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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.
“Natal”13 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 Early in 1918 the Air Service, AEF, had entered into an arrangement with the British for the combined production of the large Handley- Page night bomber and the training of US. crews for its employment. This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was never equipped during the war with aircraft specifically designed for strategic b ~ m b a r d r n e n t . ~ ~Again, the deficiency might have been overcome in 1919. Had the war lasted long enough to provide the Air Service with some experience in a bombardment program conceived independently of the movements of ground armies, its postwar history might have been far different. For in the interim between the two wars the rela- tive importance of such an air mission became the crucial issue in the development of air power. Advocates of an air force tied closely to ground troops could speak authoritatively from experience; Ameri- cans who talked independent air operations could cite only theories. But in 1943 the correspondent’s dream was to be fulfilled almost to the letter. 16
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