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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 factories” were ready to go into production to supplement the exist- ing aircraft industry. At the moment the British did not possess the means to carry out a strategic offensive against Germany, but it was hoped that the badly ournumbered RAF would be able to hold off any German air assault until its own offensive could be inaugurated. The initial burden of the air war with Germany therefore fell to the Fighter Command. During late 1939 and early 1940, German air action against Britain consisted largely of mine-laying operations to the east of the British Isles, while the RAF carried pamphlets instead of bombs to Germany. An air contingent had gone to France with the British Expeditionary Force, but with the exception of the action at Dunkirk, the per- formance of the RAF on the continent gave outsiders little suggestion of its real caliber. Conclusive proof of its technical superiority and of its staying power awaited the Battle of Britain-a contest fought wholly in the air and one of the truly decisive battles of history. By the summer of 1940 the breath-taking advance of German forces had destroyed all effective resistance in France and seemingly presented to the Nazis an inviting opportunity to establish beyond question their control of all western Europe by invasion of an ill- prepared Britain. In fact, the Germans were less well prepared to seize the opportunity that lay before them than were the British to fend off such attacks as came. Though the Luftwaffe urged an im- mediate invasion, its commanders could not promise security for supply lines across the English Channel against the Royal Navy. The German navy was unable to provide such a guarantee, and, moreover, it lacked necessary equipment for moving an invading force across the intervening waters. The army itself, caught unprepared, required time for preparation and was reluctant to move without more ade- quate assurance from naval and air force^.^' Immediate invasion ap- pearing therefore to be inadvisable, the Germans decided to use the Luftwaffe as a strategic air force against the British Isles, with the hope that Britain would surrender or that at least an invasion would be made less difficult. Preliminary to the battle, the Germans made sporadic raids during July and the first week of August 1940 in order to feel out British defenses.34 The Luftwaffe by this time was equipped with 1,100 fighters and 840 bombers in operational condition, and the German aircraft industry continued to turn out approximately 500 combat 94
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