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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 Invaders”15 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 celona, where port facilities capable of handling as much traffic in one day as all the other Catalonian ports in ten days had been paralyzed, according to him, in a systematic offensive carried out by thirty bombers over a period of several months. But when all is said, there would appear to be more reason for regarding the Nationalist victory as an indication of the weakness of Loyalist forces than as proof of the tactical and technical soundness of the Italian Air Force.15 The U.S. Army Air Corps, at least, saw nothing in the aerial war- fare in Spain or in China to suggest the advisability of change in its own doctrines. In both conflicts the combatants employed relatively small numbers of aircraft, and the bomber appeared to be regarded chiefly as a means of intensifying artillery fire and of increasing its range. In the few instances of strategic bombing, the number of planes employed was so small as to preclude the possibility of really signifi- cant results. As for the matter of individual technique, little emerged from the fighting in Spain or in China that was not already known as a result of the aerial activity of World War I.I6 The Italian Air Force, closely watched by air strategists in the United States and elsewhere, again had failed either to prove or to disprove the doctrines of Douhet. When Italy entered World War I1 in June 1940, just a few days prior to the collapse of France, Mussolini hoped that the Regia Aero- nautica with its approximately 2,600 first-line aircraft would prove a dominating factor in control of the Mediterranean. The hope was not fulfilled, for numerous weaknesses in the Italian Air Force rapidly came to light, and the force began its descent from the fairly respect- able reputation which it had held among the air forces of the leading world powers. Italy’s aircraft industry was unequal to the demands of large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300 aircraft a month. The pattern of air force organization proved to be unstable and unwieldy in widespread operations. Training and morale were on a low level, and the temperament of the Italian airman tended to stress individual exploits rather than accomplishments of the group. Much of the equipment of the air force was obsolescent, while poor maintenance kept many of the planes on the ground. A great portion of the strength of the Regia Aeronautica was committed to the fight- ing in Africa, where the Italians attempted in vain to rout the British from their positions in the northern part of the continent. Initial Italian successes in the campaign were soon followed by the disintegration of Italian East Africa, and in the first retreat in Libya the Italians lost 84
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