Gen. DePuy describes how close air support worked in World War II:
Well, generally, we didn’t have any close air support. They didn’t have a system back then like we have now. There was no tactical air control system. When we first went to Mayenne and to Le Mans, they had Air Force officers in trucks with radios with our two lead battalions. That was the only time in the war that I saw that — the only time! They talked to the fighters, the P-47s and P-51s, and got them to attack the German tanks and troops that the column ran into. It worked pretty well. In fact, it worked very well. I think flights were rotated over the head of the column, more or less, as a result of preplanning, and when they got there the Air Force officers on the ground would pick them up by radio and direct them in on the target. This was Task Force Weaver. We had priority because this was the breakout from Normandy.
Another story. Across the Saar, I needed some emergency resupply. In order to do that I had to call back to my regiment on the other side of the river and have them go to division. Division went all the way back to the XIX TAC, which was a part of the Ninth Air Force working with Third Army. They launched fighters that had ammo and medicine packed in the wing tanks. They flew up to where we were and found the corner of the woods where we had put out a couple of fluorescent panels in the form of a cross. We had asked that they drop it in the corner of the woods, northwest of the panel, and they did. So, that was sort of remote control. But, other than that, I don’t remember any close air support. The first real use of close air support was in Korea. The Air Force made its money in WWII by armed reconnaissance. It just went out and killed everything it saw.
Apparently [the Germans did have close air support] in Russia, particularly with the Stukas. The Stukas had radios that could talk to a regiment on the ground. They did that a lot, which was closer to close air support than what we had. But, they didn’t use Stukas against the Western Allies because Stukas couldn’t survive against our fighters. Stukas could survive against Russian fighters but they couldn’t survive against P-47s, P-51s, Hurricanes, and Spitfires. So, they didn’t use them at all against us.