The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

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
In an earlier context,” reference was made to the Joint Board Esti-
mate of United States Over-All Production Requirements of I I Sep-
tember 1941. President Roosevelt’s request for the report had been
motivated wholly by considerations of logistics. But the Joint Board
had rightly deemed it impracticable to arrive at any realistic figures
on forces and munitions needed for total war without a previous
agreement as to national military policy. Consequently, the document
when presented contained four parts: a report by the board on the
strategy best calculated to defeat the enemy, and separate estimates
by the Army, the Navy, and the Army Air Forces of their respective
needs in personnel and materiel.
In its judgments concerning the enemy’s capabilities and in its
analysis of our own strategy, the Joint Board followed the general
tenor of ABC-I. In spite of the entrance of the U.S.S.R. into the war,
the board was convinced that Germany and her allies could not be
defeated by the powers now resisting them. Hence to insure that
defeat it would “be necessary for the United States to enter the war,
and to employ a part of its armed forces in the Eastern Atlantic and
in Europe or Africa.” T h e services were not, however, in whole-
hearted agreement as to how those forces should be applied. T h e U.S.
Navy considered that “since the principal strength of the Associated
Powers is at present in naval and air categories, the strategy which
they should adopt should be based on the effective employment of
these forces, and the employment of land forces in regions where
Germany can not exert the full power of her land armies.” lS9T o
fulfil its mission, the Navy asked for I,IOO,OOOmen plus 150,ooo for
the Marine Corps and a fleet built around 3 2 battleships and 24 car-
r i e r ~ . ’ ~ ~T h e Army believed that “the foregoing strategy may not
accomplish the defeat of Germany and that it may be necessary to
come to grips with the German armies on the continent of
Europe.” 135 It was on the basis of this concept of strategy that the
Army made its estimate of personnel (6,745,658 men, exclusive of the
AAF) and materiel.136
In respect to the proper strategy, the Army air arm took a position
somewhat between these divergent views, but with decided implica-
tions of its own. T h e AAF entered a plea for 2, I 64,9 I 6 men and some
60,000 combat planes,137and to justify so large a request they pre-
sented an operational plan much fuller in detail and more elaborately
* See above, pp. 131-32.
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