and associated facilities in France, Belgium and Holland, appendix B a list of "military targets" (training camps and ammunition dumps), and appendix C a list of 26 bridges to be attacked by US Eighth Air Force.