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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
C O M h X I T M E N T S T O C H I N A veloped, and by American standards was grossly inefficient through- out. Four different gauges of track required numerous extra handlings of freight by slow-moving, physically weak native laborers. In eastern India, further delays were imposed by the use of ferries instead of bridges for crossing numerous streams; on the important Calcutta- Assam line of communications, there existed not a single bridge over the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries. T h e railways, already weakened by a transfer of locomotives and rolling stock to Iran and forced now to haul the products of the industrial centers of eastern India which normally went by sea from Calcutta, were unable to absorb American traffic without countless breakdowns and heart- breaking delays. After a two-month voyage from the United States, equipment generally took six additional weeks in moving from Karachi to Assam. For goods to reach Kunming from Karachi, unless entirely carried by air, it generally took longer than the voyage from the United States.goThe highway system, which was in even worse condition than the railroads, could not accommodate any appreciable additional load. First-class, all-weather hiohways were rare, and even these generally were too narrow to permit two-way traffic. The best of them, too poorly graded and banked for efficient use by high- speed vehicles, were frequently rendered impassable by monsoon rains." Initially, however, the inadequacy of the highway system hardly proved a major handicap, since very few trucks were available to the Tenth. Because river boats ordinarily carried a considerable volume of freight on the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, that means of transportation was not overlooked in the early planning, and espe- cially in plans for the movement of cargoes between Calcutta and Assam. Unfortunately the river-boat fleets, like rolling stock, required extensive replacements. Moreover, the railway system had not been planned to complement the riverways; main railway lines frequently paralleled the course of the rivers, and this was particularly true in eastern India.sz T h e communication system presented equally disturb- ing problems. Telegraph and telephone lines extended to practically every section of the country, but equipment and methods were hope- lessly outmoded for military purposes.93 In setting up an air transport service for aid in overcoming these difficulties, still other problems were met. Existing airfields had been located and constructed primarily with a view to commercial rather than military needs. Runways were generally too short and too lightly ? 5"
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.