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

F O R E W O R D
ters, ATC. Capt. Alfred Goldberg, after working on the histories
of the VIII Air Force Service Command and Air Service Command,
USSTAF, was assigned to Headquarters, USSTAF.
Finally there remains something to be told about the history itself.
T h e title is descriptive of its scope. It is not a complete history of the
Army air arm, since it covers in detail only a four-year period. Nor
is it a complete history of those war years, since it deals as exclusively
as possible with activities of the AAF. This is through no childish
fancy that the AAF won the war single-handed. Victory was possible
only through the combined efforts of the several arms of the associated
powers and of the civilians behind those arms. But to tell the story of
the AAF’s share in the air war is itself a heavy assignment, and the
authors have dealt with the operations of other services and nations
only as they impinged directly upon those of the Army Air Forces.
This volume constitutes, according to present plans, the first of
seven. It deals first with the Army air arm before 7 December 1941
and more intensively with its fortunes during the first eight or ten
months of the war. For that period of defeat, retreat, small-scale oper-
ations, and frenzied preparation, it has been found convenient to
describe under a single cover AAF activities in every theater. With
the beginning of the offensive in late 1942, limited at first but swelling
in intensity as men and material were made available, the story becomes
in effect that of two large-scale wars waged simultaneously, intimately
connected by highest strategy and the allocation of forces but tac-
tically independent. Hence it has been thought best to avoid a strictly
chronological account, treating the air war against Germany and Italy
in Volumes I1 and 111, against Japan in I V and V. Throughout, an
effort has been made t3 relate operations in the several theaters through
discussion of pertinent strategical and logistical plans developed by
the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff. Similarly, problems of the
Zone of the Interior-organization, production, training, transporta-
tion, and the like-have been treated briefly wherever necessary for an
understanding of combat operations. But these problems have seemed
so important-indeed to the degree that one may find the main clue to
our victory in American manpower and production-that the whole
of Volume VI will be devoted to activities on the home front. T h e
final volume will include an account of the world-wide services of the
Army Air Forces, such as the Air Transport Command and Army Air-
ways Communications System, and of the handling of problems which
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