The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
organization which characterized their air arms; different strategic
and tactical concepts, reflecting in part differences in geographic posi-
tion and productive capacity, gave peculiar shape to each of the
totalitarian air forces. Similar considerations determined the status of
air preparations in Great Britain, France, and other nations opposing
the Axis powers. In the military air doctrines developed by major
world powers prior to the outbreak of World War 11, and in the
practical application of those doctrines during the first two years of
conflict, lay significant clues as to the eventual victory or defeat of the
several nations. Even if the clues were not obvious a t the time, it was
a t least evident that air power would be an important-perhaps de-
cisive-factor in the outcome of the conflict.
The totalitarian nations had tested their air forces in combat during
the years immediately prior to 1939, and their action in the localized
struggles preceding the world conflict revealed trends and policies
which were to characterize their later conduct of the war. In the Far
East, Japan’s undeclared war against China, prosecuted vigorously
after 1937, and Russo-Manchurian border fighting in 1939 gave the
Japanese air forces an opportunity to gain valuable combat experience.
In Europe, the members of the Rome-Berlin Axis seized upon the
Spanish civil war of 1936-39 as a proving ground for their weapons,
while the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in the mid-thirties also involved
the use of warplanes in tactical experiments. These experiences gave
the totalitarian powers an initial advantage over the Allies. The U.S.
Army Air Corps made such efforts as were possible to keep informed
of developments among its potential enemies and allies and to assimi-
late the lessons which penetrated the veil of censorship. That veil was
particularly effective in concealing the activities and potentialities of
the Japanese air forces, and American air officials tended to under-
estimate those forces.
Japanese Air Power
The Japanese air forces, divided into separate army and navy air
arms, had developed under the influence of foreign aviation. In 191I
two Japanese army officers received air training in France, and they
were followed by a few more officers during the next two years. In
1919a French mission comprising some sixty airmen arrived in Japan
to assist in army air training; in the same year the army established an
aviation section. By 1920 the first military aviation school had been
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