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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 The Italian Air Force In the theory of aerial warfare and in the organization of their air forces the Italians were much further advanced than the Japanese. Following World War I, Italian aviation had sunk to a low level of efficiency and strength. By 1922 their first-line aircraft, approximately I 00 in number, were becoming obsolete. But when Mussolini came to power in that year, he instituted a series of changes designed to build a powerful air arm. Making the air force independent of the army and the navy, Mussolini established a separate air ministry with himself as Air Minister.’ The new office, which had control over the placing of all orders for aircraft in Italy, encouraged the development of new models and began to place into production the two most promising designs offered in any one competition. By 1939 some twenty-nine firms in Italy were producing aircraft, while six firms were manufac- turing aircraft engines.lO By this time the Air Ministry had steered the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) through a number of reorgani- zations to meet the expanding demands of Italy’s aggressive policy. When the country became an active participant in World War 11, the Regia Aeronautica was organized into four parts: an independent air force, army co-operation units, a naval air service, and a colonial air force.” For their air doctrines, the Italians depended almost entirely on the thinking of their noted Gen. Giulio Douhet. It was Douhet’s belief that the airplane had revolutionized the nature of war. As opposed to land and sea operations, in which the defensive attitude was easier than the offensive, aerial operations were carried out in a medium which facilitated offensive action. No longer would warfare be confined to armies on the field of battle or to vessels on the high seas; according to Douhet, the total population now became the belligerents, and victory could result only from the total application of a nation’s material and moral resources and the exhaustion of those resources of the enemy. He emphasized the necessity for swift and decisive destruction from the air, the rapidity of the successive attacks not allowing for material repairs or recovery of morale. This doctrine reflected Italy’s economic weakness and a vulnerable geographic position; for while her position in the Mediterranean was potentially dominating, it was also danger- ously exposed, and her economic resources were decidedly limited. Italy’s best chance of success in warfare therefore seemed to lie in a 8 2
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