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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.
“King”32 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 ally qualified historians at those points in the chain of command at which the record tended to find a natural consolidation and through their services to raise the standard of already established procedures of historical reporting. In the establishment of its own procedures the Historical Office came to rely chiefly on the preparation of a historical narrative or monograph, depending upon the nature of the subject, and the attach- ment thereto of copies of documents of outstanding importance. The latter practice was usually dispensed with in the office itself, where the documents used presumably would be available again in con- veniently accessible files and exact citation in the study, with an occa- sional appendix, would provide the assistance needed by a historian having reason to go back over the ground. But, in developing a system of historical reporting from other headquarters, the “supporting docu- ments” received an emphasis equal, generally speaking, to that placed on the narrative itself. T h e narrative was designed to serve as a means for supplementing the record and at the same time as a device for reducing it to some readily usable form. It was also regarded as serving the purpose of a guide to the larger record from which it had been drawn. And, until an opportuniry for fuller study was offered, it would serve as an interim history. T h e term “first narrative,” bor- rowed from the RAF, was frequently used to describe it. It will be evident from the foregoing that the Historical Office interpreted its wartime assignment to be that not so much of preparing a history in the proper sense as rather of selecting, assembling, and organizing for immediate and subsequent use a comprehensive but physically manageable historical record. Vital to the fulfilment of its mission, therefore, was the organization of its own historical files as a central depository for the narratives, monographs, unit histories, and other documentary materials forwarded through channels by the several headquarters. Under the supervision of Lt. Col. Bayrd Still as chief of the Sources and Editorial Branch, the files became with the passing of time an increasingly rich collection for study of the air war. Its organization presented a problem of peculiar difficulty, for the materials in order to serve their purpose had to be put to immediate use by researchers and writers. As the flow of historical reports from the theaters and subordinate commands increased, studies prepared by the Historical Office itself were marked by an increasing balance and completeness of coverage. Of these AAF Historical Studies, for the xii
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