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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.
“Independence Day”9 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 planes. From Darwin the party was flown inland to entrain for Mel- bourne. Air Order of Battle in Australia The prospect General MacArthur faced in Australia was none too heartening. Japanese conquest of the Netherlands East Indies had placed enemy bombers within easy range of northwestern Australia, where Darwin had been under recurrent attack for almost a month. The occupation of Rabaul in January had been followed by air attacks on Australian posts along the upper coast of eastern New Guinea, and there on the night of 7/8 March Japanese landing parties had moved ashore to occupy Lae and Salamaua on the Huon Gulf. This move brought the enemy within 2 0 0 miles by air of Port Moresby, chief Australian outpost in New Guinea, which had experi- enced its first air attack early in February and would soon be the victim of repeated raids staged through Lae and Salamaua. Fortu- nately, the land approaches to Port Moresby were guarded by well- nigh impenetrable jungles and the alpine reaches of the Owen Stanley Mountains. Even so, when the enemy infantry pushed inland toward the Australian mining center of Wau, 150miles above Port Moresby, some saw in the move a step toward Port Moresby itself. Allied intel- ligence dismissed the idea, but no one discounted the serious threat of an amphibious assault designed to give the Japanese complete con- trol of New Guinea. A conquest of New Guinea would have removed the last land barrier guarding the northern approaches to Australia. Though the Japanese plan of war had not included an invasion of Australia,'* Allied planners now were forced to accept such an eventuality as not only possible but even perhaps probable. Early in March, the Austra- lian chiefs of staff concluded that an attempt on Port Moresby might be expected before the end of the month and an effort to occupy Darwin early in April.13 In Washington one, though not all, of the advisory committees of the Combined Chiefs of Staff felt that the enemy might attempt a t least the occupation of such points on the mainland as Darwin, Wyndham, and perhaps Town~ville.'~And so once again, as so frequently during that winter and spring, the ques- tion of a reallocation of forces had come under consideration. As stated by the joint planners, there were three choices: ( I ) to send strong reinforcements to the Pacific at the cost of sacrificing the hope 408
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