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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. 5 …Imprint N March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to the Director of the Bureau of…
  • p. 138 …1939-4I N 28 January 1938 President Roosevelt declared our national defenses inadequate in the face…
  • p. 141 …changed our requirements for defensive aviation,” President Roosevelt strongly urged that $300,- ooo,ooo be appropriated…
  • p. 153 …When President Roosevelt initiated the move toward re- I 16
  • p. 160 …T h e first step was made public on 3 September 1940 when President Roosevelt revealed…
  • p. 165 …These sentiments were expressed by President Roosevelt in a radio address on 3 September: “This Nation…
  • p. 169 …In an address to Congress on 6 January 1941, President Roosevelt suggested the means; 9 5…
  • p. 170 …O n 9 July 1941, President Roosevelt requested the secretaries of W a r and the…
  • p. 171 …The British had prepared, a t the instigation of President Roosevelt, an estimate of munitions requirements…
  • p. 173 …At the Roosevelt-Churchill conference at sea in mid-August, Generals Marshall and Arnold had made…
  • p. 174 …cent; other nations, 10 per cent.'" President Roosevelt, anxious that as many planes as possible be…
  • p. 185 …President Roosevelt’s request for the report had been motivated wholly by considerations of logistics. But…
  • p. 199 …On 5 July 1941 President Roosevelt, in oral orders to the Army Chief of Staff and…
  • p. 220 …and it carried a threat which President Roosevelt described in terms of the greatest danger faced…
  • p. 258 …conflict between Japan and the U.S. Roosevelt attempt curve our independence stop we all know…
  • p. 273 …President Roosevelt specifically directed that reinforcements should be sent there with all speed, and MacArthur was…
  • p. 282 …President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill with their chiefs of staff, then meeting in Washington, had…
  • p. 287 …evening, the British party met with President Roosevelt and his military and civilian advisers a t…
  • p. 297 …O n 3 January President Roosevelt sent Mr. Stimson a list of muni- tions, with a…
  • p. 301 …In his address to the Congress on 6 January, President Roosevelt promised that “we shall not…
  • p. 302 …Ultimate decisions on major military policies were taken by President Roosevelt, as Commander in Chief of…
  • p. 304 …Leahy as personal chief of staff to President Roosevelt in place of Admiral Stark.'* It was…
  • p. 322 …given to the nation by Presi- dent Roosevelt in a radio address on 9 D e…
  • p. 331 …At the end of January, President Roosevelt advised the President of Venezuela that, in deference to…
  • p. 332 …During the course of a fireside report to the nation delivered by President Roosevelt on 2…
  • p. 352 …Secretary Stimson reported to President Roosevelt his conviction that the planes from even one carrier could…
  • p. 366 …raised objections which seemed convincing.8 President Roosevelt decided to adopt the more modest proposal of…
  • p. 370 …Elliott Roosevelt during the summer on an aerial survey of the east coast of Greenland in…
  • p. 400 …Elliott Roosevelt and others failed to locate a suitable site for an airdrome.120A satisfactory site…
  • p. 409 …mobilizing the resources of the airlines, President Roosevelt had signed an executive order on 13 December…
  • p. 465 …for effective resistance in the Philippines, President Roosevelt had decided early in February that the general…
  • p. 480 …the basis of a proposal by President Roosevelt: there would be a separate Southwest Pacific Area…
  • p. 499 …Apparently President Roosevelt himself played a role in initiating the expedition, although it is not possible…
  • p. 553 …Lauchlin Currie had gone to China as economic adviser to President Roosevelt for study of her…
  • p. 630 …in a long cable from Churchill to Roosevelt, delivered on 5 March, in which the Prime…
  • p. 632 …plan was approved in principle by President Roosevelt, and on 8 April General Marshall and Harry…
  • p. 633 …message of 1 7 April, in- formed Roosevelt of his approval of the design; his sole…
  • p. 635 …A fortnight later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were alarmed by a query from Roosevelt as…
  • p. 640 …in Norway-and they understood that President Roosevelt’s anxiety to get U.S. troops into…
  • p. 641 …On 8 July the Prime Minister informed Roosevelt that conditions favorable to SLEDGE- HAMMER would probably…
  • p. 642 …on the ~ 4 t h . ~ ‘Ap- parently Roosevelt gave his tentative approval in a telephone conver…
  • p. 753 …This book shows the close relations between Roosevelt and the Committee T o Defend America by…
  • p. 755 …Address by President Roosevelt at Washington, 27 Oct. 1941, in Peace and War, pp. 767-72…
  • p. 756 …Ltr., Roosevelt to Stimson, 18 Sept. 1941,in WP I-General. I I I . Release of…
  • p. 774 …Memo for Roosevelt from Stim- son, 14 Mar. 1942. 163. lbid. 164. History, Sixth Air Force…
  • p. 776 …Elliott Roosevelt, zIst Recon. Sq. to TAG, 8 Sept. 1941; memo for Col. Olds from Capt…
  • p. 779 …Elliott Roosevelt to TAG, 6 July 1941; Atlantic Bridge, pp. 27-29. 117. Ltr., Sec. of…
  • p. 780 …Elliott Roosevelt to T A G , 3 Aug. 1941 (Report # 3 ) ; ltr., Capt. Elliott Roosevelt to…
  • p. 782 …Memo for S / W from President Roosevelt, 6 May 1942, in ATC 321. 199. On the…
  • p. 790 …Mills to TAG, Mac- Arthur for Roosevelt, 11 Feb. 1942; msg. #5, Australia to Marshall, 2…
  • p. 802 …President Roosevelt had approved the induction as early as 18 December 1941, contingent upon approval of…
  • p. 857 …See also Coolidge; Harding; Roosevelt; Wilson. Presque Isle, 344, 347-49, 641, 644-45 Press comment…
  • p. 858 …Erwin, 330, 339-41, 512 Roosevelt, Capt. Elliott, 3 18, 344 Roosevelt, Pres. F.D., 101…
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
Air power today has decided the fate of nations. Germany with her powerful
air armadas has vanquished one people after another. O n the ground, large
armies have been mobilized to resist her, but each time it was that additional
power in the air that decided the fate of each individual nation.. . . [As a con-
sequence] we are in the midst of a great crisis. T h e time factor is our principal
obstacle.43
This attitude was reflected in the sympathetic hearing accorded to
AAF problems by the highest officials of the W a r Department. In
commenting to Mr. Stimson in mid-1941 on the 500 per cent increase
in AAF tactical squadrons, General Marshall wrote: “I do not think
the public generally appreciates the vastness of the undertaking which
has been imposed upon the Air Corps in both personnel and ma-
teriel.” 44 That was almost an understatement.
T h e public could understand the announcement of a new goal for
aircraft production, for trained pilots, or for organized combat units;
rarely, one might suspect, did citizens consider the implications of
those increases in terms of their own occupations. What was required,
in civilian terms, was something like this: for a medium-sized college
to jump its graduating class from 300 to 50,000 students; for a manu-
facturer just recovering from the depression to step up his production
from 2,000 to 50,ooo items a year; for a firm doing business on a
national scale to expand its buildings and grounds by geometric rather
than arithmetic progression. All this within threc years and through
the leadership of a very limited number of trained administrators.
That progress was not smooth was all too apparent to those most in-
timately concerned-to the harried staff officer who saw each suc-
cessive program scrapped for another more difficult of attainment; to
the crew chief on the line whose team was constantly bled for cadres;
to the group commander attempting to build an effective organization
with green pilots and obsolete planes. It is little wonder that before
the period ended the war’s most expressive term-SNAFU-had been
coined. Yet for all the confusion, by 7 December 1941the AAF had
achieved a remarkable expansion, and the essential soundness of its
methods was to be manifested in its later development under war
conditions.
New Concepts of Hemisphere Defense
T h e expansion of the Army air arm which began in 1939 was mo-
tivated by considerations of hemisphere defense. T h e term was new,
the idea old. When President Roosevelt initiated the move toward re-
I 16

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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.