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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
T H E B A T T L E O F T H E A T L A N T I C the Army Air Forces during December 1941and the early months of 1942. Although neither trained nor equipped specifically for the purpose, Army units possessed aircraft whose range generally ex- ceeded that of available Navy planes. As soon as the news of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor arrived, the NANCF commander requested the commanding general of the Eastern Defense Command to undertake off shore patrols with all available aircraft. Accordingly, on the afternoon of 8 December 1941,units of the I Bomber Com- mand began flights over the ocean to the limit of their range.ls But it was a motley array of planes that I Bomber Command assem- bled in December to meet the submarine threat. At virtually the same time that it was called upon to undertake overwater patrol duties, it was stripped of the best-trained of its tactical units for missions on the West Coast” and for overseas assignment. Every available Army plane in the First Air Force capable of carrying a bomb load was drafted to augment what was left of I Bomber Command. As a result of these frantic efforts, approximately I O O aircraft of various two- engine types were assembled and placed a t the disposal of the naval commander. To this force, likened by one observer to Joffre’s taxi- cab army of 1914, the I Air Support Command added substantial aid in the way of reconnaissan~e.~~ By the middle of January ‘942, this Army patrol had gained a little in strength and regularity of operation. T h e I Bomber Command was by that time maintaining patrols a t the rate of two flights each day from Westover Field, Massachusetts, Mitchel Field, New York, and Langley Field, Virginia, and was in the process of inaugurating similar missions from Bangor, Maine. These flights, averaging three planes each, extended, weather permitting and according to the type of plane, to a maximum distance of 600 miles to sea. The longer dis- tances were covered only by the few B-17’s operating from Langley Field, seldom more than nine of which were in commission. In addi- tion to the aircraft of I Bomber Command, I Air Support Command operated patrols during daylight hours in single-engine observation planes extending about forty miles offshore from Portland, Maine, to Wilmington, North Carolina. These planes were not armed, nor did they carry sufficient fuel for more than two or three hours’ flying, and not more than ten of them were maintained in the air along the See above, Chap. 8. 5 2 3
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