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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.
“Cairo”26 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 to have been released over Los Angeles 93-may well have caused the initial alarm. This theory is supported by the fact that antiaircraft artillery units were officially criticized for having wasted ammunition on targets which moved too slowly to have been airplanes.94After the firing started, careful observation was difficult because of drifting smoke from shell bursts. The acting commander of the antiaircraft artillery brigade in the area testified that he had first been convinced that he had seen fifteen planes in the air, but had quickly decided that he was seeing Competent correspondents like Ernie Pyle and Bill Henry witnessed the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane.g6It is hard to see, in any event, what enemy purpose would have been served by an attack in which no bombs were dropped, unless perhaps, as Mr. Stimson suggested, the purpose had been reconnaissance. The Air Defense System in Early 1942 No one was more acutely aware of the weakness of our air defenses than was the Army, and energetic steps were being taken to improve them. The sudden opening of hostilities in December 1941 had forced the United States to put into immediate operation an air defense system which was still in a formative stage. Little more than eight months had passed since the Air Corps had received over-all responsibility, and, though substantial progress had been made, no satisfactory system of defense could be improvised in so short a period of time. In assessing responsibility for the initial difficulties, it is fair to note that even such progress as had been made had resulted from the zealous efforts of a small group within the Army who worked in the face of public indifference. A general lack of understanding of the necessity for this effort is indicated by the fact that as late as October 1941 citizens had been inclined to smile indulgently at Army attempts to organize volunteers for service with the Aircraft Warning Service.g7And even within the Army there was a serious lack of understanding of the utility of the newer devices of air defense, a fact which was indicated on 7 December 1941 by failure of Hawaii-based personnel to make proper use of the radar report which warned of the approaching Japanese planes. In World War I, the rapid development of the airplane as an offen- sive military weapon had led some theorists to prophesy that no ade- quate defense against air attack could be devised,gsExperts, however, 2 86
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