General Carl Spaatz Recommends Strategic Bombing Priorities to Eisenhower in Support of Operation Overlord (1944)

Date: March 31, 1944

Created By: Carl Spaatz

Original or Replica: Original

Era: D-Day and the Normandy Invasion, The General

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum

This March 31, 1944 top-secret letter from Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe, advises General Dwight D. Eisenhower on how Allied strategic bombers should be used in preparation for Operation Overlord, the planned invasion of Normandy. Spaatz accepts that attacks on German aircraft production and French railroads were necessary but questions whether additional bombing should concentrate on transportation networks or Germany’s oil industry.

Spaatz argues that bombing German railroads would likely produce only limited and difficult-to-measure effects on German resistance to Overlord. By contrast, attacks on oil facilities could have broader consequences by disrupting Germany’s fuel supply and potentially creating a serious long-term crisis. He particularly emphasizes transportation routes around the Romanian oil center of Ploesti and German synthetic-oil plants. Spaatz recommends that the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces continue attacking German aircraft production while dividing additional bombing efforts among rail transportation, synthetic-oil facilities, and other strategic targets. The letter illustrates an important debate within the Allied command over whether strategic bombers should concentrate on transportation targets directly supporting D-Day or continue striking Germany’s industrial and oil resources.