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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.
“United Press”36 pages
F O R E W O R D final form and production of which the Sources and Editorial Branch also assumed responsibility, approximately ninety had been completed by the summer of 1946. And since that time the Office of Air Force History has continued to prepare, under the direction of Dr. Albert F. Simpson as Air Force Historian, narratives and monographs designed ultimately to round out the many-sided story of the AAF. During the later stages of the war the Historical Office enjoyed the assistance of a special advisory committee, consisting of Professors Richard A. Newhall of Williams College (chairman), Joseph R. Strayer of Princeton University, and John A. Krout of Columbia University. This committee offered helpful advice and counsel that proved to be of special value in the planning of this history. Any brief account of the sort here attempted unavoidably reduces the problem to simpler terms than it actually presented to those who first faced it. The task was a new one and had to be undertaken with- out the benefit of any established tradition either in the Army Air Forces or in the other armed services as to the kind of history desired; necessarily the job was learned in the doing of it. Necessarily, too, the project was carried forward with by no means the highest priority in the hurried atmosphere of a military headquarters, and it depended for its support upon men who had a war to win before they could devote much time to the recording of it. The degree of interest shown naturally tended to vary as between one commanding general and another, a difference inevitably reflected in the accomplishments of the historical officer, but fortunately the Air Staff in Washington set for other commands a most helpful standard of policy. T w o principles received its consistent support throughout the war: ( I ) that the job should be intrusted only to professionally qualified personnel and ( 2 ) that this personnel should have full access to all AAF records neces- sary to the accomplishment of its task. The historian was thus given a challenging opportunity, and in return he welcomed the increasing number of instances in which he had occasion to demonstrate the practical value of a well-ordered historical record to the immediate needs of the staff. The procurement and assignment of qualified personnel was in itself a problem of no mean proportions. In keeping with established military usage, the preparation of each command’s history became a command responsibility. The AAF Historical Office was limited, therefore, in the control it could exercise over historical activity in ...Xlll
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