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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 Invaders”15 pages
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 coast line, prevented uninterrupted work. Every advantage had been taken of the summer months, and by the fall of 1941 Elmendorf, Ladd, Kodiak, Yakutat, and Nome fields were capable of supporting tactical operations by a t least one squadron each, while more than a dozen additional fields of various sizes were nearing completion. A detailed plan had been drawn up for aircraft warning installations, including radar detector stations and filter centers. The plan was approved on 3 December, but almost no equipment was available for use.47Army airways communications personnel, who had arrived in the spring of 1941, were operating at four stations, despite difficulties imposed by peculiar radio atmospherics and the lack of adequate power." No additional air units were sent to Alaska prior to the opening of hostilities, and the inability of the single composite group to carry out assigned functions of Army aviation was a chief cause of concern to commanding officers. In Alaska, as a t other overseas bases which were within reach of reinforcement by air from the United States, the AAF adhered to the policy that the aviation complement of Army garrisons should be held to the minimum required to meet initially such emergencies as might arise. The policy was based upon the gen- erally sound principle of concentration of force within the United States under plans to utilize the special mobility of the air weapon in case of attack upon any of our outposts. But the heads of both the Alaska and the Western Defense Commands, along with Lt. Col. Everett S. Davis, commanding officer of the air force, joined in urg- ing that additional air units be sent to Alaska for permanent station. It was pointed out that an attack or threat of attack on Alaska could be met only by aircraft present a t the time the threat occurred, and in the fall of 1941 such a threat was regarded as a possibility. O n islands off Alaska Peninsula and along the north and west coasts of Alaska, numerous sites existed which might be used for hostile land- ings. With only a small amount of work, enemy forces might prepare sheltered bays and landing strips for use as temporary naval and air bases and it would be difficult for defenders to dislodge them. Com- manders responsible for Alaskan defense felt that in an emergency air reinforcements from the United States, in all probability, would not arrive in time. Granted that reinforcements could reach Alaska in time, pilots and crewmen trained only in the United States would be unfamiliar with the Alaskan terrain and flying conditions, and the '69
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