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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 43 …cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to “sweep the Germans from the sky…
  • p. 46 …Mitchell never received an American air force commensurate with the ambitious idens of air power which…
  • p. 49 …This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was never equipped during…
  • p. 50 …the Army or the Air Corps?” but never, “Are you in the Army or the Corps…
  • p. 55 …any Air Service officers, and I have never heard anybody yet-any Air Service officer-against…
  • p. 69 …But one axiom, with its corollaries, never varied. T o him the airplane was first and…
  • p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be completely stopped, but their effects could best…
  • p. 94 …rate for the time being, the decision never- theless left an open question as to how…
  • p. 121 …large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300 aircraft a month. The pattern of…
  • p. 122 …the German Air Force, the Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in the…
  • p. 133 …Except for a few raids against French factories, the force had never been employed in a…
  • p. 140 …into a complete war economy production was never equal to the demands of our own forces…
  • p. 150 …Long-term needs of the Air Corps and the sudden availability of funds in quantities never…
  • p. 181 …Actually, the Air Staff had never approved of the method followed in RAINBOW No. 5 . l…
  • p. 217 …Members of the Hawaiian Air Force, who had never flown heavy bombers, began to receive intensive…
  • p. 219 …were not then satisfactory for permanent garrisons. Never- theless, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt…
  • p. 227 …T h e planes never reached their destination. Other bombardment units were being prepared for transfer…
  • p. 241 …responsible officers, a few crucial points have never been satisfactorily explained. T h e general pattern…
  • p. 277 …motors, sole- noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit- less search…
  • p. 288 …planners and from which AAF Headquarters was never to deviate. The translation of the accepted grand…
  • p. 303 …the principal features of the plan were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft…
  • p. 309 …W a r Plans Division was never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to…
  • p. 336 …the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane.g6It is…
  • p. 412 …As it happened, the B-24's never returned to India, but, instead, remained in the…
  • p. 457 …Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from…
  • p. 492 …Squadron was assigned, but which it would never reach, going from Australia to Tongatabu; ( 3 ) Christmas…
  • p. 500 …deck of a carrier presented a problem never before challenged by Army planes. Hence an accelerated…
  • p. 502 …the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been accomplished, yet now it…
  • p. 509 …Island, in the Louisiade Archipelago.” They were never needed, for on 7-8 May the two…
  • p. 513 …exist, it was at a point which never reached the aircrews, for on the operational level…
  • p. 524 …handicaps under which AAF planes had operated. Never were more than fourteen B- I 7’s…
  • p. 527 …AAF planners clung firmly to their belief that proper observance of economy of force would never…
  • p. 531 …Crews which had previously never loaded torpedoes now for the first time fitted these weapons into…
  • p. 544 …But the Japanese never at any time based their bombers in appreciable numbers a t either…
  • p. 548 …26's in torpedo-dropping, but they never would be put into All told, the record…
  • p. 556 …until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com- mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had…
  • p. 560 …pressed into service against the Germans," and never reached the CBI." Colonel Haynes had reached India…
  • p. 606 …reason that the Antilles Air Task Force never evolved, as did I Bomber Command, into an…
  • p. 614 …that reason deserving a high priority, could never dispose of the U-boat menace but must…
  • p. 635 …In Washington the Munitions Assign- ments Board t had never considered this schedule as more than…
  • p. 670 …they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never below 30,000. By AAF standards they had…
  • p. 672 …Goering had never put enough bombers over England, nor had he concentrated his forces on the…
  • p. 690 …of co-operation and combined action probably never before equaled by the military forces of two…
  • p. 729 …shoot at aerial targets, and several had never operated a turret in the air. This deficiency…
A I R W A R , 1 9 3 9 - 4 1
became engaged in bitter aerial fighting on several fronts. Hitler had
assumed personal control of all German military operations after
1940; in entering the desert fighting of North Africa, in sweeping
through the Balkans, and in opening the eastern front the Fuehrer
made extensive and effective use of the German Air Force in its ac-
customed role. By January 1941 the Luftwaffe had moved approxi-
mately 3 3 0 aircraft into Italy and Sicily, and on 1 8 January the
Germans inaugurated the first of a long series of heavy air attacks
on the island of Malta, a strategically located base for British opera-
tions in the Mediterranean. Before the end of the year, the island had
experienced its one-thousandth air alert but continued to withstand
the aerial pounding from the By using advanced bases in North
Africa, the Luftwaffe also began to strike at British forces in the Suez
Canal area and to participate more actively in the Western Desert
campaign. Early in April 1941 bombers were moved into the Balkans
in preparation for the next blitzkrieg. From bases in Hungary, Bul-
garia, and southern Germany, the Luftwaffe on 6 April began ex-
tensive operations in support of German ground forces against
Yugoslavia and Greece. British and Imperial forces, though fully oc-
cupied in North Africa, came to the aid of Greece; as in the Flanders
campaign of the previous spring, however, the German onslaught over-
powered all opposition, and Axis victories followed in rapid-fire suc-
cession. By the end of April, most of the British forces had been
evacuated from Greece, the Germans had entered Athens, and Luft-
waffe units had quickly moved forward to prepare for an airborne
attack against Crete. That attack came on 2 0 May with a spectacular
and successful demonstration of glider-borne and parachute troop op-
erations. After seizing key airdromes, the advance German forces
were supplied and reinforced by Junkers 5 2 troop carriers, while
Lufnvaff e bombers attacked the British who were attempting to
evacuate the island. By the first of June the British had been forced to
yield Crete to the invaders. With new bases in Greece and Crete, the
German Air Force was able to bring more strength to bear against
British forces in the Western Desert; and, upon the opening of a
British offensive in mid-June, the Luftwaffe for a brief period in-
creased its support of German ground forces in North A f r i ~ a . ~ '
Undoubtedly spurred by their successes in the Balkans and in the
Mediterranean, the Germans on 2 2 June I 94 I turned against the Soviet
Union and inaugurated an offensive along the 2,000-mile Russian
97

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.