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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 Invaders”15 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 to shipping in the North Atlantic, and to Greenland and the North American continent as well. In friendly hands it could serve as an air and naval base for protection of convoy lanes and as a convenient link in the northern air route between the United States and Britain. It was a realization of these factors which had led England to occupy Iceland in May 1940,and which later persuaded the United States government to share British responsibilities there. On 7 July I 947, President Roose- velt transmitted to Congress the text of communications between this government and that of Iceland, and announced the arrival on the island of US. Navy At the suggestion of Iceland, the United States had agreed to supplement and eventually to replace the British garrison. The terms of the agreement assured full recognition of the sovereignty, independence, and interests of Iceland, and stipulated specifically that “sufficient airplanes for defensive purposes” would be deployed on the island. The first AAF aircraft arrived on 6 August 1941.‘~Planning for the relief of British troops had begun in June, when US. military and naval observers stationed at London had made a survey of the island. The first American ground troops were dis- patched in September, but again war caught us far short of our With the occupation of Iceland, the United States had pushed the periphery of its North Atlantic defenses to its ultimate position. The eastward march of the successive steps taken in 1940-41 pointed logically as well as geographically to Britain, and in 1941 we had already made plans to utilize that island as a base against Germany should we go to war.” But that use could not be considered defensive save in the very broadest sense. Meanwhile, defense bases in the Caribbean and South Atlantic areas were being moved outward in a similar fashion. The Caribbean Sea was shaped somewhat in the fashion of a very flat wedge of pie; its sides, the coasts of Central and South America, converged a t the Panama Canal, now rendered doubly important by the increased duties of the US. Navy in two oceans. The edge of the crust was formed by the Greater and Lesser Antilles. Their arc threw a bold protecting bastion around the north and east of the sea, and Army airmen had long advocated the establishment of an air base on Puerto Rico, our most important possession in the chain. The emergency of 1940caught us with no preparation there, however, and air defense of the canal g0al.75 * See below, pp. 137-41, 147-49. ‘ 2 3
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