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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 bombers from North America to the home base.57 A glance at the map will show that the shortest and best possible alternate routes crossed the middle Atlantic by way of Bermuda and the Azores or direct from Newfoundland to the Azores, and thence northeast to the United Kingdom. Use of the Azores depended on the consent of Portugal, and negotiations were opened with that country for the establishment of an airdrome on one of the islands in the group, to be manned by a security force of American air and ground troops. No definite answer had been received from the Portuguese government when the North Atlantic shuttle service was suspended on I 8 October 1941. Upon the request of the Ferrying Command, the State Depart- ment again pressed for an answer, but Portugal was unwilling to jeopardize its neutral it^.^' Blocked for the time being in the effort to establish a transport service across the middle Atlantic to Britain, the Air Corps turned its attention in October and November 1941 to the opening of a service to Cairo over the South Atlantic route. Two survey flights were made over the route in Ferrying Command B-24's in September and early October. The first of these, which served also to carry Maj. Gen. George H. Brett, Chief of the Air Corps, on a special mission to the Middle East, left Bolling Field on 3 I August for Cairo and proceeded as far as Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf before returning to Washington on 7 October. Lt. Col. Caleb V. Haynes served as pilot and Maj. Curtis E. LeMay as co-pilot on this pioneer 26,000-mile trip, the first flight over the whole of the South Atlantic route from the United States to the Middle East and return." Shortly thereafter, Lieutenant Reichers traversed approximately the same route from east to west on his flight home from Moscow.* 6 o The decision to open a regular transport service came early in November, following a request for the transportation of personnel and equipment to Cairo to organize the air section of the U.S. North African Military Mission.'l Formal orders to open a regular service were given to the Ferrying Command, and on 14 November the first B-24 left Bolling Field. Lt. Edson E. Kester was at the con- trols, with Capt. Lawrence M. Thomas acting as co-pilot. Brig. Gen. Elmer E. Adler, newly appointed chief of the air section of the mis- sion, headed the passenger list."z Four other transports departed * See above, p. 318. 326
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