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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
A I R W A R , 1939-41 approximately 1 , 2 0 0 aircraft. The Italian Air Force clearly had not been prepared for the defensive war which it was forced to fight. Although the efficiency of the force thereafter increased slightly under the stimulus of its working partner, the German Air Force, the Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in the outcome of prolonged hostilities. The fundamental weakness of the Italian Air Force was not in its theory of air power, which later events proved to be essentially sound, but rather in its inability to make proper application of that theory.“ The German Air Force Germany possessed by far the most formidable air force of the three totalitarian nations. Following World War I, German aviation had been virtually abolished by the Treaty of Versailles. Determined to rebuild their military aviation, however, the Germans found ways of circumventing and then openly violating the terms of the Versailles agreement.18 Since the treaty had not prohibited German manufac- ture of commercial aircraft except for a brief period of six months, the German aircraft industry soon began to revive. In 1922 and again in 1924limitations were placed on the number of civil aircraft which the Germans might manufacture, and representatives of the allied nations also laid down more specific rules defining the term “military aircraft” as used in the Treaty of Versailles. These restrictions had little effect, for German aircraft manufacturers promptly established subsidiary companies in neutral countries, where the production of aircraft could proceed without regard to limitations. Factories were built by Junkers in Russia, Sweden, and Turkey, by Rohrback in Denmark, by Heinkel in Sweden, and by Dornier in Italy and Switzerland. The lid was officially removed in May 1926, when the Paris Air Agreement with- drew all limitations on the number and size of commercial aircraft which Germany might build, though the bans on military aviation and on the subsidization of sporting aviation remained.lg It was therefore under the guise of commercial aviation that the German Air Force began its recovery. T h e German Republic estab- lished a ministry of transport with an aviation department which had authority over all civilian aeronautics. Headed by a former officer of the German Air Force, the aviation department sought to promote the growth of “civilian” airlines, the advancement of aeronautical science, and the development of interest in aviation among the German people. 85
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