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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 under one command in order that the full weight of available air power could readily be thrown against an enemy at whatever point he might appear. Operational planning in the Caribbean took on a new note of real- ism during the months just prior to American entry into the war. Joint plans for armed assistance to certain South and Central Amer- ican republics, in the event of attack by a non-American state or by “fifth columnists,” provided for action by Caribbean defense forces and also troops in the United States. Essential features of the plan called for the occupation on forty-eight hours’ notice of strategic interior points by Caribbean-based troops transported by air, the prompt occupation of seaports by naval forces, and the reinforcement of these forces by Army expeditionary troops dispatched from the United States. It was clear that the security of the Panama Canal would be menaced by the successful overthrow of recognized govern- ments in countries near the canal and the establishment of regimes opposed to the principles of Pan American solidarity. Although there was no occasion to invoke these plans, their existence gave the Carib- bean Air Force a high priority in the delivery of transport planes from the United States and enabled Caribbean defense forces to experiment with airborne operations in the fall of 1941. Following activation of an infantry airborne battalion at Howard Field and arrival of a para- chute battalion from the United States, co-operative exercises were carried out by ground and air forces in the Canal Zone, and subse- quent reassignment of the airborne units from the Panama Canal Department to the Caribbean Air Force for training purposes made possible a higher degree of co-ordination. Of the overseas departments of the Army, the Caribbean Defense Command was unique in the possession of airborne forces on the eve of hostilities. Local planning for armed assistance to Latin-American republics served to emphasize the need for closer Army-Navy co-ordination in the Caribbean. A considerable body of evidence indicated that voluntary co-operation” would not insure effective joint defense, but the insistence of the Caribbean Defense commander upon unity of command was to no avail prior to American entry into the war. The subject of joint action came to the fore in mid-1941 when an increasing number of reports of Axis vessels in Caribbean waters led the local Navy commandant to request assistance from the Caribbean Air Force. By September the air force had been asked to assume 50 < < ‘64
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