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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 against civilian populations and rushed all available training gas masks -more than 600,000 in number-to the Western Defense Command for issue to police, air raid wardens, and other key civilians.*s5These measures were accompanied by a newspaper campaign designed to prevent “undue excitement” in the event of a raid.’56 A general fear of reprisal was translated into sharp calls for action when intelligence was received in mid-May of the impending moves of the Japanese against Midway and the Aleutians.* Steps were taken a t once to strengthen the defense forces along the western seaboard. General Marshall personally visited the Pacific coast and ordered additional antiaircraft artillery and barrage balloon units to the An air task force from the Second Air Force was moved to coastal stations in support of the Fourth Air Force.’” T h e danger seemed so acute by I June that the pending movement of the air echelon of the Eighth Air Force was and on the following day the 97th Bom- bardment Group (H) left the concentration area in N e w England to fly in two elements to McChord Field in Washington and to Hammer Field in California. Similarly, the 1st Pursuit Group on 5 June flew from Maine to Morris Field in North Carolina under orders to proceed to the West Coast. But the Japanese fleet already had been defeated west of Midway, and on the 6th the pursuit group returned to Dow Field.+ Reappraisal of Panama Canal Air Defenses T h e critical examination of air defenses which had followed the Pearl Harbor attack naturally included a re-examination of the defense of the Panama Canal. Plans made in 1940-41 for protection of the canal had anticipated that the chief danger would come from the eastern approaches, but now the emphasis shifted.16’ Recently acquired Caribbean bases and operational rights and facilities provided by an understanding with Brazil came to be of primary importance as step- pingstones on the ferrying route to Africa or for use in the mainte- nance of antisubmarine pat,rols. T h e real danger to the canal was from the Pacific side, where virtually nothing had been provided by way of outlying defense and where, geographically, the canal was most exposed to surprise attack. Early in March 1942, both Secretary of W a r Stimson and Watson- * See below, Chap. 12. t See below, pp. 641-43. 299
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