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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.
“Natal”13 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 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 o w s U I DS
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