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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.
“United Press”36 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 the “Consolidated Packing Company,” in whose name the Alaska Defense Command issued its directives. Prospects for completing the work in advance of an anticipated spring attack on Dutch Harbor were greatly improved when news was received in Alaska at the end of January that 3,000,000 square feet of pierced steel-plank matting suitable for use over unstable ground would be shipped from the United States at once. The original plan to lay paved runways was accordingly abandoned and completion of the task at Umnak and Cold Bay was greatly ac~e1erated.l~~ Even so, the work was carried forward under heart-breaking condi- t i o n ~ . ~ ? ?The first troops, the 807th Engineers (Aviation), arrived in the Umnak area on 17 January, but in the absence of a suitable harbor on Umnak it was necessary to land them a t Chernofski on Unalaska Island a t a point separated from the site selected for the airfield by eleven miles of very rough water. After a full month had passed, only half of the company had been transferred, in barges, to Umnak. The arrival a t Chernofski of a transport early in March with 5,000 tons of cargo, approximately half of which was steel matting, permitted a start on the main construction. On I I March the rest of the troops were transferred from Chernofski to Umnak, and the next day work began on stripping the field in preparation for the laying of steel mats. Despite bad weather, rapid progress was made. There were some 80,000 mats, each of them weighing approximately 65 pounds, which had to be unloaded from the hold of the transport in Chernofski har- bor, ferried across the treacherous waters of Umnak Pass by barge, transferred piece by piece and by hand from the barge to the beach, and then loaded on “cat-trains” to be hauled to the runway. Excep- tionally vicious winds and several inches of snow impeded the effort, and some of the men worked without the protection of heavy gloves; but they kept at it in eight-hour shifts with three shifts per day for seven days a week, and by 3 0 March all the mats had been brought to Umnak. Meanwhile, laying of the mats had been begun on 23 March, and by 5 April a runway 5,000 feet long and IOO feet wide had been completed. Indeed, the first plane, a transport, landed on the new run- way as early as 3 1 March, but much remained to be done before the field could be made ready for combat. Additional engineer troops and some civilian workmen, who arrived on I I April, speeded up the effort to widen the runway, to build hardstands and revetments, and to un- dertake other necessary construction. The first combat planes flew in 306
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