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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 Invaders”15 pages
C O M M I T M E N T S TO C H I N A Colonel Haynes arrived a t Dinjan to assume his new duties on 2 3 April. With him was Col. Robert L. Scott, who had flown out in the same flight from the United States, and they were joined at Dinjan by Col. Merian C. Cooper. The task confronting them, to say the le‘ast, was discouraging. Although the equipment of the Americans was limited to thirteen DC-3’s and C-47’s, the single airfield already accommodated two British squadrons and was so crowded as to make proper dispersal of aircraft impossible. While barracks were under construction, the men were housed in mud and bamboo bashas with dirt floors. Messing facilities were poor; the quality of the food worse. Quartered more than ten miles from the airdrome, the Americans depended entirely on the British for ground tran~portation.~~Even more disconcerting was the absence of anything approaching an ade- quate defense against air attack by the Japanese. A single British pur- suit squadron operated without benefit of an air warning system, and there were no antiaircraft guns.4s T o avoid the probably disastrous effect of a sudden attack, the Americans undertook to get their planes into the air by dawn, and all servicing and cargo operations for planes landing during the day had to be handled with the utmost expedition. Under these circumstances, ordinary working hours were out of the question. The men generally worked from long before daybreak until late at night.44 The command had begun operations at a crucial point in the Japa- nese campaign for Burma. Following his capture of Rangoon, the enemy had grouped forces for a drive on Mandalay, key city of cen- tral Burma. General Stilwell, commanding the Chinese Fifth and Sixth armies, joined the British in an attempt to establish an effective line of defense. But by 25 March the Japanese had passed beyond Toungoo, by z April had forced the evacuation of Prome, and thus compelled the Allied forces to abandon their first line of defense. Their withdrawal to the north turned into a full retreat, and then under incessant pressure from the Japanese into a rout. Unable to challenge seriously the enemy’s supremacy in the air, meager RAF and A V G forces withdrew. During the last week in April, Lashio, railhead for the Burma Road, fell; and by the opening of May, Man- dalay had been captured. The campaign drew quickly to a close. On the 6th the Japanese made their position in the southeast secure by taking Akyab on the Bay of Bengal, the point originally selected by General Brady as a base for American bombers. The following day 499
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