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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 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 British and French war missions to Washington, before any deci- sion had been made as to what the American war contribution should be. Few in the United States as yet envisaged an expeditionary force of millions of men, and it is possible that the French, gauging the public attitude shrewdly, thought it easier to sell the idea of a war of machine^.^ Certainly the deployment in France of a force of 4,500 combat planes would have entailed a more lavish use of aviation than had yet been employed in the close support of ground armies. The new program, which immediately supplanted earlier modest estimates, called for an appropriation of $640,000,000.The necessary legislation was pushed rapidly through Congress in the Aviation Act of 24 July 1917. The bill was passed without roll call-also without concurrence by the Army’s General Staff, having been borne on a wave of public enthusiasm engendered by a high-powered publicity campaign. Slogans such as the “cloud of planes” and the “million roads to Berlin” became in anticipation concrete realities. Inspired news stories and editorials played on the speed and economy of life with which aviation could turn the scales against Germany; the capacity of America to fulfil the production, training, and tactical requirements was seldom doubted.“ As the New York Times put it editorially: “By no other means can we so quickly or so surely render valuable aid to our allies. . . . Airplanes can be rapidly built. . . . Money is all that is lacking.” A few experts thought differently, though rarely for pub- lication: that “no amount of money will buy time. Even the most generous preparations do not open up the years that have passed and enable us to carefully lay the foundations of a great industry and a great aerial army.” Experience was to show the wisdom of this view. Of all the requisites for air power, we had only raw materials, man- power, and enthusiasm. W e had, literally speaking, no air force. Hav- ing invented the airplane, we had left to others its development and adaptation to military use. The Army had acquired its first plane in 1909; its first special appropriation for aviation, a sum of $125,000,in 19x1.‘ Shortly before the European war began, we had stood four- teenth in total funds appropriated-well below Greece and Bulgaria.8 In spite of the great development of aviation by European belligerents and of our own tactical experiences in Mexico, the Army from 1909 to April 1917 had been able to acquire only 224 aircraft.’ Not one of these was, by European standards, a combat model; few were still in commission. At TWO flying fields operated by the Army there were, 6
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