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

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 2 THE UNIVERSITYOF CHICAGOPRESS, CHICAGO8 LONDON The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada Copyright 1948 by…
  • p. 48 …An Associated Press dispatch of 10 October gave a contemporary judgment of the importance of this…
  • p. 55 …Air Service (Corps) found it difficult to press vigorously for reorgani- zation and, by default, leadership…
  • p. 56 …In 1919the W a r Department was pressing for a drastic revision of the military establishment…
  • p. 61 …It held that there was no danger of an air attack on the United States and…
  • p. 64 …GHQ Air Forcq a trial than to press for more radical measures, and Howell’s group…
  • p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be completely stopped, but their effects could best…
  • p. 98 …based air operations in defense of the United States and its overseas posses~ions.’~T w…
  • p. 99 …General Westover’s report concluded that “all Air Force units could be concentrated on either coast…
  • p. 130 …the Admiralty began to press for control of naval air units, while the army attempted to…
  • p. 149 …basic and advanced Responsibility for crew and unit train- ing was vested in the GHQ Air…
  • p. 164 …A m y air units in the Territory existed primarily for the defense of this and…
  • p. 176 …no military alliances were made which would commit the United States to war; the plans only…
  • p. 278 …There were also grounds for hoping that heavy bomber units now based on Darwin might increase…
  • p. 285 …From 1938 the United States had invoked sanctions against Japan in the form of moral em…
  • p. 287 …Over-all Strategy and lmmediate Deployment On 2 2 December, the press announced dramatically the arrival…
  • p. 289 …ground units sent in that direction were not destined for immediate combat. No major invasion of…
  • p. 323 …Seizure of bases in Canada or Mexico for later attacks on the United States. Capture of…
  • p. 366 …United state^,^ and the British them- selves were forced to withdraw some pilots from combat units…
  • p. 380 …Upon the request of the Ferrying Command, the State Depart- ment again pressed for an answer…
  • p. 397 …the summer and fall, first as the United States Middle East Air Force and later as…
  • p. 430 …Attempts had been made to replace these obsolete craft by purchase from the United States, but…
  • p. 440 …But as the Japanese pressed forward the Americans were given no opportunity to get set. The…
  • p. 463 …personnel that would be reassigned to infantry units whose rosters already included many representatives of the…
  • p. 552 …pines and more recently of American air units operating in the Netherlands East Indies, he was…
  • p. 560 …Moreover, examination proved that most of the basic equipment of the units, including badly needed trucks…
  • p. 563 …Grady arrived from the United States for a comprehensive survey of Indian resources with reference to…
  • p. 564 …TO C H I N A graphic units, and unfavorable atmospheric conditions combined to make high…
  • p. 607 …Thus the AAF units engaged in the anti-U-boat war became almost a t once…
  • p. 628 …Army air bombardment units would operate offensively in collaboration with the Royal Air Force, primarily against…
  • p. 658 …was to operate in the United Kingdom.14' All air units initially based there were to…
  • p. 683 …of the units of the infant Eighth until their departure for the United Kingdom several months…
  • p. 691 …The RAF proposed that American fighter units be integrated with its own under a plan eventually…
  • p. 748 …533.) By 1928he was (Patrick, United States in the Air, pp. 190-91.) 38. Charges of…
  • p. 770 …y.W D Press Release, 2 1 June 1941. 9 1 . AR 95-5, 3a. 92…
  • p. 857 …Presque Isle, 344, 347-49, 641, 644-45 Press comment: B-17, 662-63; danger of…
C O M M I T M E N T S TO C H I N A
carpenters, ditch diggers, and at whatever other tasks needed to be
done. There was work for all at Agra; and this, plus the evident
progress made, prevented development of morale problems com-
parable to those existing earlier at Karachi.79
T h e service command would serve both India and China. T o assist
in carrying out this large mission, the 59th Materiel Squadron (soon
redesignated 59th Service Squadron) was divided into small base units
to serve the needs of combat stations. T h e unit's headquarters was
located at Allahabad, selected as base for the heavy bombers, and
there, too, was stationed Base Unit Number One. Other base units
were assigned to Kunming, Agra, Dinjan and Chabua, Chakulia, and
Bangalore, the latter being the location of Hindustan Aircraft, Ltd.,
which was to be changed over by agreement with the British from a
manufacturing plant to a repair and overhaul depot for American-
made aircraft." During May additional personnel for the service com-
mand arrived and received assignments. On 2 3 May, Lt. Col. Daniel
F. Callahan was made chief, maintenance and repair division, and the
following day Col. Robert C. Oliver reported to become chief of
staff to General Adler, Hood taking the assignment as chief, supply
division. No headquarters and headquarters squadron was created,
personnel normally constituting such an organization being assigned
to the Tenth Air Force and detailed to duty with the service
By late June, Adler's infant command was beginning to function in
the routine fields of receipt, storage and issue, distribution, mainte-
nance, repair, overhaul, and salvage. Other duties requiring attention
were local procurement, manufacture of certain items, and various
responsibilities in connection with maintenance and repair work,
which by that time had begun at the Hindustan plant at Bangalore. T h e
command suffered with other organizations the common difficulties
of the theater a t this time-poor communications, shortage of motor
vehicles, dependence upon unskilled or semiskilled native labor, and
always the weather.82
T h e combat force of the Tenth proper was still limited to a hand-
ful of heavy bombers, some of them badly worn. Its combat opera-
tions continued, therefore, on the scale set by its earlier missions to
Burma. Turning on 2 5 May from its effort to assure the neutralization
of Myitkyina airfield, it struck again that night with five B-17's at
targets in the Rangoon area. One of the planes was forced to turn
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