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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.
“Italian Air Force”14 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 The new Combined Intelligence Committee also continued an exist- ing organi~ation.~’The American members, who formed the U.S. Joint Intelligence Committee, consisted of the directors of intelligence from the Army, Navy, and AAF, and representatives of the Depart- ment of State, the Board of Economic Warfare, and the Coordinator of Information. A full-time committee was also appointed to work permanently with the British Joint Intelligence Committee in Wash- ington. The Combined Military Transportation Committee (CMTC) was to advise the CCS on transportation problems involved in their various projects, especially in respect to requirements for overseas move- memx80 For any contemplated operation, the American and British members were to determine the shipping which could be made avail- able by each nation through consultation respectively with the War Shipping Administration and the Ministry of War Transport. Where combined use of shipping was involved, any adjustments necessary should be referred to the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board. Where lack of shipping or kindred factors (rail, port, etc.) threatened to strangle an approved plan, the CMTC with the CPS were to report to the Combined Chiefs to obtain the requisite priorities. American membership consisted of the War Department’s G-4 and his chief transportation officer, a representative of the AAF, the director of the Naval Transportation Service, and his planning officer. In view of the acute problems of distribution of air materiel, the combined Munitions Assignments Board (MAB) was of special importance to the AAF.8’ This extended to British as well as Amer- ican production the idea of inter-Allied control which had been func- tioning since 1940, but which was now made even more necessary by the adoption of the Victory Program. The mission of the MAB was to keep current estimates of U.S.-British munitions resources, considering such variable factors as production achievements, materiel reserves, rates of wastage, combat forces, shifts in strategy, etc.; and, on the basis of these estimates, to recommend to the CCS schedules for the allocation of materiel among the United Nations. Separate boards sat in Washington and London to assign respectively munitions produced in the United States and United Kingdom. A civilian, Harry L. Hopkins, headed the board in Washington, which included repre- sentatives of the Army, Navy, and AAF, and of the three British services. It was a token of the importance of this board to the AAF that 2 5 6
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