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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.
“The Wash”17 pages
T H E B A T T L E L I N E IN T H E PACIFIC distance. One faction favored halting at the Shortland Island area, off the southern end of Bougainville, while another advocated expanding all the way down to the New Hebrides with the intention of severing the South Pacific line of communications between the United States and Australia. The final compromise of the local command settled on taking the entire chain of the S010mons.~~ As early as February, the US. Navy had definite indications of an enemy offensive which might extend down the Solomons to New Caledonia or Fiji, and though as yet there were few combat surface units in the Rabaul area, by mid-April the Japanese were moving forces into Palau and Truk, obviously preparing for a thrust to the Anticipating that the operations would commence around 28 April, the US. Navy assumed that the enemy would attempt a sea- borne invasion of the lower Solomons, or Port Moresby, or both. The assumption was correct in both cases. Early in May an enemy force moved down to Tulagi on Florida Island, lying directly across the Sealark Channel from Guadalcanal, where the Japanese immediately set about preparing a seaplane base for use in operations against New Caledonia or Port Moresby. The primary goal now was Port Moresby, whose capture apparently was regarded by the Japanese army as a relatively simple operation and by the navy as necessary for the secur- ity of R a b a ~ I . ~ ~Certainly Moresby was a key point, for if it was useful to the Japanese, to the Allies it was the key to defense of northern Australia and a point of departure for future offensive operations against the Bismarck Archipelago. In preparation for the move against Port Moresby, in May the enemy moved his Genzan Air Group with twenty-seven planes and 300 flying personnel into Vunakanau at Rabaul, and on eight of the twelve days preceding 7 May, Japanese bombers carried out heavy air attacks on Port M o r e ~ b y . ~ ~ Rapidly, during the first week of May, Allied forces rushed to meet the thrust. On I May two US.carrier task forces, built around the Lexington and the Yorktown, rendezvoused 375 miles south of San Cristobal Island, while at Townsville and up a t Port Moresby the medium bombers of the 13th and 90th squadrons, A-24’s of the 8th Squadron, and B-26’s of the z2d Group (M) were prepared for the anticipated strikes. B-I 7’s of the 19th Bombardment Group’s 435th Squadron, based at Townsville and staging through Moresby, scoured the sea lanes leading down from Rabaul, flying all the way to Kavieng on the ~ d . ~ ~On the evening of 3 May, Rear Adm. Frank J. Fletcher 447
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