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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.
“King”32 pages
T H E A I R S E R V I C E I N W O R L D W A R I the attitudes and convictions of the Army’s airmen on the eve of their second war. From Aviation Section to Air Service The story of the Army air arm in World War I was one of promise rather than of achievement. The combat record was excellent, but brief and on a scale far more modest than the public had been led to expect. This explains why most of the official reports of the Air Service’s war activities were compounded of statistics and apology, There is now little cause to wonder at the failure to make good the brave promises of 1917-indeed, but for their extravagance, the feebleness of the air effort might have received far less public criticism. But, in order to secure support for unprecedented appropriations, those in charge of military aviation, civilians and officers alike, made rash predictions. Probably their claims were inspired by inexperience rather than by an outright lack of candor, but they were wholly unwarranted; and, when the failure of the program became a matter of common h o w l - edge, reaction was bitter. Reorganization was swift and effective, and, had the war dragged on into 1919,the boasts might have been made good, if somewhat tardily. On 1 3 June 1917 a spokesman for the newly created Aircraft Pro- duction Board said for publication: “We believe we have worked out a program which will make it possible for the United States to secure to the Allies next year the permanent supremacy of the air, and with that we hope to become an immediate, decisive factor in ending the war.” The program to which he referred was, by existing stand- ards, huge. It had been suggested to the United States government by French Premier Ribot in a cable received 26 May. Ribot had asked that the Americans place a t the French front by 3 0 June 1918a “flying corps” of 4,500 planes, 5,000 pilots, and 50,000 mechanics. As elabo- rated by officers of the Aviation Section, this program provided for a total of 22,625 aircraft, including 1 2 , 0 0 0 of the latest service models, and a training establishment equipped to graduate from primary schools 6,2 10pilots.z Ribot had requested for the next spring campaign an air force larger by far than that which the French had been able to build in three years of war and wholly out of proportion, according to existing ratios of air to ground forces, to infantry troops then contem- plated for the AEF. Perhaps the formidable demand was more than a tribute to American industrial capacity. It came close on the heels of 5
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