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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.
“Churchill”21 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 One factor which affected the direction of air combat operations had no reference to the text of the new circular. That was the personal relation of General Arnold to air force commanders in the theaters and in continental commands. Such a factor is by nature imponderable, difficult either to describe or to document; but something of its flavor may be sensed in a perusal of the extensive correspondence between Arnold and air force commanders in the theaters-particularly in the “operations letters” which flowed regularly between the combat zones and Washington. There was in this correspondence no violation of the conventions of military channels; rather it constituted an effort, attended by varying degrees of success, to inform, encourage, and often to placate AAF generals scattered throughout the world. In an officer corps as small as was that of the prewar Air Corps, it was natural that all senior officers be acquainted. If this heightened a t times the understandable rivalry among air commanders for the inadequate forces and supplies available, it also made possible a certain indirect control from Washington through letters written more often in the “Dear TOO~Y”or “Dear Miff” tone than in approved A G O style. Thus in practice the Army Air Forces and its commanding general came to assume a role far more important than that prescribed in the reorganization of 9 March 1942. AAF officers were schooled to avoid use of the term “independent air force,” but in most important re- spects the AAF enjoyed tacitly a quasi-equality with the Army and Navy rather than the parity with the A G F and ASF which was its legal status. O n I 5 June the W a r Department, in a revision of AR 95-5, repeated the definition of the AAF mission as it had been carried in Circular 59. A few days before, the Chief of the Air Staff had written that “the main objective of the Army Air Forces is to operate ef- fectively against the enemy the maximum number of organized units and airplanes possible.” ’” This was a much broader interpretation of functions than that which had been officially designated to the AAF. In general it was also a more accurate description of AAF activities. Something of those activities may be seen in the following chapters which describe the manner in which the strategy laid down at ARCADIA was carried out in the several theaters.
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