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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
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 tached to them, and to control the Burma Road. Base facilities in Burma were to be made available through liaison with the British. This latter prospect introduced a command problem which was to compli- cate operations throughout the war. American forces in Burma, and later in India, had as a primary mission the promotion of Chinese re- sistance, yet geographically they lay in an area of British control. For the moment a solution was found by stipulating that forces under the U.S. representative would serve under the over-all direction of Chiang Kai-shek in China, but under the ABDA command in Burma. Experi- ence was soon to prove this arrangement unsatisfactory, but in Janu- a r y 1942 it seemed to offer a practical compromise between conflicting national i n t e r e s t ~ . ~ ~ Providing the Forces T h e immediate deployments approved at ARCADIA were calcu- lated in terms of the modest forces then available, but the long-term strategy was based upon most ambitious requirements in trained men and materiel. Hence as a prerequisite to the success of that strategy, Anglo-American leaders must establish a “continuous program to raise and equip the forces” envisaged. T o match in materiel strength the Axis powers, long on a war footing, would have called for great productive efforts, but the plans adopted a t Washington went far beyond that goal. Traditionally, the American mode of warfare de- pended upon a generous use of materiel; we had preferred prodigality in that respect to prodigal wastage of human lives. With that policy the British were in wholehearted agreement. Perhaps in both countries it reflected the democratic idea of the value of the individual citizen and the existence of a great industrial system, but with the British the policy was also a frank recognition of the overwhelming superiority in manpower enjoyed by the Axis and their satellite states. In so huge a program as that contemplated the United States must play a paramount part. It must raise and equip tremendous forces of its own and it must contribute generously to the munitions needs of Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and other of the United Nations. Britain was to participate to the very considerable cxtent of her in- dustrial capacity, but her industry was already strained and unable to provide for the nation’s own needs in some categories; and there was the ever-present danger of a revival of large-scale German air attacks. Hence the greatest, though not the severest, burden fell upon the 245
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