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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.
“The Wash”17 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 first of several Allied conferences met on 28 December at Amberley Field to consider common problems and opportunities for mutual assistance. It was agreed that American officers would assume actual responsibility for the erection of their planes, but that to assure proper co-ordination of the effort with plans for movement of the assembled planes an Australian officer would be put in general charge. Since the aircraft would have to be ferried overland for a distance of over 2,000 miles before they reached a jumping-off place at Darwin, it was decided to establish refueling depots a t Charleville, Cloncurry, Daly Waters, and Darwin. Though I oo-octane gasoline could be procured from the Netherlands East Indies, this fuel was of so high an aromatic content that it destroyed the leakproof lining of fuel tanks, and conse- quently forced consideration of the problem of importing American fuel. In addition to limited stocks built up before the war, the steam- ship Mauna Loa was on the way to Brisbane with a load of 400,000 gallons, but even so the supply would fall far short of the prewar goal of IO,OOO,OOO gallons.100 The Amberley conferences also gave attention to a problem of training. Not only was the air route from Brisbane to Darwin a difficult one for those who lacked experience in the area, but the over- water hops from Darwin to the Philippines presented their own navi- gational and combat hazards. On 28 December General Clagett and Sir Charles Burnett, chief of the Australian air staff, agreed to inaugu- rate a training program for A-24 crews at Archerfield and for P-40 pilots a t Amberley. Details of the two programs were worked out the following day a t a meeting of American and Australian officers. The Australians were given general oversight of the program, while Maj. John H. Davies, commanding officer of the 27th Group, received responsibility for the standard of training. The prescribed course con- sisted of practice in night flying, dive bombing, and aerial pnnery.lo1 Thus was the foundation laid for a close collaboration between per- sonnel of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and the AAF that would continue through almost four years of war. The American command charged with these and other preparations in Australia was not technically an air organization. But for the time being a t least, its responsibilities called principally for support of air operations, a consideration that probably had affected the decision to assign General Brett to the command of United States Army Forces in Australia. On 2 9 December, two days before Brett’s arrival in Aus- 2 3 0
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