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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 production, some were acquired from the Air Service Command, but others became available as the result of a presidential order of 6 May directing the Secretary of War to commandeer all transports of the DC-3 type operated by the domestic air carriers in excess of zoo and to refit them “for such transport services as will most effectively serve the war purposes of the United nation^.''^^^ The transfer of the air- craft from the airlines to the War Department made it possible for the former also to release additional crews for employment in military operations. A long-range air supply system, conducted on the basis of pre- determined and established schedules and operating into or through a number of theaters and independent commands exercising military jurisdiction along overseas air routes, had to be reasonably free from control by local commanders. A transport or ferried airplane flying from the West Coast to Australia in 1942 passed through the territory of four principal commands before reaching its destination; and over the North Atlantic a plane flying from the United States to Great Brit- ain might traverse the jurisdictional area of as many as five separate theater or base commands. In the early months of the war, the theater commanders, whose powers, traditionally, were almost without limits within the established boundaries of their own commands, frequently diverted scheduled transport aircraft and crews operating under the control of the Ferrying Command to their own immediate tactical needs. In other instances, ferrying crews, upon completion of deliv- eries to a theater, were held for a time by local authorities instead of being returned promptly to the United States. While such practices might have been justified in emergencies, if carried too far they would have led inevitably to a complete breakdown of the developing system of strategic air supply. The theater commanders were, in short, adopt- ing a policy contrary to their own long-range The jurisdictional difficulty began in the Middle East early in 1942 when Brig. Gen. Elmer E. Adler, then the ranking Air Corps officer in that area, attempted to pre-empt control of Ferrying Command operations and personnel in Africa. The misunderstanding, however, was promptly removed by strongly worded messages from General Arnold and General Olds.zooMore serious and prolonged interference came from the commanding generals of the Southwest Pacific Area, the China-Burma-India theater, and the Alaska Defense Command.’’’ The necessity for protecting Ferrying Command operations was the 364
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