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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.
“The Wash”17 pages
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 planes were hybrids of foreign designs, with German influence being particularly noticeable after 1936 when Japan threw in her lot with Germany by signing the Anti-Comintern Pact.' By 7 December 1941Japanese air strength consisted of some 2,700 aircraft assigned to fully trained air units. Approximately 6,000 pilots had been graduated from air schools or training units, 3,500 of which were assigned to the navy and the remainder to the army. About 50 per cent of the army pilots had been in combat either in China or in the border fighting against the Soviet Air Force, while 10 per cent of land-based navy pilots had participated in the Chinese operations. Some 600 of the best navy pilots were assigned to aircraft carrier units. In contrast to the 2 0 0 hours in primary, basic, and advanced training then being given to Air Corps cadets in the United States, the Japanese pilots were receiving about 300 hours in training units before being assigned to tactical units. The average first-line Japanese pilot in 1941 had about 600 flying hours, and the average pilot in the carrier groups which were destined to begin hostilities against the United States had over 800 hours. Though somewhat discounted by officials of other nations, the Japanese air forces had now reached a peak of efficiency, a t any rate in their first-line strength, which gave them a commanding position in the Pacific. There were, however, certain fundamental weaknesses. In their approach to the problems of air warfare, the Japanese took a limited view of its possibilities. T o the ground force officers who commanded digits of the year of issue according to the Japanese calendar, by which the year 1940 was the Japanese year 2,600. Thus the planes brought into use during 1939 were designated as type 9 and those issued in 1940 were type 0. A t first only one type 0 aircraft-the Mitsubishi type 0 single-engine fighter used by both the Japanese army and navy-was widely known to American pilots and called the Zero. When, in the fall of 1942, the Americans began to meet other type 0 aircraft, however, they gave up identification by serial numbers in favor of short, easily pronounced code names. By this nomenclature the more important of Japan's tactical aircraft came to be known as follows: the Mitsubishi type 0 single-engine fighter (made also by Nakajima) became the Zeke, its float-plane counterpart the Rufe, the Nakajima type 97 single- engine army and navy fighter the Nate, and the Nakajima type I single-engine fighter the Oscar; the type 97 bomber made by both Nakajima and Mitsubishi became the Kate, the type 99 Aichi dive bomber was called the Val, and the Mitsubishi twin- engine medium bombers types 96, 97, and I were named the Nell, Sally, and Betty; the types 97 and 98 Mitsubishi light bombers became the Babs and Sonia; the two principal four-engine flying boats in use during 1942, the types 97 and z Kawankhi, were designated as the Mavis and Emily; and the type D-z transport (the Douglas DC-z adaptation) was named the Tess, while the Mitsubishi type 0 transport became known as the Topsy. 80
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