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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 less expected British production, should be referred to the Office of Production Management. British and U.S. military authorities in Washington should then suggest any modifications required by the realities of production potentials and fix the relative priorities of the various types of munition^."^ The Anglo-American mission, proceeding to Moscow, met with Stalin and his staff. On I October 1941,the first Soviet protocol was signed by Mr. W.A. Harriman, Lord Beaverbrook, and Foreign Com- missar Vyacheslav Molotov. The United States and Great Britain each agreed to furnish the Soviet Air Force, in the period ending 3 0 June 1942, with 1,800 aircraft.'"' The U.S. mission had included a number of air officers competent to offer technical advice, but details of the air section of the protocol were elaborated later in the month in Washington by General Arnold and Capt. H.H. Balfour, British Under Secretary of State for Air.'Og According to the London agree- ment, information concerning Soviet needs should have allowed the rapid completion of plans for the so-called Victory Program. There was hardly time in the crowded weeks before Pearl Harbor to co-ordi- nate the several estimates with industrial potentials, but those estimates were to form the basis of the Victory Program drawn up in the early days of the war. Future plans were of small help to the AAF in meeting current needs, now rendered most urgent by growing pessimism over the situation in the Pacific. Hence the task of maintaining firm and equi- table commitments for short-term allocation of aircraft became pro- gressively more difficult. At the Roosevelt-Churchill conference at sea in mid-August, Generals Marshall and Arnold had made agree- ments with the British concerning the number of AAF airplanes to be made available through lend-lease.' lo On 9 September, General Arnold's staff produced a new plan, AWPD/2, to cover the period I October 1941-30 June 1942. AWPD/z recommended that the pro- posed anti-Axis pool receive all aircraft produced under defense aid, all British and other foreign contract planes, and I 5 per cent of combat types built for the AAF. Out of an estimated total of 14,802 tactical planes, this would give the pool 9,708 (66 per cent) and the AAF 5,094 (34 per cent). This figure was considered the minimum defense requirement of the AAF; when it had been reached, 3 0 per cent of the AAF's orders might be diverted for foreign needs. The pool should be divided according to some such ratio as follows: British Common- ' 3 3
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