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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.
“King”32 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 might enter the war, plans were developed to create by combined effort a huge pool of weapons to serve all anti-Axis nations according to their needs and capabilities. At the outset of the European war, the sale and export of munitions to belligerents were strictly curbed in the United States by the “neu- trality legislation” of the 1930’s.On 4 January 1939, President Roose- velt had pointed to a lesson from the immediate past: that “our neutrality laws may operate unevenly and unfairly-may actually give aid to an aggressor and deny it to the victim.” 8 9 As successive victories of Germany in Europe and of Japan in Asia made it appear expedient that we extend material aid to nations resisting them, neutrality restric- tions were progressively relaxed. The first step, the removal of the arms embargo feature, was urged by the President in July 1939 and again on 2 1 September; it was effected on 4 The new “Cash and Carry” act allowed belligerents to acquire arms within the United States by cash purchase. Effectively, of course, this applied only to the Allies, and for them the great productive capacity of the United States promised to be of prime importance. For the immediate future, however, aid would be limited; the munitions industry in the United States had only begun what was to be a tremendous growth, and excessive foreign orders would impede both its orderly expansion and that of our armed forces. The Air Corps had long favored the sale to foreign powers of its own tactical models and had attempted to liberalize War Department policy in that respect. Originally this was through no particular desire to aid any group of nations, and to a public made conscious of the horrors of war by the “Merchants of Death” sort of literature, it was not always popular. The Air Corps hoped, however, that quantity sales abroad of its own models would promote expansion of the aircraft industry without expense to the government, and would help defray the cost of research and development of new planes. Little military risk seemed to be involved, since we could stay ahead of any nation which depended on us for air weapons; and in neutral countries which did not support an aircraft industry the export of American military planes could prove a valuable diplomatic weapon against the Axis. Certain complex problems were inherent in such a policy: whether planes should be released only to designated nations or to all alike; how long a time lag to require between the acceptance of a new model and its release abroad; the degree of security which should be main- 1 2 8
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