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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.
“Pacific Ocean”16 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 mitments, supplies were to be divided equally between the British and the Soviets.11 Whether stated in specific terms or in percentage, the import of these schedules was the same. On the very eve of war the AAF was working under an allocation system which made impossible the early achievement of its 54-group program. T h e principle which since sum- mer of 1940 had favored aid to the Allies over the needs of our own air arm was clear enough; as the Slessor Agreement put it, allocations of air materiel to the using services should be governed by their respec- tive abilities to “absorb it usefully.” Obviously the most useful em- ployment of a weapon is in combat, and in the broad view the policy seemed justified by the time it afforded us. Perhaps the policy might have been modified had it been realized earlier that war would come in 1941;efforts to increase heavy bombardment strength in the Pacific seem to suggest this. Much of the AAF’s loss to foreign services was in “futures,” but actual diversions and the difficulty of systematic development in the face of constantly fluctuating allotments help explain its far-from-perfect preparedness on M-day. W a r was to bring no easy solution to the problems of aid to the Allies, but it was to bring a sharp revision in aircraft allocation schedules. Strategic Plans Not least important of our defense measures was the formulation of strategic and operational plans. This activity was intimately associated with the other phases of our preparations for war, and like them was profoundly influenced by events in Europe and Asia. Again the summer of 1940 may be viewed as a turning point in our national policies. Before that season the US. service staffs had been at work on a number of alternative plans, each based on a different set of contin- gencies. T h e planners were concerned only with the mission of the US. Army and Navy, but they had to assume potential allies as well as potential enemies. Until the spring of 1940, we could be confident that in a war against the Axis we would enjoy powerful support from the British and French; after Dunkirk, the prospect was less sanguine. Germany and Italy controlled, as conquered territory or as satellite states, much of Europe; Spain was friendly to the Axis, the U.S.S.R. bound by nonaggression treaties. T h e Tripartite Pact, signed at Berlin on 2 7 September 1940, which brought Japan into the Axis gave official notice of an alliance already suspected. In view of the collapse of ‘ 3 5
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