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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.
“United Press”36 pages
T H E D E F E N S E O F A U S T R A L I A Group was in any condition for immediate employment. T h e experi- ence in Java had shattered the morale of their battle-wearied crews, and the fourteen B-17’s rescued from the disaster there were all in depot for repair. Indeed, the twelve B-I 7’s available for operations were for the moment in the anomalous position of not being even under American command. Both the planes and the crews, some of which had flown into Oahu during the Japanese attack on 7 December, belonged to the 2 2d Bombardment Squadron and the 88th Reconnais- sance Squadron of the 7th Group, but after flying search missions out of Hawaii for two months, they had been attached to Naval Task Force ANZAC early in February for assistance in protection of the South Pacific line of supply. Under the command of Maj. Richard H. Carmichael, the flight had flown twelve missions from the Fiji Islands prior to its arrival at Townsville in Australia on I 8 and I 9 February. In the absence of official notification of their coming, USAFIA had made no arrangements for maintenance, supply, or administration. For a few days they had remained under naval control, during which time six of the planes flew the first American bomber mission against Rabaul on 2 3 February, and then they were transferred to control of the RAAF.’5 By the end of March the heavy bomber situation had been some- what clarified. Planes and crews of the 7th Group had been assigned to the 19th, which, near Townsville, was in process of reorganization and preparation for combat under the command of Lt. Col. Kenneth B. Hobson. For the second heavy bombardment group committed to Australia the choice had fallen on the 43d Group, and its ground echelon had now arrived. But it would be months before the 43d entered operations. AAF plans had called for dispatch of two B-17’s a day to Australia after 2 0 March, with the purpose of building up and maintaining a minimum of forty heavy bombers for each of the two groups. T h e W a r Department subsequently decided, however, to reconsider allocations to all theaters, and by the end of March only nine of the bombers had reached Australia. A new decision on the combined staff level did not appreciably alter the earlier commitment to the Southwest Pacific. There would be eighty operational aircraft with the addition of forty in reserve, but plans for their movement to the theater called for the dispatch of only thirty in April and the remainder as soon thereafter as was possible.26 Light bombardment units were also undergoing regrouping and 4’ 3
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