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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 R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1 on the west and extending through the Netherlands East Indies to Australia on the east-to achieve over this area a “general air superior- ity” by concentration as occasion required of available air forces, to re-establish communications with Luzon through the Netherlands East Indies, to provide support for the beleaguered garrison under MacArthur in the Philippines, and a t the earliest possible opportunity to launch offensive operations designed to roll back the advancing Japanese tide. General Wavell’s responsibility in the new command, which he formally assumed on I 5 January, was primarily operational.” H e was to co-ordinate on the theater level the operations of all forces assigned to the area by the ABDA governments, to arrange for the formation of task forces to undertake specific missions, and for their command he was to designate officers of his choice “irrespective of seniority or nationality.” H e also was “to direct and coordinate the creation and development of administrative facilities and the broad allocation of war materials; to dispose reinforcements, to require reports from the commanders of armed forces assigned to the ABDA Area, and to control the issue of all communiques.” Orders issued by Wave11 were to be considered as emanating from the respective ABDA governments, but the supreme commander was not to interfere with the “adminis- trative processes” of the several forces under his command, nor was he to divide any “national component of a task force” for attachment to other components “except in the case of urgent necessity.” Moreover, he was instructed that commanders under him would enjoy freedom of communication with their respective governments. “In the unlikely event,” so reads his directive, “that any of your immediate subordi- nates, after making due representations to you, still considers that obedience to your orders would jeopardize the national interests of his country to an extent unjustified by the general situation in the ABDA area, he has the right, subject to your being immediately noti- fied of such intention, to appeal direct to his own government before carrying out the orders.” The problem of assuring due consideration for national interest and sensitivity is further reflected in a provision for representation of each of the ABDA governments on Sir Archi- bald’s staff, and in the recognition given to the possibility that selec- * O n 18 January, he located his headquarters at Lembang, ten miles north of Bandoeng in Java. 368
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.