Combat Air Activities Files (CACTA)

If more than one incident of the same type occurred during the sortie, a separate record for each incident exists. Each record is divided into groups of fields, known as "sets." There are eight possible sets and the information in each set includes: control set data with the date, mission and unit identifier; fixed set data with the branch of U.S. service or country of Air Force, country of origin, mission name, target location, type and number of military aircraft, war damage, and target terrain and weather; and up to six periodic sets of repeatable data including enemy defense data and mission altitudes; formation of aircraft, military tactics and enemy at tacks; ordnance type and tonnage; results of the attack; aircraft lost or diverted, and flight crew status; and comments.

This data comprises government records extracted from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). See the ARC catalog entry for this series for more information on this data and how to order it.