Enemy Objectives Unit

On June 13, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt sought to create an intelligence group like Britain’s Special Operations Executive. The Office of Strategic Services or OSS was formed. Under the OSS a subdivision called Research and Analysis was composed of professors and scholars that were willing to contribute to the war. Among the R&A branch a team of economists were formed under the name of the Enemy Objectives Unit. The Enemy Objectives Unit was a research group of economists that used input/output models in recommending Nazi targets to allied Eighth Air Force. This group is often used as a case study in applied economics, in particular their suggestion to Allied commanders to destroy ball bearing factories, as their models showed them to be the most vital to Nazi industry.[1] (this particular recommendation turned out to be incorrect as the Nazis re-engineered many machines to use other methods of friction reduction and because of cushioning reasons discussed below).

Finding targets
“Your primary object will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a part where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened” – Directive given to British and American air forces from the Casablanca conference. Recommendations were based on a system created by EOU officers such as depth, target system, and cushion. The EOU had a well organized system that allowed them to find the most vital targets. Before they would actually attack, they asked themselves three questions related to depth, target system, and cushion. For depth they asked themselves if the attack would go “deep” enough and how many different things would it effect. Another point that they considered was the target system. The target system decided if the attack would create a chain reaction that would knock out many things at once. For the cushion system the EOU had to ask themselves if the target they selected would be able to recover quickly from the attack. Conventional target factories, such those that produced weapons, tank, and aircraft had developed methods of rapid recovery after being bombed and were considered to be less cost-effective for this reason. These three points helped the EOU to scout vital targets which led to the Allies victory in World War II.

Casablanca and Pointblank
Casablanca and Pointblank were guidelines for the EOU and helped them choose which targets to choose as a priority over others. The Casablanca plan gave guidelines that chose the five most important targets. The five points were The EOU targeted five main points of the German Army

1.)   German navy

2.)   German air force

3.)   Transportation

4.)   Oil

5.)   Any other targets vital to the economy

The EOU would now incorporate their ways of finding targets and try to choose the best targets. One point which this group underestimated was the effectiveness of bombing German oil refineries—they had correctly estimated the amount of stocks kept but failed to account for the immediate conservation methods the Germans would employ. The later attacks on Nazi fuel reserves are thought by many historians to be a substantial factor in Nazi defeat. As the war progressed however, there was a call for a new plan, Pointblank. This plan ignored the five points from the Casablanca plan and told EOU workers to target German air force, as this field was doing the most damage to the allies. The EOU proved to be a vital tool to the allies’ air force and helped with the defeat of the Germans in World War II.