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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 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 the role of the Army air arm in the interception of enemy naval force^,'^ but that mission had been a leading factor in the Air Corps’ emphasis on the long-range bomber. N o w the new threats to hemi- sphere security added less debatable obligations, which the Air Corps proposed to meet with a force of heavy bombers. Actually, Army air leaders had anticipated somewhat the President’s public statements of our changing concepts of defense. In June 1938, the Air Corps Board had begun a study on the “Air Corps Mission under the Monroe Doctrine.” 5 2 During the following March basic air doctrines were restated, so that the most important task became defense against air attacks, to be achieved by the “destruction of enemy aviation at its bases.” 53 In June 1940, the Air Corps described its role in hemisphere defense as entailing six specific missions in the following order of importance: to ( I ) deny the establishment of hostile air bases in the Americas; ( 2 ) defeat hostile air forces lodged in the hemisphere by attacking their bases; ( 3 ) defeat hostile air forces by aerial combat; (4) prevent the landing of expeditionary forces by attacking trans- ports and supply ships; ( 5 ) co-operate with the mobile army in ground operations; and ( 6 ) operate in support of or in lieu of US. Navy forces against hostile fleet^.'^ In each case the statement of doctrine was made to guide the ex- penditure of funds authorized to the Air Corps for meeting its new obligations. T h e accepted concept of the air mission which subordi- nated local air defense and close support of ground forces to long- range counterair activities was reflected in the practical measures taken. Units of the GHQ Air Force did participate, with the inade- quate equipment available, in Army maneuvers in I 940-41, and by the time war came, the AAF had taken certain steps, largely modeled on British experience, for local air defense of certain vital areas.” But the main concern of Army airmen was in defense at a distance by means of the mobile striking force. This demanded, as they reiterated on numerous occasions, a wider radius of action, which could be achieved by increasing the range of their bombers and acquiring new bases, strategically located. In the summer of 1938 our best heavy bomber was the B-17, with a theoretical useful radius of 1,000 miles; a new experimental model, the XB-I 5, seemed to promise better perform- ance. T h e Air Corps Board in October recommended as a minimum requirement a 1,500-mile bomber.55 In June 1939, another air board * See below, Chap. 8. 1 ‘9
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