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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 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 back, two were damaged.83 Attacks on Myitkyina were resumed on the 29th, when four planes bombed from 2 3 , 0 0 0 feet. The following day a similar attack was made, but as no enemy activity was in evi- dence on either occasion the attacks were di~continued.~~During the first week of June, the small force undertook its final flights over Burma before the weather and a shortage of spare parts combined to ground the last of them.85 Five planes attacked the Rangoon docks and harbor area on I June, reporting that one tanker had been sunk and that another had been left listing.86Three days later, two bombers struck a t the same target area without observing the results; attacked by ten fighters, one plane was destroyed, another seriously damaged.87 And this was the last until the monsoon Iifted. Brereton’s Departure for the Middle East By mid-June, when the monsoon had come, the Americans were beginning to appreciate the magnitude of the task involved in estab- lishing and operating an air force in Asia. The report of the Grady mission, plus three months of experience gained by the Tenth, had revealed that even for a small force the 1ogisticaI probIem was stagger- ing. Unable to use the more direct routes through the Mediterranean and across the Pacific, and forced to sail in convoys for protection against enemy submarines, ships from the United States required two months to make the I 3,000-statute-mile voyage. Furthermore, the demands of more active theaters for cargo ships, transports, and escort vessels were so heavy that bottoms allotted to Asia were kept to the barest minimum.88 And after the ships reached India the logistical problems were by no means at an end. Japanese naval and air action in the Bay of Bengal restricted the use of Calcutta and forced incom- ing ships to dock along the west coast, where only three ports of any importance were available-Cochin, Bombay, and Karachi. Cochin was entirely too far south to serve as an American port of entry; Bombay was overtaxed with British shipping. Hence, although heavy port equipment had to be imported and existing storage space greatly enlarged, the original choice of Karachi had been confirmed by sub- sequent study.” Had it been possible to use ports on the eastern shore, a third im- portant problem might have been less troublesome; but dependence on Karachi forced a maximum dependence on the Indian railroads. Outside northwestern India, the railway system was not highly de- 5 10
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