4. The agents were given specific targets and trained in selecting targets of opportunity
The Germans knew that America’s ability to manufacture airplanes for their own use, as well as that of the Russians and British, was critical. Airplanes required aluminum, and the manufacturing plants of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) were high on the list of targets. Transportation of coal and steel was done chiefly by rail and river, and the locks critical to navigation on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were other primary targets. So was New York’s famed Hell Gate Bridge, and the extensive railroad complex at Altoona, Pennsylvania. The northeast’s electrical grid was targeted at Niagara Falls.
Besides the primary targets, the agents were trained in the selection of targets of opportunity on their own, with the goal of creating fear within the American population. Random targets were to be selected so as to make it appear that they could strike anywhere, at any time, creating the illusion of a much larger operation (in fact, additional teams were to be recruited to supplement the first eight, operating independently). Bombs were to be placed in elevators, subway stations, smaller bridges, piers and docks, warehouses, railway stations, marshaling yards, and wherever else the agents considered suitable for destruction.