American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffeâ??s Secrets

10. A Mother Lode of Aviation Technology

[ 123 ] A MOTHER LODE OF AVIATION TECHNOLOGY The Air Technical Intelligence teams and the disarmament squadrons received their direction as to where to look for critical materials from detailed target folders prepared by the targeting sections of the 8th and 9th Air Forces. The folders were derived from target dossiers initially prepared for bombing purposes. With minor additions and changes, the target folders were adapted to provide all the information an ATI team would need to locate a particular GAF installation or research facility. Without such specific guidance, the teams undoubtedly would have been running around blind. By March 1, 1945, fifteen hundred targets were identified for inspection and appropriate folders prepared for areas already occupied or soon to be occupied by American forces. With the capture of the Remagen bridge on March 7, and the subsequent northward movement of American and British armies into territory that was soon to become the Russian zone of occupation, along with Patton’s move into Czechoslovakia and Austria, there was suddenly a requirement to develop additional target folders to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity. 10 The areas which would subsequently fall under Russian control yielded a bonanza of material. Much of it probably would not have been uncovered in the brief time available without the help of the meticulously prepared folders. Still, much was left behind for the Russians when the time came to evacuate the area.1 Wrote Norman M. Naimark in The Russians in Germany,“CIOS teams removed equipment in staggering quantities from the region. From Nordhausen alone, 1,000 technicians and the parts for 100 V-2 missiles were evacuated to the West.” Yet, when the Soviets occupied these same areas they found entire armaments factories still operable, such as the BMW jet engine factories and the Junkers aircraft plants.2 The collection of large quantities of captured equipment required an adequate support structure for its assembly, packaging, and subsequent shipment to its ultimate destinations. To that end McDonald’s people in the Exploitation Division at Headquarters USSTAF had by May 1, 1945, settled on three Air Technical Intelligence collection points—ATICPs, in military jargon. The first ATICP selected was Merseburg airfield, one mile west of the town near the Leuna synthetic oil refinery complex, heavily bombed during the war. Merseburg was in what would soon become part of the Russian zone of occupation and, according to Allied agreement, had to be vacated by not later than July 10. In turn, the Russians were to hand over the American sector of Berlin to American forces in early July. Nürnberg-Roth air- field, about ten miles south of Nürnberg, became the second ATICP. An airfield seven miles east of Stuttgart became a third collection point.When on June 2, 1945, Merseburg was abandoned by ATI teams, Munich-Riem airport was designated an ATICP in its place.3 The ATI teams were assigned to the three ATICPs in almost equal numbers. Each ATICP command post was radio equipped for twentyfour -hour communication with USSTAF headquarters, and it disposed of a number of mobile jeep-mounted radio sets to allow the field teams to stay in touch with their respective command posts. The radios A Mother Lode of Aviation Technology [ 124 ] allowed a high degree of tasking flexibility as the teams fanned out in their jeeps from the three collection points to inspect GAF facilities and arms factories. Based on daily inventory reports submitted by the three ATICPs, the Exploitation Division ordered the movement of German aircraft to a depot at Hanau, while engines and other equipment went to Kassel. At each depot, collected material was prepared and packaged for shipment to destinations in the United States and the United Kingdom. The 9th Air Force and 1st Tactical Air Force Service Commands provided the necessary airlift, which included several stripped-down B-17 and B-24 bombers serving as long-range transports between the ETO and the Zone of Interior, or ZI, as the United States was then referred to. Heavier items were moved by ship from ports in France. Documentation was shipped to the Joint Documentation Center in London for translation, indexing, and subsequent distribution. Tons of this paper was to show up at Wright Field by late 1945 for evaluation and translation.4 The entire disarmament and intelligence collection task proved to be in its own way as demanding of resources...