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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
L O S S O F N E T H E R L A N D S E A S T I N D I E S Barnes was placed in command of base facilities in Australia, a com- mand formally assumed by him on 2 7 January.* Meanwhile, Brett had taken up the duties of deputy commander and intendant general to Wavell; in the former capacity, he informed the W a r Department on 2 0 January, he would supervise all air activities in the theater, and in the latter capacity he would be responsible for co-ordination of all administrative, supply, and maintenance activities for both air and ground forces.’ When, late in January, Admiral Hart sought relief from the combined command of naval forces and agreement was reached on Dutch Vice Adm. Conrad E.L. Helfrich as his successor, it was suggested by the President that Brett might replace Peirse in the air command, thus assuring continuance of a representative of the United States in one of the major operational commands. But Brett himself, who recently had been promoted to lieutenant general and whose position as deputy to Wavell gave him wide influence, objected to the unsettling effect of a “drastic change” at that time, and when Helfrich replaced Hart on 14 February, Peirse remained in the air command.1° There had been an understandable confusion at the out- set; and equally understandable, there were times when in the heat of battle national jealousies found momentary expression.” But the American officers were left with no uncertainty regarding the extent of their obligation to this new type of combined effort. As General Marshall informed Brereton by radio in January, it was the W a r Department’s fixed policy to seek the enemy’s defeat by a unified effort under the leadership of General Wavell. Brereton’s mission, as Marshall succinctly added, was to execute the orders issued by Wavell.’ A natural division of effort gave to the British a primary responsibil- ity for defense of Burma and the Malay States and to the Americans the major responsibility for the air defenses of the Netherlands East Indies. The Netherlands government had at hand a regular army of some 40,000 men and, in addition, perhaps IOO,OOO native troops; of necessity these forces would constitute for the time being the main resistance on the ground. T h e Dutch command, recognizing its inabil- ity to defend all of the islands, had posted small garrisons at strategic points throughout the Indies, principally to carry out necessary demoli- tions before withdrawal, and had concentrated its main strength on Java. Here numerous airdromes had been prepared: military fields at Kalid jati, Bandoeng, Magelang, Madioen, Malang, Batavia, and Soera- 37’
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