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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
F U N D A M E N T A L B A S E S O F S T R A T E G Y almost perfect unanimity of the vote in the Congress on our declara- tion of war was symptomatic of the national temper.’ This did not mean that criticism of the administration’s policies was completely hushed-within a month after Pearl Harbor the basic war strategy was under fire from intransigents in the press and in the Congress- but the nation as a whole began to gird itself for a war effort on a scale hitherto unprecedented. If the national reaction to Pearl Harbor boded ill for the Axis powers, there was still little cause for early optimism in the United States. Indeed, the success of the Japanese attacks threatened momen- tarily to disrupt the whole trend of our strategic thinking. T h e plans which had been worked out in collaboration with the British earlier in 1941had bccn oriented toward Germany. The Tripartite Pact ( 2 7 September 1940) had strengthened the belief that Japan would join Germany should that nation go to war with the United States, but Anglo-American military leaders considered it possible to contain Japan by a strategic defensive until the defeat of Germany would allow full force to be applied in the Pacific. From 1938 the United States had invoked sanctions against Japan in the form of moral em- bargoes, but until summer of 1941 the administration had not been so outspoken in its denunciation of Japanese activities as of German. T h e President’s radio address of 2 7 May 1941,announcing the proc- lamation of an unlimited national emergency, is indicative of this policy: it was most frank in its description of the dangers we faced from Hider’s government, but it contained no direct reference to Japan.‘ To gain time for completing our defense measures, the ad- ministration continued to negotiate through normal channels with Japan until that nation began, late in July, to threaten southern Indo- China. A Japanese move in that direction would have isolated the Philippines and menaced both the Netherlands East Indies and lines of communication essential to the security of Great Britain itself. Immediately the United States began to stiffen its p ~ l i c y , ~and at the Atlantic conference in mid-August the President and Prime Minister agreed to act along parallel lines in warning Japan.‘ From there on, relations between the United States and Japan steadily worsened until by 2 6 November they had reached a crisis.5 Hurried steps had been taken to reinforce American outposts in the Pacific, and by the British to improve the defenses of Singapore. In each case the efforts were limited in nature. T o a large extent this was due to the as yet inade- 235
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