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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 to continue. In an address to Congress on 6 January 1941, President Roosevelt suggested the means; 9 5 it became law with the defense-aid act of 11 March, generally known as the Lend-Lease Under this arrangement air materiel continued to be the most important item of export, and it was essential to the success of the Air Corps program that allocations under the new act be constantly reviewed in the light of “changing political and strategic conditions.” In the machinery set up for administering lend-lease, the Joint Aircraft Committee was designated to serve as the Defense Aid Supply Committee for all avia- tion materiel. The JAC thus acquired important administrative respon- sibilities, but the broad policies governing the allotment of aid were determined by the Pre~ident.~‘The fundamental policy for aircraft was established within a few weeks, though the administrative details continued to be subject to constant modification. In the first lend-lease directive, the President extended its benefits to Great Britain,g8thereby initiating the most powerful of the “measures short of war” to aid that nation. It was not at all certain, however, that such measures would be sufficient or that the United States could main- tain its neutrality. On 27 March, Congress authorized the appropriation of $7,000,000,000 for lend-lea~e.~~On the same day, committees repre- senting the U.S. and British service staffs, which had been studying jointly the best means of military collaboration if the United States should join in the war, presented their first report (known as ABC-I) on the grand strategy to be followed in a possible Anglo-American war against the Axis.” T w o days later a second report, on air collabora- tion, was submitted.100Known as ABC-2, this report recommended that aircraft production be accelerated in both countries. As its first objective, the United States should accomplish the AAF’s 54-group program, with the view of employing a substantial portion of those groups from England if America entered the war. The AAF should set up as a further goal a program calling for roo groups, considered the minimum requirement if the British Isles should be lost as a base for our air forces. But it was also recommended that delivery of tactical airplanes be made contingent upon the ability of the several services to use them effectively and that therefore the AAF should defer the full realization of its 54-group program to the extent that aircraft thus made available could be used in the air offensive against Germany. Essen- tially, this was an extension of the policy agreed on the previous July. * See below, pp. 136-39. 1 3 0
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