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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 I1 strategic positions for observing the course of air masses moving down from the Arctic regions of Canada. CRYSTAL I was located at Fort Chimo, Labrador; CRYSTAL I1 at the head of Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island; and CRYSTAL 111 on Padloping Island, jusr off the northeast coast of Baffin Island.13" Nine months of work had gone into the building of the far north- em route by the time the United States became an active belligerent. But more than six months of preparations on a much larger scale re- mained before the route would be ready to support heavy movements of aircraft to Europe. During the winter months that followed Pearl Harbor very little progress could be made, especially in the building or extension of permanent runways and parking aprons. More favor- able weather in the spring of 1942 permitted the speed-up of con- struction activities at all points along the route, but a t the same time it brought its own additional problems. At Goose Bay the compacted snow runways, satisfactory enough during the winter, began to soften with the spring thaw, necessitating a heavy covering of gravel. By June, one rolled gravel runway 6,000 feet long was ready and two others were under construction. Because the housing, messing, main- tenance, and other facilities provided by the Canadian government a t Goose Bay were inadequate for anticipated needs, the United States requested and secured authority in the summer to construct an entirely separate establishment, complete in every respect, on the opposite side of the airdrome from the RCAF ~ t a t i 0 n . l ~ ~At BLUIE W E S T I there had been completed by June one steel mat runway 5,000 feet long and another was under construction, while BW-8 had one good 5,000-foot gravel and clay landing strip. The Reykjavik airport in Iceland had three concrete runways, but two of these were capable of accommodating only the lighter types of airplanes and the third was less than 4,700 feet in length. Neither of the two American bases under construction in Iceland-Meeks and Patterson fields near Keflavik-was usable during I 942.American air force personnel were concentrated at the RAF base a t Reykjavik, occupying facilities on the opposite side of the field from the British. The Presnvick airdrome in Scotland, having one concrete runway 6,600 feet long, was well equipped as a terminal While construction work proceeded during the spring and summer, thousands of tons of supplies, including building materials, snow re- moval equipment, gasoline, food, and aircraft parts were moving into 346
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