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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.
“Sumatra”6 pages
C H A P T E R 12 * * * * * * * * * * * DRAWING THE BATTLE LINE IN THE PACIFIC HE SIX months which followed the attack upon Pearl Har- bor were months in which the opposing lines of battle were Tdrawn across the Pacific, but the drafting of these lines pre- sented to the planners of Allied strategy a series of painful shocks. One after another the great bases and focal points of Allied resistance throughout the Southwest Pacific had been overrun by the full flood of Japanese expansion, as the grand design of the enemy’s strategy became increasingly clear. His prize was the fabulously rich Nether- lands East Indies; by 10 March he held Java, and there remained only the task of tidying up the loose ends through all the islands and the final reduction of American forces in the Philippines. For the Japanese planners, the problem now became one of organization of the gains. Here, within their grasp, were rich stores of foodstuffs, minerals, and the most vital resource of modern war, oil to fuel the fleet and power the planes. T o shield this vast empire, the Japanese navy felt the need for a series of peripheral redoubts, minor and major bases which would serve as sally ports, listening posts, and as effective deterrents to any attempts on the part of the Allies to crash through into the vital com- munication lines leading back to the home islands.’ Some of the islands needed for the purpose already lay in Japanese hands, such as the Marshalls and the Carolines, both of which groups had been obtained so easily during the first World War; other bases, like Singapore, Soerabaja, Amboina, and Rabaul were freshly acquired as the prod- ucts of the relentless southern sweep of the enemy’s air, sea, and land forces. Among the new bases were Guam and Wake, neither of them so richly endowed as the Dutch or British prizes, but the capture of ’ 427
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