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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.
“Cairo”26 pages
T H E A I R C O R P S P R E P A R E S F O R W A R , 1 9 3 9 - 4 1 Competitive bidding was supplemented by the more rapid procedure of direct negotiation of contracts. In general the Air Corps profited by its long and intimate association with the aircraft industry. Friendly personal relations made for mutual confidence, and reliance upon a telephone conversation or a quick airplane trip frequently obtained results which would have required weeks of formal correspondence. Some of the new methods were more expensive than the traditional ones, but by 1940 the nation, though it is now easily forgotten, had more money than time. In some ways the Air Corps was able to exert a direct influence on speeding up production. Standardization of aeronautical equipment was one method. This subject had been under study by the Army arid Navy for more than a decade. Joint efforts toward standardization had begun with such minor items as nuts, bolts, and pressure pumps. By the time rearmament began the Army and Navy were procuring aircraft engines from two major contractors under terms which made most models equally acceptable to either service. Further efforts were made toward standardization of aircraft and related materiel used in common by the US. and British services. Such a policy was advantage- ous to both manufacturers and purchasers; it facilitated mass produc- tion, lessened confusion for the producer, and reduced overhead costs. Again, the Air Corps was able to reduce the long delays usually ex- perienced in testing new models for acceptance. An accelerated serv- ice-test procedure was instituted whereby experienced crews in relays gave an airplane 1 5 0 hours of almost continuous flight with a full military load. This system brought to light in one month defects which formerly might have required a year of service testing for discovery.16 These speed-up measures had begun with the initial appropriations for Air Corps expansion and had been intensified as US. and British demands increased. The 1939 Air Corps objective of 5,500 planes was soon raised to 10,000.Then on 1 6 May 1940, with the extension of the war in western Europe, the President called for an annual output of 50,000 aircraft and a total Army and Navy strength of the same number of planes; approved figures provided 36,500 for the Army, I 3,500 for the Navy." T h e American aircraft industry was asked, in essence, to expand from its normal capacity of some 2 , 0 0 0 planes a year to more than 4,000 a month. Aircraft production in 1940 showed an increase of 2 5 0 per cent over that of the previous year.18 T h e chief '07
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