[SMF144]

Hello Richard,

To answer your second question, I highly recommend the following book “British Intelligence in the Second World War – Its influence on Strategy and Operations”

Here’s a snippet from volume III, part 2 that pertains to your query.

But in combination with the shock administered by the Ardennes offensive, and by the failure of intelligence to give advance notice of the massive GAF attack on Allied air bases that took place on 1 January 1945, the size of the force and the skill and determination with which it was used produced a wave of pessimism in London and Washington and throughout the Allied Commands as to the probable duration of the war and as to the serious consequences that could follow from the recuperative power of German industry – and above all from the entry into service of jet and rocket aircraft and the new U-boats alongside the V-weapons – if the war was prolonged.
These fears found expression in a new strategic bombing directive. Issued on 15 January, it was markedly ambiguous, retaining oil targets as the first priority and communications as the second priority, but stating that jet production, training and operational establishments had now become primary objectives and specifying that certain objectives in the enemy’s U-boat organization should receive marginal or incidental attention. It was no doubt the outcome of a compromise between the Air Staff and General Spaatz. The Air Staff did not believe that the jet aircraft constituted an immediate threat, and although it agreed that they might create a dangerous situation if their development was not checked, it also felt that their development would be more effectively checked by maintaining the offensive against oil and communications targets than by direct attack on jet targets, Spaatz was no longer prepared to rely mainly on the offensive against oil and communications. According to the British official account, he forwarded the directive to US Eight and Fifteenth Air Forces with the statement that jet targets had been made “a principal objective for attack’ because unless adequate measures were taken, the Germans would have between 400 and 500 jet aircraft available for operations against us by early summer, and according to the official US account he had already on 9 January, in agreement with SHAEF, decided to elevate jet production to first priority, co-equal with oil”.
Pages 601 & 602, British Intelligence in the Second World War. Its influence and Strategy and Operations. Volume III, part 2, F.H. Hinsley

I hope this helps?

Stephen