The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

FOREWORD
to the New
Imprint
N March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to the
Director of the Bureau of the Budget ordering each war
agency to prepare an accurate and objective account” of
that agency’s war experience. Soon after, the Army Air Forces
began hiring professional historians so that its history could, in the
words of Brigadier General Laurence Kuter, “be recorded while
it is hot and that personnel be selected and an agency set up for
a clear historian’s job without axe to grind or defense to prepare.”
An Historical Division was established in Headquarters Army
Air Forces under Air Intelligence, in September 1942, and the
modern Air Force historical program began.
With the end of the war, Headquarters approved a plan for
writing and publishing a seven-volume history. In December 1945,
Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, Deputy Commander of Army
Air Forces, asked the Chancellor of the University of Chicago to
“assume the responsibility for the publication” of the history,
stressing that it must “meet the highest academic standards.’)
Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Frank Craven of New York University
and Major James Lea Cate of the University of Chicago, both of
whom had been assigned to the historical program, were selected
to be editors of the volumes. Between 1948 and 1958 seven were
published. With publication of the last, the editors wrote that
the Air Force had “fulfilled in letter and spirit” the promise of
access to documents and complete freedom of historical interpre-
tation. Like all history, The Army Air Forces in World War 11
reflects the era when it was conceived, researched, and written.
The strategic bombing campaigns received the primary emphasis,
not only because of a widely-shared belief in bombardment’s con-
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