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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.

  • p. 386 …More threatening were Rommel’s forces in North Africa, for the very existence of the air…
  • p. 387 …the route over which the Far East Air Force had received its thirty-five heavy bombers…
  • p. 551 …Formerly commander of the Far East Air Force in the Philip- * See above, pp. 396-97…
  • p. 561 …of an air force, depended upon a line of communications extending across the Indian and At…
  • p. 570 …the American air force would be used in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean area…
  • p. 571 …Accordingly, on 24 May the order committing the Tenth Air Force to operations under RAF supervision…
  • p. 577 …involved in estab- lishing and operating an air force in Asia. The report of the Grady…
  • p. 630 …Policy for Disposition of US and British Air Forces.” l6 This memorandum greatly extended the scope…
  • p. 797 …MacArthur argued that now was a pro- pitious moment to rush forces from the Indian and…
  • p. 819 …5 8 - 6 7 Eighth Air Force, I, 326ff.; Achtung Indianer, a history of VIII FC…
  • p. 850 …See also CBI; Air Forces, Tenth AF. 336407 3537 356, 3803 395-96, q857 496 India…
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
mission. The primary target was the naval base of Pearl Harbor, the
design to cripple the Pacific Fleet. It was hoped that at least four air-
craft carriers and four battleships could be sunk or rendered useless
for a long period. Postwar interrogations of enemy personnel indicate
a lack of precise information as to the U.S. naval vessels then at Pearl
Harbor, but each pilot received charts marking off definite areas of
a t t a ~ k . ~
Exactly on schedule, a t 0600 on the 7th, orders for the take-off
were given. Shortly thereafter the first wave-fifty fighters, fifty hori-
zontal bombers, forty torpedo bombers, and fifty dive bombers-
roared off the carriers and headed toward Oahu. Forty-five minutes
later fifty horizontal bombers, eighty dive bombers, and forty fighters
followed as the second and last wave of a t t a ~ k . ~
The arrival of the first wave over Oahu was not entirely unher-
alded. About 0630 a small submarine had been sighted in a restricted
zone off Pearl Harbor. By 0650 it had been sunk by the U,S. destroyer
Ward, whose commander had immediately reported the action to the
KAUAI
KAHUKU
P E A R L H A R B O R+
POI NT
HAWAIIAN
I SLA
PACIFIC OCEAN
196
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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.