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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 10 …the major responsibility for coverage of over- seas operations, and in the fall of 1942 he…
  • p. 53 …this department in operations over land and sea, but none offered an acceptable solution to the…
  • p. 58 …Because of the traditional importance of sea power in the national scheme of defense, Mitchell’s…
  • p. 59 …as the tactics of the ground and sea forces,” the board recommended a ten-year expansion…
  • p. 64 …entirely dependable force” for operating a t sea, and the Army, which “with its own air…
  • p. 74 …find a limited career on the high seas beyond the operational radius of aircraft. In 1920…
  • p. 76 …units should be attached to ground and sea forces as auxiliaries.9*But, so long as…
  • p. 83 …the conduct of air operations over the sea in direct defense of the coast”; under certain…
  • p. 86 …Aviation alone cannot pro- tect our merchant marine or our troop movements by sea, but it…
  • p. 96 …certain responsibilities for the protection of coastwise sea lanes. But the Navy’s obligations, in contradistinction…
  • p. 97 …traditionally naval functions as patrol of coastal sea lanes. Placed aboard a carrier, the airplane could…
  • p. 98 …least 2 5 0 miles a t sea, and the importance of developing seaward reconnaissance units…
  • p. 105 …The Navy would provide aircraPt for don, scouting, and patrolling over the sea and for the…
  • p. 107 …It is the only weapon which can engage, with equal facility, land, sea, and other air…
  • p. 108 …a great nation as land power and sea power, and there is no hope for victory…
  • p. 112 …advance of contact either upon land or sea, and that victory can- not but incline to…
  • p. 114 …responsible for coastal defense, convoy protection, and sea and antisubmarine patrols. There was apparently little co…
  • p. 118 …they made relatively little provision for air-sea rescue of highly trained personnel. In the matter…
  • p. 119 …As opposed to land and sea operations, in which the defensive attitude was easier than the…
  • p. 127 …Recon- naissance and sea rescue work also figured in Luftwaffe operations. The badly outnumbered Norwegian air…
  • p. 128 …in combined operations with the land and sea forces.” In keeping with French military traditions, however…
  • p. 133 …Atlantic and in the Irish and North seas. The attempted air blockade achieved a moderate degree…
  • p. 138 …tradi- tional policy of freedom of the seas and which denied to our govern- ment the…
  • p. 154 …Such additions to a com- bination of Japanese, Italian, and German sea forces would have imposed…
  • p. 155 …force to intercept an enemy approaching by sea. The Navy had bit- terly resented Air Corps…
  • p. 157 …the point where it could cover all sea and land areas from which enemy air power…
  • p. 162 …The Caribbean Sea was shaped somewhat in the fashion of a very flat wedge of pie…
  • p. 173 …At the Roosevelt-Churchill conference at sea in mid-August, Generals Marshall and Arnold had made…
  • p. 177 …Near East, India, and the Far East. Sea communications, upon which logistical support of these widely…
  • p. 181 …Hemisphere, support of naval forces in maintaining sea communica- tions, and attacks on enemy shipping within…
  • p. 188 …And to protect the security of bases and the sea lanes which connected them with Amer…
  • p. 198 …and to insure the safety of essential sea communications.'s By the first week of December…
  • p. 199 …Base commander, included inde- pendent action againsr sea, land, and air objectives, support of land and…
  • p. 201 …and aircraft warning outposts fringing the Caribbean Sea." Dis- tributed among the military fields and installations…
  • p. 204 …and against attacks by air, land, and sea forces, while the Navy mission was to support…
  • p. 208 …thorough reconnaissance and observation of the air, sea, and land approaches to the Canal Zone.” Existing…
  • p. 211 …base would put an increased strain on sea com- munications a t a time when shipping…
  • p. 235 …and cargo ships in harbors and at sea, confirming the general assumption that some major move…
  • p. 246 …But as the day advanced the sea had roughened, and approximately fifty planes were smashed in…
  • p. 249 …the enemy fleet returned to the Inland Sea of Japan.17 Japanese officials interviewed after the…
  • p. 257 …a fruitless flight over the South China Sea, where an enemy formation had been From this…
  • p. 259 …Meanwhile, the planes of the 3d Squadron returning from their search over the South China Sea…
  • p. 268 …depots had been “completely ruined.” The submarine Sea Lion had been sunk and other naval craft…
  • p. 282 …and the prospect of breaking through the sea blockade with a naval escort for convoys was…
  • p. 286 …as its southward movement must be by sea, we counted on neutralizing, if not wholly containing…
  • p. 288 …maintenance of designated lines of communication, both sea lanes and air routes; forging and tightening a…
  • p. 323 …This drastic shift in the balance of sea power had exposed the Pacific coast and, in…
  • p. 325 …innocent American freighter which had been at sea without radio communication and had not heard of…
  • p. 326 …by the time-consuming and vulner- able sea route. T w o air routes were available…
  • p. 329 …They were enemy planes! I mean Japanese planes! And they were tracked out to sea. You…
  • p. 332 …a Japanese submarine rose out of the sea off Ellwood, a hamlet on the California coast…
  • p. 333 …though the mysterious object tracked in from sea seems to have vanished. At 0 2 4…
  • p. 348 …on 26 March 1942 to the Eastern Sea Frontier." It was accordingly within the Eastern and…
  • p. 362 …provide for the security of the principal sea routes and seven main air routes over 3…
  • p. 363 …I N C I P A L SEA A N D A I R R O…
  • p. 364 …because the Japanese had cut the only sea and air lanes over which available reinforcements, such…
  • p. 372 …around Africa and up through the Red Sea to Egypt. A large base and an assembly…
  • p. 419 …T h e former was engaged only in long-range over- seas operations, while the latter…
  • p. 433 …a key point in the defense of sea and air routes through the South Pacific, and…
  • p. 435 …an eastern invasion force would move down through the Molucca Sea to occupy Manado, Kendari, and…
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
Watt, the British radar expert, examined Panama defenses and reported
the existence of disturbing weaknesses. The canal, in the opinion of
the British observer, fully justified the concern being shown for its
safety, for it was “unique in the world, possessing only four vital
points, each of small area, but each so fragile that a single projectile
on any of the four could cut this vital line of communications, and
two projectiles on any one of three could prevent its re-establishment
within two years.” 16’ He agreed with American strategists that the
most probable form of attack was a carrier-based raid from the Pacific
and estimated that the Japanese could well afford to sacrifice four
carriers in an attempt to block the use of the canal. Secretary Stimson
reported to President Roosevelt his conviction that the planes from
even one carrier could cripple the canal and that if two or more car-
riers participated in an attack there would be a strong probability of
success. Some means of intercepting carriers far to the west of Panama
was urgently needed, because once “a carrier has released its planes
for attack, no subsequent means of defense against those planes can
sufficiently ensure the safety of the Canal.” 162 An adequate defense
required early detection-and destruction-of enemy carriers at dis-
tances of 500 to 1,000 miles offshore, and since shore-based radars
could not reach that distance, the only solution was long-range aerial
patrol. Even with such surveillance, a carrier might escape notice long
enough to launch its planes, and therefore patrols would need to be
supplemented by an effective cordon of coastal radars to provide a
twenty-minute warning to alert fighters and antiaircraft batteries for
a “last-ditch” defense of the canal.
An adequate patrol on the Pacific side of the canal would require
coverage of an arc of 400-mile depth extending from an inner semi-
circle 600 nautical miles west of Panama to an outer limit of 1,000
miles and from the coast of southern Mexico to northern Peru.16sT o
patrol this extensive zone, aircrews needed the assistance of ASV
radar, which could detect ships a t distances of twenty-five to fifty
miles, and of bases at Tehuantepec in Mexico, at the city of Guate-
mala or San JosC in Guatemala, on the Galapagos Islands, at Salinas in
Ecuador, and a t Talara in Peru.” Of this proposed chain, only the
bases at the city of Guatemala and Salinas were in use at the time of
Mr. Stimson’s visit to the Canal Zone. A field in the Galapagos was
under construction in accordance with an agreement with Ecuador
‘See map on opposite page.
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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.