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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.
“Churchill”21 pages
P E A R L H A R B O R A N D C L A R K F I E L D Aero Repair Branch, and more than half of the depot property stocks were destroyed. AAF casualties, especially at Hickam Field, were heavy, reaching a total of 163 killed, 43 missing, and 336 wounded." A tentative plan to strike at Midway on the return voyage was abandoned by the Japanese because of the unfavorable weather. Ex- cept for two carriers dispatched for participation in the attack on Wake, the enemy fleet returned to the Inland Sea of Japan.17 Japanese officials interviewed after the war indicated that they had at no time contemplated a landing in Hawaii. N o r apparently was the capture of Midway included in their original plans. T h e major Japanese drive, as had been anticipated by the associated powers, would be directed against the Netherlands East Indies and the Malay Peninsula, and in its course would absorb the American-held Philippine Islands. That drive would not be impeded by the fleet based at Pearl Harbor. T h e enemy's victory had been perfect as few military operations are. Its early consequences were to follow closely enough Japanese hopes. Defeat on Luzon According to the Japanese plan for the capture of the Philippine Islands, naval air units would assume the initial responsibility for de- struction of defending air and naval forces and for cover of the land- ings. When beachheads had been established and Philippine airfields had been captured, army air units would move in for the purpose of supporting the ground forces. T h e first air assault was scheduled for early morning on the same day of the attack in Hawaii." Preparations had been well under way by the opening of November. During the first two weeks of the month, land-based naval air units of the I Ith Air Fleet were transferred to Formosa, where with ap- proximately 300 planes they entered into intensive training in day and night bombing, long-range reconnaissance, air coverage, and strafing attack. As December came in, the Third Fleet was engaged in as- sembling its main forces at Formosa for the amphibious invasion of the Philippines; and to the naval air strength deployed at Formosan bases were added 150 to 1 7 5 planes of the Fifth Army air force. T h e main weight of army aviation was deployed in the south for support, initially from Indo-Chinese bases, of the conquest of M a 1 a ~ a . l ~ For defense of the Philippines the Far East Air Force had in com- mission thirty-three B - I ~ ' s ,of which sixteen were at Del Monte and the rest at Clark Field, and approximately ninety pursuit aircraft." 2 0 1
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