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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.
“United Press”36 pages
A I R W A R , 1 9 3 9 - 4 1 on a larger scale, and personnel were rotated frequently in order to give combat experience to more a i ~ m e n . ~ In the Russo-Manchurian border fighting which broke oiit in May 1939, the Japanese Army Air Force received a much more severe and devastating test of its strength. T h e Soviet Air Force, designed p i - marily as an immediate support to the Red army, administered a resounding defeat to the Japanese force, which committed almost its entire strength to the engagement and lost approximately 500 planes and 150 pilots. According to the Japanese, their losses were worth while because they brought about important changes in organization, training, and tactics. These changes, however, were accompanied by no marked departure from existing concepts of air warfare, and the chief development came in an accelerated rate of expansion.' As the border fighting ended in September 1939, the poor record of the Japanese Army Air Force led foreign observers to conclude that the army's force was inferior in both training and efficiency to the naval air force. There was some justification for such a belief. Training in the army flying schools was devoted almost exclusively to pilots, and training of other air crewmen was largely neglected until their assignment to tactical units. T h e navy, on the other hand, gave closer attention to the training of all members of the crew, and by 1941 its training program was designed to turn out annually some t ,500 navigators, bombardiers, gunners, and flight engineers. At the same time, the navy was training about 2 , 0 0 0 pilots a year, while the army was turning out pilots at the rate of approximately 7 5 0 a year. In equipment, too, the army air force lagged behind the navy air force. T h e latter possessed some excellent four-engine patrol bombers, while the army had nothing heavier than a two-engine bomber. Prior to 7 December I 94 I the army air force flew almost exclusively over land, and its longest-range bombers had an operational radius of only some 500 miles. T h e navy's force had been trained to operate over water with a radius of about 800 miles. Both forces, however, had a number of well-tried torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and level bombers, reconnaissance and transport planes, and several models of the Zero fighter-a fast, highly maneuverable but somewhat vulnerable plane with a maximum speed of approximately 350 miles per hour." T h e * The Japanese made no use of the manufacturer's name in the designation of their aircraft, possibly because two or more manufacturers not uncommonly produced the same type plane. Their type numbers instead corresponded to the last one or two 79
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