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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 Wash”17 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 June, the Consolidated service was enlarged by the assignment of three additional Liberators to the run; and in September, United Air Lines opened a second contract service over the same route with four of the new C-87's. By October, twelve four-engine transports were operating between the West Coast and Australia.18' It should be clear from frequent references to contract carrier services operated for the Air Service Command that the Ferrying Command was not the only AAF agency directly concerned with air transportation. Nor, indeed, was it the first. Months before the Ferry- ing Command was organized, the 50th Transport Wing of the Air Corps Maintenance Command, which became the Air Service Com- mand in October 1941,had been operating a well-established military transport service within the continental limits of the United States. The wing's principal function was that of transporting technical Air Corps supplies between the various air depots and subdepots scattered about the country; but it also furnished transport aircraft and pilots for use in training parachute troops and airborne infantry. During the first half of 1941, the wing's domestic air cargo service carried more freight than all of the commercial air carriers in the country.ls3 For some months after the United States entered the war, the domes- tic cargo operations of the Air Service Command continued on a purely military basis. In the spring of 1942, however, the command was forced to enlist the services of commercial carriers operating under contract. On 3 0 April, the 50th Transport Wing and its tactical training functions were transferred to a new organization temporarily designated the Air Transport Command but soon renamed the Troop Carrier Command.184Having lost jurisdiction over the 50th Transport Wing, the Air Service Command was entirely dependent thereafter on the commercial carriers for the conduct of its air freight service. During the spring the Air Service Command negotiated contracts with commercial carriers for services over various domestic routes and, furthermore, enlisted the services of the civil carriers in estab- lishing air transport lines to air bases in the upper Atlantic, in Alaska, and in the Caribbean area, as well as to Panama by way of Mexico and Central America. T o administer these operations, the command or- ganized a Contract Air Cargo Division staffed largely by officers who had been called to military duty from executive positions with the airlines. By June, the new division operated a daily average of forty 360
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