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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 14 …But the final choice remained with the commanding general, who in some instances moved in advance…
  • p. 36 …sufficiently advanced to support limited offensives in both the European and the Pacific theaters. The history…
  • p. 40 …Advanced training was for the most part scheduled for overseas schools, where combat experience of the…
  • p. 43 …Of 2 , 9 2 5 planes reaching the AEF’s Zone of Advance during the war…
  • p. 45 …Trenchard, then com- mander of the Royal Flying Corps, and was profoundly impressed by his advanced…
  • p. 46 …the Zone of Advance, the I Corps, the First Army, and the First Army Group, advancing…
  • p. 47 …The rest of his offensive forces Mitchell concentrated along the axis of the American advance. Since…
  • p. 51 …among the several armies.’ Aviation officers had to accept this concept, but the most advanced thought…
  • p. 63 …Its report in October 1933 did not accept the more advanced ideas of the Army’s…
  • p. 68 …on the details of aerial combat, they seldom represent the most advanced thought within the Army…
  • p. 70 …to have been geared closely to the advance of the ground armies. His boldest plan, a…
  • p. 71 …the field of battle of either armies or navies.“ But this unpleasant thought was advanced as…
  • p. 76 …who might provide advanced bases. H e had come to consider that “the basis of air…
  • p. 87 …the doctrine of air war taught in the Air Corps’ most advanced school a t the…
  • p. 88 …One was the acquisition of more advanced bases. That was a political matter, wholly foreign to…
  • p. 91 …the years immediately follow- ing the war, when as yet commercial aviation had not advanced to…
  • p. 93 …the quest for cleaner lines the retractable landing gear had been introduced.lG8If the advances made…
  • p. 96 …mission of coastal defense and that the proposal was advanced under circum- stances decidedly favorable to…
  • p. 112 …Numerous forecasts of such a development had been voiced since the end of the earlier conflict…
  • p. 117 …In contrast to the 2 0 0 hours in primary, basic, and advanced training then being…
  • p. 119 …in the organization of their air forces the Italians were much further advanced than the Japanese…
  • p. 122 …Force, the aviation department sought to promote the growth of “civilian” airlines, the advancement of aeronautical…
  • p. 125 …Though the Luftwaff e hardly proved to be so overwhelming a force as its advance notices…
  • p. 126 …The Lufnvaffe was used both to eliminate the air opposition and as an advance striking force…
  • p. 127 …Leading the rapidly advancing Panzer divisions through the Low Countries, the Stukas bombed troop concentrations and…
  • p. 129 …supply resulting from the speed of the German advance, the success of the RAF at Dunkirk…
  • p. 131 …By the summer of 1940 the breath-taking advance of German forces had destroyed all effective…
  • p. 134 …After seizing key airdromes, the advance German forces were supplied and reinforced by Junkers 5 2…
  • p. 135 …In addition, the rapid German advance dis- rupted the air supply and maintenance system and a…
  • p. 149 …the best flying weather and each including a number, steadily growing, of basic and advanced Responsibility…
  • p. 161 …miles to the That attack argued too for the next eastward advance of the Ameri- can…
  • p. 164 …islands, proved inadequate against the Japanese surprise attacks, but the advanced island airstrips were to be…
  • p. 165 …the United States and Alaska. And, as elsewhere, protection of Alaska called for more advanced outposts…
  • p. 170 …New estimates, submitted in &/lay by the W a r Plans Division of the General Staff…
  • p. 183 …T h e British chiefs of staff did not envisage the use of the vast numbers…
  • p. 198 …so far advanced as those in Newfoundland. Surveys which were made during the spring and summer…
  • p. 201 …32 The organization of the Caribbean Air Force represented a marked structural advance over the force…
  • p. 204 …Of the several outlying sites in the eastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico presented the most advanced stage…
  • p. 211 …advanced bases, a series of inter- mediate airfields, a chain of fields between Anchorage and the…
  • p. 213 …the requirements for accommodating a pursuit group in the same area.51These moves had not advanced…
  • p. 217 …of the Navy to maintain the long-range reconnaissance that would be required for advance notice…
  • p. 226 …The Interceptor Command was composed of the 24th Pursuit Group, whose pilots had received advanced training…
  • p. 246 …But as the day advanced the sea had roughened, and approximately fifty planes were smashed in…
  • p. 251 …execution of the plan for an early morning attack, and gave the Americans advance notice of…
  • p. 253 …mission without advance reconnaissance. T h e interview did not indicate whether the question of an…
  • p. 274 …the steady advance of the enemy from the north and addi- tional landings along the Luzon…
  • p. 278 …in advance of the scheduled date of 15 January. Both the Army and the Navy were…
  • p. 281 …and the disposition of Air Corps troops in advance thereof in order to accomplish your assigned…
  • p. 282 …Shanghai to acquire advanced bases; (b) by exerting slow pressure through the Nether- lands East Indies…
  • p. 291 …These problems were intimately related, and any ready solu- tion was complicated by the whirlwind advance…
  • p. 327 …than “a cadre sent to the territory in advance of the main body.” 32 T o…
  • p. 334 …the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two theories to account for the…
  • p. 335 …between the W a r and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army…
  • p. 337 …It would be necessary to know in advance of the approach of enemy craft. Next, there…
  • p. 338 …time proved less effective,lo4 for advance warning of the enemy's approach did little good…
  • p. 350 …the Pacific coast defense zone, arrangements had been completed with the Canadians to provide advance warning…
  • p. 358 …Prospects for completing the work in advance of an anticipated spring attack on Dutch Harbor were…
  • p. 397 …his staff to work out in advance details for the staging + See below, p. 493. 34'
  • p. 399 …an advance task force of engineer, coast artillery, and general service troops arrived in the waters…
  • p. 403 …T e n enlisted weather specialists accompanied the American advance task force into southern Greenland in…
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
treme shortage of shipping made it uncertain as to when ground crews
and maintenance facilities could be sent, but it was hoped that the
resources of Australia and personnel evacuated from the Philippines
would make it possible to operate the planes “pending the arrival of
necessary maintenance units.” l 8
By early January the plan had been revised to provide only four
pursuit groups in addition to one light, two medium, and two heavy
bombardment groups.19 But such a revision in the over-all objective
was by no means so significant as a general policy of throwing into the
battle for the Netherlands East Indies every available tactical plane
and crew in the hope that, despite the obvious disadvantages under
which they would be required to operate, they would serve to slow up
if not to stop the main Japanese drive. T h e British and American staffs
in Washington remained unshaken in their decision to regard Ger-
many as the first and most dangerous enemy, but as the US. chiefs
pointed out, the continuing advance of the Japanese argued “for sub-
ordinating everything in the immediate future to the necessity for
getting reinforcements into the ABDA Area.” ‘O It proved impossible
to keep the schedule for the ferrying of bombers; but by 6 January, 2 0
B-17’s and 6 LB-3o’s were en route, an additional 45 B-17’s and 9
LB-jo’s were making ready for the take-off, and arrangements were
being made to forward a total of 160 B-17’s and LB-3o’s as rapidly as
they came off the production line.” Hopes for expediting their move-
ment were raised when 3 B-17’s piloted by Maj. Kenneth B. Hobson
and Lts. Jack W. Hughes and Clarence E. McPherson completed the
first flight from Hawaii to Australia by way of the as yet unfinished
South Pacific route by 1 2 January, though until the fall of Java the
Atlantic and African air routes would remain the chief reliance for
reinforcement of the Far East.22T h e total number of p-40’~reaching
Australia from the United States had been raised by 2 5 January to I I t,
and 160 more arrived within the next ten days.23
Meanwhile, the staffs in Washington struggled with the problem of
shipping. T h e heavy bomber could be flown to its battle station half-
way around the world, even though the air routes it followed were
imperfectly charted and prepared and losses in transit up to 2 5 per
cent were a t times sustained, but other planes must be carried by
water. Water transport was required, too, for the ground crews and
other maintenance personnel, for the men and materials required to
construct and maintain bases, for antiaircraft and other ground forces
3 74

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