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This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Cairo”26 pages
T H E A R M Y A I R A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S plane in radius of action, speed and fire power” were as yet just begin- ning to be visualized. “The world struggle for strategic air bases and effective air fleets is well under way,” he concluded, “and will become intensified with the fast-moving technical development of the airplane. Air Power is as vital a requirement to the military efficiency of a great nation as land power and sea power, and there is no hope for victory in war for a nation in which it is lacking.” These were the articles of faith on which the Army’s airmen stood in the year of Munich, two years before the Battle of Britain. There would appear to be little point in detailing further at this time the continuing controversy with representatives of the W a r and Navy departments. As noted at the close of the preceding section, the Joint Board in June 1938-five months after General Andrews’ appeal to the Secretary of War-officially denied the probability that the Air Corps would in war require planes ‘(of greater practical ferrying range, greater tactical radius, and greater carrying capacity than those of the B- I 7.” Such a policy, if long adhered to, would have deprived the AAF of the B-29. But world developments soon lent additional weight to the arguments for the long-range bomber, and, when the test came, the Army Air Forces not only had a well-defined doctrine of air warfare for its guidance but the plane needed for the job.” * For a discussion of the development of tactical principles, see below, pp. 597-99. 7’
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