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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 O F T H E A T L A N T I C mobility comparable to that enjoyed by the U-boat command itself.' But all such efforts foundered on the rocks of interservice contro- versy. The story of the antisubmarine air effort becomes, therefore, in no small part a story of jurisdictional and doctrinal debate punc- tuated by a series of compromises ending in a final compromise by which AAF forces withdrew from antisubmarine operations on the understanding that the Navy would relinquish all claim to control of long-range air striking forces operating from land bases. It is not the purpose of this chapter to provide a full narrative of AAF antisubmarine activity. The bulk of that story falls chrono- logically outside the limits of this volume. It is necessary here, how- ever, to consider the emergency problem which confronted the AAF on the outbreak of hostilities and the developments which led to the creation of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command in Oc- tober 1942. The operations of that command and the controversy which overshadowed its brief existence-extending from the fall of 1942 through the summer of 1943--will receive separate treatment in the following volume. T h e Question of Responsibility Since the early development of military aviation in the United States, the Army and the Navy had differed on certain points regard- ing its control. With regard to land-based aviation engaged in sea- ward patrol, each service took a logical enough position. T o the Army, land-based aircraft whether operating over land or water should be its responsibility. T o the Navy, it seemed equally natural that operations over water against seaborne targets should be a naval responsibility. But since the air constituted a medium which extended over both land and water, arguments concerning its control could drift more or less a t will for so long a time as national policy insisted on regarding the air arm as subordinate to either the Army or the Navy. It thus became a question that would have to be answered arbitrarily by some competent authority. As early as 1920 it had been recognized that, in providing an air arm for both services, there lay a serious danger of duplicating instal- lations and equipment. In that year Congress, accordingly, had deter- mined that the Army air arm should have responsibility for all aerial operations from land bases and that to naval aviation belonged all air activity attached to the fleet, including the maintenance of such shore 5'9
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