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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.
“Natal”13 pages
A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G Washington for Cairo prior to 7 December, each carrying important military or diplomatic personnel as well as high-priority cargo and mail.63 The service continued on a special-mission basis during the critical early months of war, pending the establishment of a greatly expanded and more regularly scheduled contract carrier operation over the route. In the course of his mission to the Middle East in September, Gen- eral Brett reached the conclusion that the long-range B-24 bomber would provide an effective and quick means of attacking the Germans in southern Europe and of taking definite offensive action against the Axis forces in North Africa.64Having proceeded from Cairo to Lon- don,’* he found the British receptive to a suggestion that twenty B-24’s be diverted from a scheduled delivery for service in the United Kingdom to the Middle East. It was decided that the number of planes should be reduced to sixteen (the initial equipment of one squadron), that provision would have to be made for training the British crews in the Middle East, and that a stock of spare parts and supplies should be sent out from the United States. Tentative agree- ments reached in London were conveyed on 17 October to General Arnold, who gave his approval.” The task of making the preliminary arrangements and delivering the sixteen Liberators devolved upon the Ferrying Command.“ Here- tofore, Ferrying Command deliveries had been to “the point of ulti- mate take-off” within the Western Hemisphere. These were to be the first deliveries beyond the continent by military crews of the Ferrying Command and the first combat aircraft to be sent over the southeastern route to Africa. There was no alternative to the use of military crews. Pan American Air Ferries’ pilots were trained for the ferrying of two-engine aircraft, not four-engine. Military crews be- came available by the coincidence that on 18 October the Ferrying Command’s B-24 shuttle service over the North Atlantic to Great Britain was suspended, temporarily it was believed at the time, pend- ing winterization of the aircraft and the improvement of weather and communications facilities.6T Before ferrying by military crews to Africa could begin, it became necessary to secure an amendment to the presidential directive of 3 October 1941, under which the Ferrying Command was then operat- * For a discussion of his activities there, see below, pp. 634-35. 327
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