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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 I R S E R V I C E I N W O R L D W A R I tration of the war, adverse rumors began to be noised about. Rumors were followed by disclosures, disclosures by congressional and presi- dential investigations. In the spring it became obvious that, in spite of the patent falsity of charges of graft and sabotage, the program was failing; the huge cloud of planes which was to have darkened German skies by June was as yet hardly larger than a man’s hand. Actually the first U.S.-built DH-4 with Liberty engine was shipped from Hoboken on 1 5 March and was airborne in France on 1 7 May, two months after the great German offensive had been launched.ls In the mean- while, the widely advertised threat of American air power had spurred German plane production; the enemy sardonically dubbed his intensified efforts of I 9 I 7 the Amerikaprogramnm. Disillusionment in the United States was painful, but it brought speedy reform. With legislative authority granted by the Overman Act of 2 0 May 1918,President Wilson by executive order removed Army aviation from the jurisdiction of the Signal Corps. Responsi- bilities for training and operations were vested in a Director of Mili- tary Aeronautics (Maj. Gen. William L. Kenly). A new executive agency, the Bureau of Aircraft Production, was “to exercise full and exclusive jurisdiction and control over production of aeroplanes, engines, and aircraft equipment” for the Army; the bureau was con- nected with the Aircraft Board by interlocking membership. The new organization was soon officially recognized as the Air Service, U.S. Army; but, inasmuch as its two components reported separately to the Secretary of War, there was in reality no common policy for the makers and users of planes. This functional duality was long to plague the Army air arm; for the time being it was mitigated by the appointment on 27 August of the civilian head of the Bureau of Air- craft Production, Mr. John D. Ryan, as Director of Air Service (over both phases of aviation) and as Second Assistant Secretary of War.lg The latter appointment was a move in the direction of separate cabinet representation for air, a measure which had been previously suggested in Congress and which was proving successful in England. But the arrangement was only a wartime expedient which recognized a cleav- age within the War Department without providing a permanent solution for the problems involved. Under the new regime production increased rapidly, though it is only fair to point out that many of the most stubborn dlaculties were already yielding on the eve of the reorganization. Statistics emanating 9
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