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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
A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G T h e newly created Air Transport Command consisted of two main divisions, the Ferrying Division and the Air Transportation Division, corresponding roughly to the two primary responsibilities of the com- mand.IQ3At the time it was redesignated and given its enlarged mis- sion, the command was already in the process of reorganization. Five major field organizations, known as wings, were constituted on 1 2 June 1942 and activated at various dates during the latter part of the month.’’* Initially, they were known as the 23d through the 27th AAF Ferrying wings, but the command soon requested and secured a change to more descriptive geographical names. On 5 July, they were redesignated the North Atlantic, Caribbean, South Atlantic, Africa- Middle East, and South Pacific wings.’95 Through these field organi- zations or subheadquarters, and others that were created later, the command was able to exercise more direct and closer supervision over both its ferrying and transport activities, which were by now becom- ing world-wide in scope and were growing to such an extent that the old highly centralized control exercised by the Ferrying Command was no longer practicable. During the thirteen months of its existence, the Ferrying Command had grown from an original staff of two officers and a civilian secre- tary to a strength of over I 1,000officers and enlisted men, in addition to its civilian employees and those of the civil air carriers operating under its supervision. As the name implies, ferrying had been its main job, and during the period its pilots ferried 13,595 aircraft to final domestic destinations, while 632 planes were delivered to foreign destinations under the supervision of the command.19a T h e ferrying activity continued to increase as more aircraft were turned out by the factories, as new combat units became ready for deployment overseas, and as the need for battle replacements grew; but after the organiza- tion became the Air Transport Command and when it became the single strategic aerial supply arm of the W a r Department, more and more emphasis came to be placed on the air transportation function. Air transport had passed beyond the stage of being primarily a courier service or an adjunct to ferrying; it was well on the way to becoming a major instrument of logistical support to combat operations on the ground and in the air. More than 1 3 0 two- and four-engine transport aircraft had become available to the command by I July 1942,of which 10 or 15 were being flown by military crews and the remainder by the contract carriers.le7 A large number of these had come from new 363
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