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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
D E F E N S E O F T H E W E S T E R N H E M I S P H E R E regarded as ~redible,~’but news dispatches soon characterized the affair as a test and announced that California had “caught its breath again.” T h e Army, however, insisted that radar stations had tracked airplanes approaching the coast from a distance IOO miles a t sea.42T h e continuity of the tracking convinced officers that the planes were hostile, and Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Com- mand strongly denounced those who treated the alert lightly. In the San Francisco News of 10 December he was quoted as follows: “Last night there were planes over this community. They were enemy planes! I mean Japanese planes! And they were tracked out to sea. You think it was a hoax? It is damned nonsense for sensible people to assume that the Army and Navy would practice such a hoax on San Francisco.” Newspapers, impressed with these statements, carried banner headlines announcing that the “Army Warns City Danger Near.” 4 4 A similar message had been carried to a national audience on 8 December when Fiorello La Guardia, head of the Office of Civilian Defense, told the radio public: “I do not want to unduly alarm my fellow citizens, but I want to be realistic. T h e situation is serious. W e must not underestimate what happened twenty-four hours ago.” 4 5 Disturbing rumors of enemy threats continued to mount on 9 December. Early that morning unidentified planes were reported off southern California, and the Eleventh Naval District ordered prepara- tions made to repulse a raid by sea or air.46Later the Navy relayed to the AAF a “red hot tip” which announced that thirty-four enemy vessels were standing off the coast near Los Angeles, waiting for the fog to lift before starting an attack. Army planes were dispatched and found that the alarm had been occasioned by the presence of a group of American fishing boat^.^' Later in the day a report told with con- vincing detail of a “Japanese cruiser zo,ooo yards off the west tip of Catalina Island.” Other witnesses insisted that a cruiser and three destroyers, flying Japanese flags, had been spotted off the coast. This of course was the period when whales were mistaken for enemy sub- marines, and when floating logs were bombed by inexperienced and overeager air crew^.^' Such rumors and alerts were not confined to the Pacific coast. On 9 December an air raid warning, the first of the war, swept N e w York City and the northeast At noon, advices were received that hostile planes were only two hours’ distance away. Fighter aircraft from Mitchel Field took the air to intercept the raiders, and radio 279
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