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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.
“Churchill”21 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 Newfoundland Airport at Gander Lake as soon as possible.68 T h e latter arrangement paid respect to the capabilities of such German bombers as the Heinkel I 17 and the obsolescent Heinkel I I I. Either had range sufficient to fly from Norway to Newfoundland and thence, with one refueling, to New York. Air Corps planes based at Gander Lake could patrol the northeast approaches to the hemisphere and could interdict Axis attempts to establish airfields on the continent or on Greenland, some 800 miles to the A second forward thrust of our defense outposts came on 9 April 1941with the signing of the United States-Danish agreement concern- ing Greenland. Since the German occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940, Greenland had been cut off from the mother country, but had maintained its allegiance to the royal government. T h e people of Greenland had early expressed the hope that the United States would continue to keep in mind the exposed position of the island.7oUnited States protection was warranted both by the Monroe Doctrine and the Act of Havana. Reconnaissance flights over the island by Luftwaffe aircraft and repeated German efforts to establish meteorological sta- tions there seemed to demand some action on our part; the Greenland coast was only 1,500 miles from Nazi bases in Norway, and weather reports from the island would have been helpful to the Luftwaffe in planning air operations against England. T h e joint agreement of April I 94 I clarified U.S. responsibilities in defending Greenland, while granting to the government of the United States the right to construct, maintain, and operate such landing fields and other facilities as might be necessary in fulfilling its obligations." A south Greenland survey expedition, composed of Army and Navy personnel, had sailed from the United States on 18 March 1941, and during the remaining spring months possible airfield sites were inspected and plans were made for establishing the needed stations." T h e fields, when finished, were to improve the northern air route to England, but their first purpose was defensive. Their completion had become a matter of urgency with a German air attack in February against Iceland, only 400 miles to the That attack argued too for the next eastward advance of the Ameri- can line of defense. Only by a geographical tour de force could Ice- land, lying athwart the twentieth meridian, be brought into the Western Hemisphere. But of its strategic importance there could be no doubt. In German hands it would have constituted a grave menace I 2 2
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