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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.
“Pacific Ocean”16 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 for defense of the bases, and for the varied machinery and equip- ment upon which an air force depends. As already noted,” a review of shipping priorities brought a decision to reduce the size of a convoy scheduled to sail on I 5 January for Northern Ireland and Iceland with the result that room was provided for 10,000 ground troops for New Caledonia, a key point in the defense of sea and air routes through the South Pacific, and for more than I 1,000 troops to serve as “ground staffs” for AAF units in Australia. Shipping difficulties were further eased by arrangements made with the British for use of the Queen Mary and the newly built Queen Elizabeth as troop transports, their service from N e w York and San Francisco, respectively, to begin early in F e b r ~ a r y . ’ ~But such measures could be effective in a defense of the Netherlands East Indies only if the interim expedients resorted to proved sufficient to hold the enemy for a while. Among the efforts to strengthen Allied defenses immediately was an attempt, in addition to the ferrying operation, to provide air trans- port from the United States of urgently needed equipment and sup- plies. A contract on 3 I December with Pan American Airways sought an extension of its transport services from Khartoum to Darwin. To accomplish this, it was necessary for Pan American to negotiate contracts with foreign airlines, particularly with Knilm, a Dutch com- pany, and with Qantas of Australia; and the organization of an effec- tive service required time-more time than events allowed. The effort proved to be more important for its contribution to an extension of air transport from Africa to India, from where this modern aid to logistical mobility would play a major role in the later operations of the China-Burma-India theater, than for the assistance now provided for the ABDA forces. Within the theater itself an important step toward overcoming some of the more difficult problems of transporta- tion and communication was marked by activation on 2 8 January of the first American air transport unit in Australia. None of its original complement of fourteen officers and nineteen enlisted men had been trained for transport operations-they were just the men who hap- pened to be most readily available. Equally miscellaneous were the aircraft assigned to the unit: two old B-18’s and one C-39 which had been flown down from the Philippines and five new C-53’s recently arrived from the United States. O n 4 February, Capt. Paul I. Gunn, formerly manager of the Philippine Airlines and as “Pappy” Gunn See above, p. 243. 3 7 5
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