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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)
Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer
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.
“Nevers”44 pages
- p. 43 …cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to
“sweep the Germans from the sky…
- p. 46 …Mitchell never received an American air force commensurate with
the ambitious idens of air power which…
- p. 49 …This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was
never equipped during…
- p. 50 …the Army or the Air Corps?” but never, “Are
you in the Army or the Corps…
- p. 55 …any Air Service officers, and I have never heard
anybody yet-any Air Service officer-against…
- p. 69 …But one axiom,
with its corollaries, never varied. T o him the airplane was first and…
- p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be
completely stopped, but their effects could best…
- p. 94 …rate for the time being, the decision never-
theless left an open question as to how…
- p. 121 …large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300
aircraft a month. The pattern of…
- p. 122 …the German Air Force, the
Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in
the…
- p. 133 …Except for a few raids against French
factories, the force had never been employed in a…
- p. 140 …into
a complete war economy production was never equal to the demands
of our own forces…
- p. 150 …Long-term needs
of the Air Corps and the sudden availability of funds in quantities
never…
- p. 181 …Actually, the Air Staff had
never approved of the method followed in RAINBOW No. 5 . l…
- p. 217 …Members of the Hawaiian Air Force, who had never flown
heavy bombers, began to receive intensive…
- p. 219 …were not then satisfactory for permanent garrisons. Never-
theless, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt…
- p. 227 …T h e planes never reached their destination. Other
bombardment units were being prepared for transfer…
- p. 241 …responsible officers, a few crucial points
have never been satisfactorily explained.
T h e general pattern…
- p. 277 …motors, sole-
noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit-
less search…
- p. 288 …planners and
from which AAF Headquarters was never to deviate.
The translation of the accepted grand…
- p. 303 …the principal features of the plan
were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft…
- p. 309 …W a r Plans Division was
never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to…
- p. 336 …the shooting and wrote that they were never
able to make out an airplane.g6It is…
- p. 412 …As it happened, the B-24's never
returned to India, but, instead, remained in the…
- p. 457 …Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining
pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from…
- p. 492 …Squadron was assigned, but which it would never reach, going from
Australia to Tongatabu; ( 3 ) Christmas…
- p. 500 …deck of a carrier presented a problem never
before challenged by Army planes. Hence an accelerated…
- p. 502 …the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been
accomplished, yet now it…
- p. 509 …Island, in the
Louisiade Archipelago.” They were never needed, for on 7-8 May
the two…
- p. 513 …exist, it was at a point which never reached the
aircrews, for on the operational level…
- p. 524 …handicaps under which
AAF planes had operated. Never were more than fourteen B- I 7’s…
- p. 527 …AAF planners clung firmly to their belief that
proper observance of economy of force would never…
- p. 531 …Crews which had
previously never loaded torpedoes now for the first time fitted these
weapons into…
- p. 544 …But the Japanese never at
any time based their bombers in appreciable numbers a t either…
- p. 548 …26's in torpedo-dropping, but they never would be put into
All told, the record…
- p. 556 …until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com-
mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had…
- p. 560 …pressed into service against the Germans," and never reached the
CBI." Colonel Haynes had reached India…
- p. 606 …reason that the Antilles Air Task Force
never evolved, as did I Bomber Command, into an…
- p. 614 …that reason deserving a high
priority, could never dispose of the U-boat menace but must…
- p. 635 …In Washington the Munitions Assign-
ments Board t had never considered this schedule as more than…
- p. 670 …they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never
below 30,000. By AAF standards they had…
- p. 672 …Goering had never put enough bombers over England,
nor had he concentrated his forces on the…
- p. 690 …of co-operation and combined action probably never
before equaled by the military forces of two…
- p. 729 …shoot at aerial targets, and several
had never operated a turret in the air. This deficiency…
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
tion of associated forces in the Far East had been supplanted by
provisions for mutual co-operation.”
With modification of the basic war plan pointing up the importance
of the Far East Air Force in American strategy, the Air Staff in Wash-
ington undertook to accelerate the dispatch of heavy bombers to the
Philippines. By the second week in November it was planned to send
“all modernized” B-I 7’s from the United States to the Far East; within
a few days the plan was broadened to include all B-24’s as well. Fulfil-
ment of the project would have left only seventeen B-17’s within the
Zone of the Interior: five B - I ~ E ’ swhich were being used for test
flights, one B - I ~ Cwhich was in a repair depot, and eleven B - I ~ A ’ s
and B’s which were obsolete. So serious was the situation in the Far
East that even the twelve B-17’s of the Hawaiian Air Force were
under consideration for transfer to the Philippines. T h e priority which
the Far East Air Force now occupied not only disrupted the training
activities of the Hawaiian Air Force, but it also relegated the air de-
fense needs of Hawaii to a secondary place. By z z November, AAF
officials warned that all available heavy bombers and pursuit planes
destined for the Philippines should be en route not later than 6 De-
cember. This hope was not fulfilled, but it reflected a growing fear
that the planned reinforcements would not reach the Philippines in
time to insure the defense of the islands. T h e program of reinforce-
ment had been based on an assumption that hostilities could be post-
poned until a t least March or April 1942. Japanese movements in the
Pacific now seemed to presage a much earlier outbreak of hostilities, as
also did the strained diploniatic relations between the United States
and Japan.92
T h e Far East Air Force had begun to take precautionary measures
early in General Brereton ordered all post, group, and
squadron commanders to be prepared for any emergency. Each head-
quarters was to operate a message center continuously and was to
designate an “alert officer” in addition to the officer of the day. Base
commanders were ordered to keep sufficient personnel available to
perform guard duties and any other tasks required in an emergency.
Special instructions to tactical units emphasized the need for opera-
tional readiness: not only were aircraft to be dispersed so as to mini-
mize the effects of an aerial attack, but crews for all aircraft in
commission were to be placed on “two-hour readiness” call day and
night. T h e 19th Bombardment Group was ordered to have one squad-
‘85
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