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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.
“Pacific Ocean”16 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 M. Brady, chief of staff to General Brereton, promptly took the initial step toward mounting the operation by ordering the B-17’s at Clark Field prepared for the mission.27Brereton himself reported at about 0500 to General MacArthur’s headquarters at Fort Santiago, where he requested permission of Brig. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, chief of staff, to carry out offensive action as soon as possible after day- light. s That request, unhappily, has become a subject of controversy. Conflicting statements have bee; made and the historian is left to find his way without the aid of a complete record. Indeed, only a few fragments of the official records of the Far East Air Force survived the initial engagements and movements of the war, with the result that chief reliance must be placed on the recollections of its personnel. It would appear that the files of General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area, are also i n ~ o m p l e t e . ~ ~ Since the question turns so largely on evidence drawn from the memory that men carry of the first hectic hours of war, it seems pertinent to observe here that there can be little doubt that to the airmen of General MacArthur’s command the logical defensive use of the long-range heavy bomber in the circumstances existing was to strike at the enemy’s concentration of air and naval power on For- mosa, and to strike before the enemy could attack.” Not only would this have been in accord with standard AAF doctrine and with the mission in defense of our own shores for which the B-17 originally had been designed, but Formosa lay well within the range of the plane, which incidentally had been built for missions extending be- yond the distance for which fighter escort could be provided by cur- rent models of pursuit aircraft. It is true that the number of planes available was nowhere near that required for a decisive striking force, but the defensive value of the B-17 lay almost entirely in its offensive power and the alternative to its use in that manner was to save it for possible destruction on the ground. Moreover, the mission presum- ably would serve useful purposes of reconnaissance, and it would have been in accordance with the recent revision of RAINBOW No. s.* If General Brereton did not propose an early undertaking of offensive action against the enemy on Formosa, as both officially and publicly he has stated he did, it would be surprising indeed. Following the publication in I 946 of The Brereton Diaries, in which + See above, pp. 184-85. 204
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