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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 Apparently the report was not officially approved at the governmental level; yet in spirit if not in letter, its principles served as a guide to aircraft allocation. T h e decision was not an easy one to make. It promised to retard further the limping 54-group program, considered our minimum requirement for defense. A narrow view, or one motivated by pessi- mism concerning England’s chance of survival, might have suggested that we arm ourselves first, then extend aid. T h e situation in the Pacific lent support to such an attitude. T h e policy actually followed, how- ever, had been described in the President’s “Arsenal of Democracy” radio address of 29 December 1940: “AS planes. . . are produced, your Government, with its defense experts, can then determine how best to use them to defend this hemisphere. T h e decision as to how much shall be sent abroad and how much shall remain at home must be made on the basis of our over-all military necessities.” lo’ T h e only satis- factory solution lay in the increased production recommended in ABC-2. New estimates, submitted in &/lay by the W a r Plans Division of the General Staff to satisfy the contingencies anticipated in ABC-2, called for 4,200 planes a month for the AAF and the British, 800 for the US.Navy.’’’ This would total 60,000 aircraft a year, some 10,000 more than the President’s goal which was far from being realized. Nevertheless, a new long-term objective and a new principle of col- laboration in satisfying munitions requirements were soon to be projected. O n 9 July 1941, President Roosevelt requested the secretaries of W a r and the Navy to prepare for him an estimate of “over-all produc- tion requirements required to defeat our potential enemies,” on the basis of which the Office of Production Management could relate our military needs to the practical realities of production facilities. In compliance, the secretaries presented on I I September a Joint Board Estimate of United States Over-All Production Requirements. T h e section dealing with Army air needs had been prepared by the newly created Air W a r Plans Division, in a document known as AWPD/r. T h e estimate of forces required for accomplishing the AAF mission was based on a plan to develop first an interim air force with models now in production or in advanced stages of development, and even- tually, by 1944, to produce a force including an experimental bomber with a 4,000-mile radius. Requirements included: trainers, 37,os I ; tactical planes, interim force, 2 2,676; tactical planes, ultimate force, 1 3 1
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