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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
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 borne interception equipment before the end of 1940 and was given prototypes of the British VHF radio set early in 1941.Similarly, the IFF device developed in England was copied by the Signal Corps and was adopted in August 1941as standard American equipment.'l' Equally important were the ideas the British supplied on the proper organization of an air defense net. The assignment of full responsibil- ity for air defense to the Air Corps in the spring of 1941was prompted in no small part by the demonstrated advantage in Britain's well- integrated system.' l7 Under the newly established defense commands, four regional interceptor commands, as components of the four conti- nental air forces, were charged in their several areas with control for purposes of air defense of air warning equipment, fighter planes, anti- aircraft artillery, and barrage balloons." These so-called active agents of defense were to be supplemented by such passive measures as pro- vision for civilian air raid warning and blackouts, which were made the responsibility of organizations working under the supervision of the Office of Civilian Defense.lls The warning network planned in the spring of 1941for the United States represented a compromise with the ideal. A perfect arrangement would have depended primarily upon a series of radar stations suffi- cient in number to assure mechanical detection of any hostile force. But there were not enough radar sets or technicians qualified to man them for coverage of the entire area of the country; and radar had not reached a stage of development which permitted it to operate over land with the same effectiveness it showed over the ocean. No radar equipment in existence in 1941 outside the laboratories could locate low-flying airplanes without detecting as "permanent echoes" the images of prominent landmarks.11QAccordingly, the War Department planned to recruit civilians to serve as ground observers for report on the identity and movements of aircraft over land and to use radar to provide a seaward extension of the warning network.lZ0 In the six months which immediately preceded Pearl Harbor, the four interceptor commands worked feverishly to create a coastal radar net and a supporting ground observer corps as components of the Air- craft Warning Service. When war came, sites had been picked for thirteen radar stations along the East Coast, and eight of the stations were approaching completion.'21 On the West Coast, there were ten radars to guard the 1,200 miles from Seattle to San Diego.'" This * See above, pp. 153-54. 2 9 0
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