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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 Wash”17 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 assume novel forms, not always frontal in character. Hemisphere de- fense was dependent upon a few strategic areas which, if widely dispersed, were highly concentrated internally: the New England- New York-Norfolk area, the Great Lakes industrial region, the “SOO” locks, the West Coast aircraft factories, the Panama Canal. Any of those might be endangered by the new methods of attack. By taking control of French or English colonial possessions, victorious Axis powers might lodge themselves at the very threshold of either Ameri- can continent. Certain of the Latin-American nations seemed to offer a fertile field for Nazi techniques of infiltration and engineered revo- lution. With or without such political preliminaries, the air weapon had ominous potentialities. German bombers of known types could not operate directly from Europe to the United States, but they could reach Newfoundland from Norway or Brazil from Africa. From se- cretly prepared fields they could strike a t key positions either with bombs or with paratroopers. The presence in several Latin-American states of German airlines and the Nazi practice of mounting air opera- tions with the aid of “students” and “tourists” and “civilian tech- nicians” caused grave concern for the security of the Panama Canal. And finally, the increasing tension in the Far East and Japan’s known strength in carriers called attention to the vulnerability of the Pacific approaches to the hemisphere. In January 1939 the President had spoken of the “new range and speed to offense.” 4 9 In his request to Congress for additional defense appropriations on 16 May 1940, he enlarged upon that theme, enu- merating the new forms of attack and paying special tribute to of- fensive air power. Facing the new threats, “the American people must recast their thinking about national protection.” Under the new dis- pensation, national defense was possible only through total hemisphere defense. And, “Defense cannot be static.. . . Defense must be dynamic and flexible.” 5 0 This was a language the Air Corps understood. From the days of Billy Mitchell, its leaders had advocated a defense thrusting far from our shores.” Originally this had meant the use of a mobile striking force to intercept an enemy approaching by sea. The Navy had bit- terly resented Air Corps intrusion into what had been its special mission. The Joint Action of the Army and Navy of 1935, though none too precise in its delimitation of responsibilities, had minimized * See above, Chap. 2. I 1 8
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