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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 Invaders”15 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 sibility for delivering to the point of ultimate take-off those planes, other than PBY flying boats, that were to be flown to England. Fully aware of the need for haste, he expressed the desire “to cut through all the formalities that are not legally prohibitive and help the British get this job done with dispatch.” The job of delivering the aircraft was given to a new agency, the Air Corps Ferrying Command, created specifically for the purpose. On 29 May 1941,Col. Robert Olds of the Plans Division, Office of the Chief of the Air Corps, received verbal orders to organize the ferrying service.” A week later, on 5 June, the Air Corps Ferrying Command was officially constituted as of 29 May.’l The mission of the new command was, first, “to move aircraft by air from factories to such terminals as may be designated by the Chief of the Air Corps,” and second, “to maintain such special air ferry service [i.e., air transport service] as may be required to meet specific situations.” l2 These were broad powers, and working within them the Ferrying Command eventually expanded far beyond the limits imagined by those respon- sible for its creation. The second assignment provided specific author- ity for the establishment of a military air transport service over the North Atlantic between Washington and the United Kingdom, a project which had been under consideration for some months.13 For crews to do the cross-country ferrying work, once the factory pilots were replaced in mid-July, the Ferrying Command relied ini- tially on two-engine and single-engine pilots detailed from the Air Force Combat Command for thirty- to ninety-day tours of tempo- rary duty. More highly qualified four-engine pilots of the Combat Command, as well as navigators and other crew members, were bor- rowed to fly the trans-Atlantic transport shuttle. In the summer and fall of 1941approximately 2 0 0 pilots were trained at Barksdale Field, Louisiana, especially for ferrying duty, although they were assigned to the Combat Command and served, as did the others, on temporary- duty status with the Ferrying Command.14 During the six months between 6 June 1941, when the Ferrying Command assumed nominal control over deliveries to the British, and the Pearl Harbor attack, approximately 1,350 aircraft were ferried to points of transfer, nearly all by pilots of the Air Corps. Over 90 per cent of these deliveries were made from West Coast factories to the British in Canada or a t points on the Atlantic seaboard. T w o types of the latest twin-engine attack bombers-Bostons (DB-~’s,the British 3 16
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