Error! Main Document Only. Most of the information on the Fisher-Tropsch and coal hydrogenation plants has come from the Allied investigative teams that went to Germany during World War II's closing months. These teams, such as United States Technical Oil Mission (TOM) and the British Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (BIOS), examined the thousands of technical reports Allied troops captured at the synthetic fuel plants, interviewed many of the German synthetic fuel scientists, and sent their information to the Combined Intelligence Office Subcommittee (CIOS) in London for translating and abstracting. CIOS prepared 141 microfilm reels, and after moving its operation to the United States produced another 164 reels. CIOS, BIOS, TOM, and Field Intelligence Agency Technical (FIAT) also printed and released more then 1,400 reports on the German synthetic fuel plants, many of which are on TOM microfilm reels.

In addition to the 1,400 investigative reports several exhaustive summaries of the reports are available. The most important of these are the Ministry of Fuel and Power, Report on the Petroleum and Synthetic Oil Industry of Germany (London, 1947) and the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, High-pressure Hydrogenation at Ludwigshafen-Heidelberg, FIAT, Final Report 1317 (9 vols., Dayton, Ohio: Central Air Document Office, March 1951). The Ministry's Report deals with the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and the coal hydrogenation process whereas the Joint Intelligence's High-pressure discusses only coal hydrogenation. A third comprehensive source is Henry H. Storch, Norma Golumbic, and Robert B. Anderson, The Fischer-Tropsch and Related Syntheses (New...