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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 370 …Reichers took a route by way of Cairo across central Africa, the South Atlantic, and up…
  • p. 371 …I 0,000 miles separated Miami from Cairo.23An airplane leaving southern Florida traveled 4,000…
  • p. 372 …of Africa and across central Africa to Cairo. Ferrying operations over the South Atlantic route had…
  • p. 375 …Takoradi following the completion of deliveries to Cairo, and for hauling critical items of supply east…
  • p. 378 …7 December the service was extended to Cairo and beyond.54 Before operations could begin, Pan…
  • p. 379 …Maxwell had been established at Cairo on I 3 September 1941, with responsibilities similar to those…
  • p. 380 …to the opening of a service to Cairo over the South Atlantic route. Two survey flights…
  • p. 381 …R Y I N G Washington for Cairo prior to 7 December, each carrying important military…
  • p. 382 …of the bombers departed Bolling Field for Cairo on 20 November. Unfortunately, on the trip across…
  • p. 385 …Lend-lease planes for Russia were flown through Cairo to Basra or to Tehran, where they…
  • p. 387 …for ferrying up the old Cape-to-Cairo airway. Although more exposed to attack, Takoradi and…
  • p. 388 …Tampa-Trinidad- Belem-Natal-Accra-Khartoum-Cairo-Habbaniya-Karachi.At Karachi the LB-3o’s under…
  • p. 390 …24 shuttle services to Great Britain and Cairo. The first step was to establish a ferrying…
  • p. 391 …parts stocked by the RAF a t Cairo, all spare parts had to be shipped from…
  • p. 395 …assembled and then ferried across Africa to Cairo. Within a few months after Pearl Harbor, the…
  • p. 407 …Harbor, first to Britain and later to Cairo, had been little more than courier services and…
  • p. 411 …from their normal operations between Washington and Cairo and sent to the Far East. A plan…
  • p. 412 …Kester-the pilot who had inaugurated the Washington- Cairo transport service in November-was lost off…
  • p. 413 …In February, Transcontinental & Western Air began operating a shuttle service from Washington to Cairo, using two…
  • p. 629 …5) MAGNET (Northern Ireland); (6) Task Force CAIRO (to Egypt).g On 2 7 January the…
  • p. 630 …one group of heavies set up for CAIRO was to go out only after the initial…
  • p. 778 …CM-IN, MA Cairo to M E I D 65. CM-IN, London (Brett) to Trip…
  • p. 779 …1942; CM- IN, Cairo (Fellen) to T A G (Adler for Arnold), 8754 Amseg, 3 Feb…
  • p. 786 …1942; msg. $762, Cairo to T A G , 4 Feb. IWZ; msg. #13, Brett to T…
  • p. 830 …BOLERO BR CAA C/AAF C/AC CAIRO C/AS C A T F CCRC CCS…
  • p. 844 …5 Cagayan (Mindanao), 219 Cagayan Valley, 208 Cairo, 3 1 ~ 2 1 , 325-26, 328-29…
C H A P T E R 7
* * * * * * * * * * *
EST ABLZSH M E N T OF
THE FUNDAMENTAL BASES
OF STRATEGY
RILLIANTLY executed though they were, the Japanese
attacks of 7 December against Oahu and Luzon appear in retro-
B spect as a colossal blunder. The perfection of those operationsgave evidence of meticulous planning a t the tactical level, but not of
sound thinking along broader military and political lines. In fact, an
analysis of postwar interrogations of high-ranking military and gov-
ernmental leaders in Japan suggests that they had precipitated a major
war without formulating for it an over-all strategy. Hopelessly out-
matched in actual and potential industrial capacity, the Japanese had
attacked with no firm pattern of operations in view and with no con-
cept of how the war might be brought to a successful conclusion.
There was some hope that if a formidable chain of island defenses
could be thrown around the Inner Empire, American preoccupation
with Germany and discomfiture over initial defeats might bring a
negotiated peace, with Japan in uncontested control of the Greater
East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. Such a hope was, of course, based
upon a most erroneous interpretation of American psychology.
Before Pearl Harbor the administration’s foreign policy had been
bitterly opposed by a highly vocal minority in the United States.
This lack of agreement, perfectly consonant with our democratic
process, might easily have been exaggerated by the misunderstanding
of totalitarian leaders until it appeared as a paralyzing disunity. But
among many of the isolationists the prospects of war with Japan
had been less distasteful than that of war in Europe, and the very
means by which the Japanese chose to open hostilities served tempo-
rarily to still dissident factions. When on I I December Germany and
Italy joined their Axis partner, the new U.S. unity was cemented; the
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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.