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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
P E A R L H A R B O R A N D C L A R K F I E L D arrived and on the following day began its debarkation. Arrangements had been made for quartering the American troops on the grounds of the local Ascot and Doomben race tracks, with tenting and messing facilities provided by the Australian army, and for the use of the near-by Archerfield and Amberley airdromes for assembly of the aircraft. * Several factors interfered with a speedy execution of plans. T h e convoy had been loaded on a peacetime basis, with little attention to the advantage of placing equipment on the same vessel with its desig- nated unit. In order to find the organizational equipment of the troops who were to remain in Australia and the parts for aircraft to be assem- bled there, it proved necessary to unload practically the entire cargo, sort it, and reload such of it as was destined for shipment north to the Philippines. Even then vital parts of the A-24’s-trigger motors, sole- noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit- less search for missing parts, it was decided to reload equipment scheduled for water transport on the two fastest ships, the Holbrook and the Bloemfontein. With Australian dockworkers assisting in the effort through twenty-four hours of the day, the reloading was com- pleted by 2 8 December. The Holbrook sailed immediately; the Bloenz- fontein, delayed until its captain received clarification of orders from Dutch authorities, left the next day.95 Though the initial steps toward reinforcement of the Philippines had thus been taken, further delays would frustrate the effort. Assem- bly of the planes was accomplished in short order, but the missing parts of the A-24’s were never found; and since they were not avail- able in Australia, it was necessary to await their shipment from the United States, whence they were dispatched by air early in January. Moreover, it had been discovered that there was no Prestone for the P-~o’s,and though some was eventually rounded up in Australia, this entailed still another delay.g6 And immediate difficulties of this sort, despite the urgent need for planes on Bataan, were incidental to the more important task of establishing a base in Australia that could main- tain a continuing flow of reinforcements to Luzon. T h e war had caught the United States midway in a program for air reinforcement of the Philippines-planes, personnel, and equipment had already been allocated for the purpose and their movement in many instances had been started. If the problems involved in channeling their movement through an Australian base could be promptly solved, there was a real 2 2 7
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