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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.
“Churchill”21 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 risk over the greater part of Iceland.31But despite the recognized need for Army air units at all North Atlantic bases, only token forces were deployed in the area by 7 December 1941. The Caribbean The concept of far-flung air defense was receiving wide applica- tion in the Caribbean area, with new air bases, nests of antiaircraft guns, and aircraft warning outposts fringing the Caribbean Sea." Dis- tributed among the military fields and installations were I, I I z officers and 14,974 enlisted men of the AAF and approximately 1 3 7 pursuit planes, 77 bombers, z z attack aircraft, and 9 observation planes. Com- bat effectiveness, however, was not assured by numerical strength, for a majority of the men were incompletely trained and most of the aircraft were obsolete. Partially trained forces were expected to com- plete their training while performing basic defense duties, but the shortage of modern aircraft and the necessity of erecting barracks and other base facilities acted as deterrents to the program. More significant than the number and status of troops deployed in the area were the broader aspects of air force organization and planning and the position of air units in relation to other forces in the Caribbean Defense Command. Under the guidance of Maj. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, the scattered Caribbean units had been welded into an inte- grated air force which was essentially a task force, complete within itself, capable of both independent and co-operative action, and com- manded only by air officers.32 The organization of the Caribbean Air Force represented a marked structural advance over the force which previously had been depended upon for the air defense of the Panama Canal. Although military avia- tion had been a part of canal defenses since 1917, until late in 1939 Army air units, then organized under the 19th Wing, had occupied a subsidiary position in the Panama Canal Department. During the early months of 1940 the whole subject of canal air defense was re- examined by the War Department, and with Air Corps expansion the 19th Wing developed into "the Panama Canal Department Air Force, which in turn provided a nucleus for the Caribbean Air Force in the spring of 1941. The capabilities of modern aircraft, as demonstrated in the Euro- pean war, led American military commanders in tbe Canal Zone to * See maps, pp. 300, 543. I 60
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