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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
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 tion goals, of training schedules, and of provisions for new air instal- lations. T h e constant modification of plans was not conducive to steady development; but neither, for that matter, were the dispatches from Europe. Under the impact of each new threat from abroad the President called for new defense appropriations and set new produc- tion goals. Congress readily made available the funds requested and authorized the expansion recommended. But one item-time-not even a generous Congress could grant. Hence the whole story of Air Corps activity in the period 1939-41may be conceived as a race against time in a desperate effort to overtake Axis air forces which had long been on a war basis. T o make the most of the time available, the Air Corps scrapped or revised many procedures of long standing; “judicious shortcuts,” to use an Army locution, became the order of the day in procurement of materiel, in training, and in the development of air installations. Undoubtedly the emphasis on speed and quantity in all phases of expansion often led to a lowering of peacetime standards of acceptance; but this tendency was not carried to dangerous extremes and qualitative losses were more than offset by quantitative gains. T h e process, in short, was typical of American mass production, with all the merits and the flaws of that system. T h e aspect of expansion which was most eagerly followed by the American public was the rapid growth in the output of military air- craft. T h e seemingly miraculous accomplishments in this respect were essentially civilian rather than military. They were made possible through the fortunate combination of a highly adaptable industry, great national resources, and generous government aid; but the Air Corps played here a significant, if lesser, part. Contracts in 1939 were awarded on the basis of single-shift production, but factories moved steadily into a two-, then a three-shift schedule as more trained per- sonnel became available.’5 T h e Air Corps, along with the Office of Production Management, adopted various methods of acquainting manufacturers with new types of aeronautical equipment, of spread- ing production among more firms, and of increasing the capacity of the industry. “Educational orders” were placed with manufacturers, existing facilities were enlarged by the aid of government financing, and new plants were built by the government for operation by private firms. “Letter contracts” saved from one to three months in initiating the fabrication of aircraft by permitting manufacturers to purchase materials before a formal contract could be drawn up and signed. I 06
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