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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.
“King”32 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 a single theater; in the summer of 1941both the European Axis and Japan loomed as probable enemies and responsibilities for hemisphere defense involved the establishment of widely scattered bases and de- fense commands. Anglo-American plans had envisaged the establish- ment of several theaters of operations, but firm commitment of the field forces must depend in the initial stages of war upon enemy strategy. Under these circumstances it did not seem wise for either General Marshall or GHQ to take the field. W a r Plans Division was never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to that staff in spite of the directive of 3 July.86 That directive proved difficult to follow, since some of the func- tions and powers prescribed therein were contingent upon unpre- dictable circumstances. From the date of its issue, General McNair considered the authority granted GHQ unequal to the new respon- sibilities, and on 2 5 July he requested an extension of his powers. T h e chief difficulty lay in his lack of control over supplies, a weakness he thought fatal to effective planning for, and command of, task forces. Competing with the Navy and lend-lease for material resources, the W a r Department was unwilling to relinquish its control over this essential factor. Thus it was with restricted authority that GHQ, in the months just before and after Pearl Harbor, planned operations and dispatched task forces, some of which have been mentioned in earlier passages of this chapter. But however important the matter of supply may have been to GHQ, the issue of most immediate concern to the Army air arm was its own relation to the new agency. That conflict would arise between the air force and a GHQ donii- nated by ground officers was to be expected; what occurred was no more than a new phase of the dispute which had defied solution for two decades. Widespread recognition of the importance of air power in the European war and General Marshall’s sympathetic attitude to- ward the Army’s air arm encouraged those officers who were dissatis- fied with the organizational compromise of 1935. Rather than return to the public campaign for a separate department of air, they now directed their efforts toward securing greater powers within the W a r Department. In these efforts they were opposed by GHQ as they had earlier been by the General Staff, but the alignment was now less uneven. T h e appointment of General Arnold as Deputy Chief of Staff in October 1940 gave him immediate access to the Chief of Staff; and, if the new office was not in the same chain of command as Arnold’s 2 5 9
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