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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.
D E P L O Y M E N T O N T H E E V E O F H O S T I L I T I E S force was then composed of 8 B - I ~ B ' s ,5 3 officers, and 449 enlisted men, plus an air base squadron." Under the guidance of Maj. Gen. Gerald C. Brant, Army commander in Newfoundland, policies on joint operations were arranged for the new B-17's and for B-IS'S operated by Royal Canadian Air Force units stationed at the New- foundland Airport. Air operations were confined largely to reconnais- sance, but occasional attacks were made against German submarines which approached the island shores.'? An increase in submarine activity in November brought a request from the Navy for more Army air units a t the Newfoundland Airport in order to afford greater protection for Allied shipping and to insure the safety of essential sea communications.'s By the first week of December 1941 the 49th Bombardment Squadron, with nine B- I 7B's, was preparing to depart from the United States for Newfoundland, and the AAF was attempting to obtain a small supply of depth bombs which were needed for attacks on submarines.*' Air defense preparations in Greenland were not so far advanced as those in Newfoundland. Surveys which were made during the spring and summer of 1941 had failed to disclose any site suitable for an airfield on the eastern coast, but a promising site was found on the southern tip of the island at Narsarssuak, about thirty-five miles northeast of Julianehaab.20In west Greenland a suitable location for a staging field was found in the Holstensborg district, and top priority was given to the building of runways and air base facilities in order to speed delivery of aircraft to Great Britain.'l Plans were made to develop the Narsarssuak site into a major air base as rapidly as possi- ble, the Secretary of W a r having directed in the spring that establish- ment of a Greenland air base be accelerated." Proposed sites for other military installations were investigated during the fall of 1941 by Col. Benjamin F. Giles, an Air Corps officer who had been designated to head the Greenland Base Command." T h e planned Army air garri- sons for Greenland, approved by the W a r Department in October, comprised one heavy bombardment squadron, one interceptor pursuit squadron, an air base squadron, weather and communications detach- ments, and air service units totaling 921 officers and men. 2 4 Only a few weather, communications, and aviation engineering troops had arrived by December 1941;tactical squadrons could not be sent until construction of airfields and housing had been completed. Two sta- tions in the Army airways communications system were in operation I 5 7
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