Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
=Air Support.= Normal communications channels, such as might be used for
air-ground combat liaison, form one of the most valuable aids to the
small unit. From time to time it is possible either for the unit to make
up the leaflets (if it has a PW team) and to request their dropping by
the associated air unit, or else to make a direct request to the
appropriate higher Psychological Warfare headquarters, asking that the
headquarters not only make up the leaflet but arrange for its dropping
at a stated time.
=Leaflet-Discharging Weapons.= The airplane was far and away the most
important leaflet-distributing device. In the CBI Theater, there was
developed a leaflet belly-tank of local design for use on pursuit
planes. The belly-tank was converted to a leaflet-throwing machine.
Adjustment of the controls could regulate the speed at which leaflets
were discharged, so that the pilot could give enemy units or
installations bursts of leaflets in precisely the same way that he would
strafe them with machine guns. This, however, was exceptional, owing to
the tremendous dispersion of the Japanese in the jungle and the need to
conserve leaflets. In most instances, the leaflet bomb or leaflet box
was the standard Air Force method of distributing leaflets.
Among the ground weapons used for discharge of leaflets, there are the
following:
chemical warfare shells converted to leaflet use, especially smoke
shells;
almost every variety of available artillery shell (howitzers having
proved especially useful);
rifle grenades converted for leaflets;
leaflet bundles with a small quantity of explosive, attached to a
quick fuze, packed so as to be thrown in a manner similar to the
manual throwing of a grenade.
Mortars were probably the chief leaflet-throwing device on both the
European and Asiatic fronts; the Germans went so far as to develop a
special propaganda mortar. Smoke shells proved particularly easy to
adapt.
The firing of leaflet shells is a responsibility of the unit possessing
the guns. Psychological Warfare teams were not issued their own guns,
save for unit protection. The actual distribution of leaflet shells was
effected, taking the Fifth Army as an example, in the following manner:
The Army Combat Propaganda Team planned, cleared, printed and packed
leaflets suitable for the occasion.
The Team cleared with the Artillery Officer, Fifth Army, an agreement
for an order to use the leaflets.
The Team's own liaison officers transmit the order to the appropriate
divisions and lower echelons. The order itself prescribed the times
for picking up the leaflets from the ammunition dumps.
The Team procures the empty shells and packs them with leaflets.
The Army order allots 150 leaflet shells per division.
The Team specifies, in the order, the time-limit within which the
shells are to be used.
Corps and/or division selects the specific targets, the general target
being all enemy concentrations within range.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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