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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.
“United Press”36 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 for the use of BW-8 contemplated also a landing field on the east coast of Greenland on the direct line of flight to Iceland, but surveys conducted during 1941 by Capt. Elliott Roosevelt and others failed to locate a suitable site for an airdrome.120A satisfactory site near Angmagssalik was found the following summer, and construction of the landing strip was completed in the fall of 1942.~" The route through BW-8 was planned as an alternate line of flight for aircraft moving from Goose Bay to Iceland during the periods when bad weather made landings impossible a t BW-I or when facilities a t the latter base were overloaded. Surprisingly enough, the flying weather proved to be better along the alternate route through BW-8 and across the icecap of central Greenland than to the south along the route through BW-1.lZ2 T w o British airdromes in Iceland, at Reykjavik and Kaldadarnes, had been developed prior to the arrival of the first American occupa- tion forces in July 1941. Built to accommodate the lighter types of aircraft used for defensive purposes, neither of the fields was suitable for large-scale ferrying of multi-engine bombers, and considerable improvement of the two bases became necessary in 1942. Sites for two other bases were found in the Keflavik area, and construction of what were to become Meeks and Patterson fields was begun in the spring At the western end of the North Atlantic route the principal termi- nal bases were located a t Presque Isle and Houlton, Maine, and a t Dorval airport near Montreal. Prestwick in Scotland became the east- ern terminal of the route, with Stornoway in the Hebrides serving as an alternate landing field. The Presque Isle and Houlton bases had been planned originally to serve as transfer points at which Ferrying Command crews would turn over aircraft to the British for trans- oceanic delivery. Construction of facilities at the bases was authorized in August 1941, and the work proceeded through the fall under the direction of Ferrying Command control officers. The Presque Isle base, ready for limited operations by October, became the main port of embarkation for American aircraft flying the Atlantic either direct or by the short-range route. Here, in January 1942, the headquarters of the newly activated North Atlantic Sector of the Ferrying Com- mand was established. Houlton became an alternate landing field.lz4 All of these preparations would have been incomplete without pro- vision for the weather service and communications system which are Of 1942 34-4
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