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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 supported by charts and tables than those of the older services. That the AAF made a separate report was most unusual; it was also highly significant. Within the War Department, responsibility for giving effect to the President’s directive, in respect both to the Army’s ground and air arms, devolved upon the War Plans Division. Late in July, Lt. Col. Clayton L. Bissell, an air officer in that division, consulted with General Arnold on the best method of determining the Army’s avia- tion needs. It was indicative of the temper of the AAF that, in spite of its limited autonomy under AR 95-5 of 2 0 June 1941,* a decision was reached to allow the newly formed Air War Plans Division to prepare the estimate independently as an Air Staff agency rather than as individuals subordinate to the General Staff’s WPD. And AWPD was not as unprepared for the task as might be expected in view of its extreme youth. It included a number of officers, previously associ- ated with the Air Corps Tactical School, who were deeply imbued with the potentialities of air power. One of these, Maj. Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., had accumulated target information in the intelligence section of the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps and had just returned from England with fresh data and a familiarity with RAF experience. Actual authorship of a military document is seldom known. A number of officers from the several staff agencies of the AAF, including the OCAC, contributed information which went into AWPD/I. But the document was put together by a committee con- sisting of Col. Harold L. George, division chief, Lt. Col. Kenneth N. Walker, and Majs. Laurence S. Kuter and Haywood S. Hansell, and apparently these airmen were chiefly responsible for the strategic concepts.’ 38 Work on the plan began on 4 August; completed on the I Ith, it was accepted by G-3 after an oral presentation and drawn up in final form the following day. Subsequently it was approved by WPD, General Arnold, General Marshall, Mr. Lovett, and Mr. Stimson, and was included in the Joint Board’s report of I I September.13’ Perhaps its ready acceptance was partly due to the pressure of time in meeting the President’s directive, for irrespective of the intrinsic merits of AWPD/I, the views expressed therein were not wholly consistent with those of the W a r Department. Tacitly, though not legally, the * See above, p. 1x5. 146
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