Working within external guidelines, the unit used a systematic methodology to identify military and economic targets where air attack would be most effective.
In June 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt set up the Office of Strategic Services or OSS, an intelligence group with a similar role to that of Britain’s Special Operations Executive.
Conventional target factories, such those that produced weapons, tanks, and aircraft had developed methods of rapid recovery after being bombed and were considered to be less cost-effective for this reason.
The work of 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.
[citation needed] The EOU proved to be a vital tool to the Allies’ air forces and helped them defeat the Germans in World War II.