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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.
“Natal”13 pages
A I R T R A N S P O R T A N D F E R R Y I N G subject of frequent representations by that organization and the Army Air Forces. In response to these representations, the War Department published a directive on 6 June 1942 which attempted to bring some order into the relations between the Ferrying Command and the theaters. The Ferrying Command was declared to be “a War Depart- ment service agency” under the direct control of the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, who served as agent of the War Depart- ment. Theater commanders were enjoined to limit interference with Ferrying Command operations or appropriation of its facilities to occasions of specific emergency.2o2 This letter, as General George soon pointed out, was entirely toh weak. The same difficulties continued to be encountered by the Air Transport Command. It was not easy to convey to theater com- manders an entirely new concept of control, one which ran contrary to the traditional understanding of theater prerogatives. Upon the request of General George, a stronger statement was published in September 1942, but not until February of the following year would a War Department directive be issued that was sufficiently forceful and c o m p r e h e n ~ i v e . ~ ~ ~By the summer of 1942 it was already becoming clear that, so far as long-range air transport services were concerned, the world was a single theater of operations. 365
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.