This “restricted” black-and-white US War Department Official Training Film, titled “Air Force Intelligence,” was produced by the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces prior to the 1943 Invasion of Sicily by Allied troops. An intertitle card at mark 00:38 explains that “it shows the organization and functioning of Intelligence in an Air Force during a planned invasion of Sardinia. Whether or not this latter invasion ever take place does not affect the depiction of the role of Intelligence in air operations.” With that, the film continues with “North Africa: The Interrogation of a Combat Crew,” at mark 01:11 as a crew discusses their most recent mission with a captain as he fills out an intelligence report.
As the crew questions whether anyone actually reads such a report, the captain seizes the moment to the explain to the crew (and the audience) the importance of such information. Out comes an A-2 chart at mark 02:42 — an oversized flowchart — that details how information gathered about the enemy is disseminated, as animated drawings provide information on how reports move from squadron intelligence officers to group intelligence officers, then on to wing intelligence various commands to the “heart” of the operation, A2 (an Army Air Corp Air Staff position responsible for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance). The combat reports are combined with photo intelligence, technical intelligence, intelligence from prisoners of war, and from espionage, then analyzed and reports sent back out through a chain of command to combat crews.
The captain continues his lecture, and at mark 07:19 compares Air Force Command to the “brain” of the human body, with the commanding general and his staff responsible for decision making and the overall intelligence plan. In this instance, officers are shown discussing an invasion of Sicily and Sardinia. (Known as Operation Mincemeat, Allied forces convinced the German high command that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia in 1943 instead of Sicily, the actual objective.) As the film continues, the scenes stress the importance of communication between the Air Staff members, particularly operations and intelligence, during mission planning. By mark 14:00, the captain’s talk turns to implementing the intelligence plan, and at mark 17:00 touches on collecting additional information before turning the conversation to collating the data. “There’s an old army slogan: keep your eyes open, keep your mouth shut, keep a copy,” he tells the crew. After evaluating the credibility of data, officers disseminate the information as needed.
“How does it end?” one of the men asks at mark 27:13. “That’s up to you and every one of us … every one of us contributes to intelligence,” the captain says as the film draws to a close.
The film was likely influenced by the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. Some of the variety of techniques shown including interrogation of captured enemy combatants, debriefing of air crews, aerial photography and interpretation, wire tapping, and other methodologies. Messages are shown sent in cipher (23:03) and decoded by an encryption analyst.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
