the airplane did the same for the air and, just as with the sea, actions in one
environment could greatly enhance actions in the others. The Allies used their air
forces strategically in discreet air campaigns to gain control of the air and to strike
German and Japanese industrial capacity and the will of the people. Joint opera-
tions of all three capabilities were conducted to open new fronts in North Africa,
Italy, North-West Europe, and, perhaps the best example, the US Pacific offensive
to defeat Japan. Air power directly supported the battles on land; great firepower
could be concentrated rapidly in one place, troops moved, and positions sus-
tained. Naval victories were won by carrier-borne air power alone. There were
bold attempts at operational manoeuvre from the air; for example, the airborne
operation in September 1944 to seize crossings over the Rivers Maas, Waal, and
lower Rhine was an attempt at operational manoeuvre that failed at Arnhem.
The 1944 Chindit operation in the Japanese rear in Burma was another, more
successful airborne operation.
All of these operations by their complexity and size were more like great
constructions than expressions of art. The complexity already noted of maritime
operations was increased with the addition of air operations, and the number
of men and mass of materiel created a logistical inertia to movement. Skill
in the construction and production of the operational design and originality in
the development and use of new tools and techniques were at a premium. The
development of radar and the concept for its use by Royal Air Force (RAF)
Fighter Command and the subsequent operational victory in the Battle of Britain
are a good example of this manifestation of the operational art.
These actions at the point of linkage between strategy and tactics were taken
under the authority of a single man, the commander. He had to have the
confidence of those at the strategic level, the confidence that he understood the
strategic context of his objective and actions. If, as he often did, he had Allied
contingents in his command, he had to have the confidence of their capitals as
well. However much support he had from staff officers and subordinate com-
manders, he decided on the operational design, he commanded the operation to
the end in the face of the resistance of his opponent. The choice of design, the
nature of the influence he brought to bear on its conception, and the direction of
its execution were his; he was the operational artist.
If in 1945, or soon after, the operational art was defined in today’s terms we
would have written something like:
The operational commander directs his joint allied force along a path of tactical steps of his
design to the strategic goal. The artfulness of his design and the skilfulness of his direction
are measured in three ways: first, by success in the face of the opponent; second, by
achieving the strategic goal; and third, in the economy of resource in achievement.
The practice of this art at the operational level through the ages and changes
in the nature of warfare has certain characteristics. They were not necessarily how
the practitioner understood or thought about what he was doing at the time, but
they can be seen to a greater or lesser extent in the practice of the art.
232 The Evolution of Operational Art