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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.
“Independence Day”9 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 11 manded combat planes.* Little wonder that General Arnold, faced with the problem of parceling out inadequate resources, was able to make available for antisubmarine operations only limited forces. Early Antisubmarine Operations Within the limits imposed by the general emergency, the opera- tional record of those AAF units-principally of the I Bomber Com- mand-which participated in the antisubmarine war was on the whole very creditable. Life in the I Bomber Command moved a t a hectic pace during the early months of war. The entire command had to be reorganized. Having been relieved during December and January of all but one of its bombardment groups (the 2d), it had in the first two months of 1942 to assimilate two new bombardment groups (the 45th and the 13th) and two reconnaissance squadrons (the 3d and 92d).ls These units were for the most part as yet untrained even in the normal techniques of bombardment, to say nothing of the special tactics of antisubmarine warfare. Thus the command was faced with the double problem of reorienting the training of its units and adapt- ing all its equipment to meet the requirements of its enlarged mission. Moreover, most of the new techniques had to be learned through actual experience; and, owing to the urgent need for antisubmarine patrols, the air units were forced to accomplish their training in the course of operational missions.1g Though even more understaffed than most organizations in those days, I Bomber Command headquarters, under the command of Brig. Gen. A.N. Krogstad, attacked these complex tasks with resourceful- ness and vigor. On I 2 December, General Krogstad set up an advance echelon at New York City to conduct tactical operations in conjunc- tion with the NANCF, and this detachment was followed shortly by the entire headquarters staff. On 24 January the system of joint de- fense was extended by the establishment of a liaison office with the Sixth Naval District at Charleston, South Carolina. The 66th Ob- * As evidence of a continuing difficulty in reconciling the demand and the supply of equipment, it may be further noted that the emergency call from the Middle East in June was met by diversion of the Halverson detachment and the transfer of virtually all heavy bombers from India, that the 43d Bombardment Group (H) which had reached Australia in March did not receive its planes until September, that the Eighth Air Force began operations with only one heavy bomber group, and that the subsequent requirements of the North African operation served to keep the combat strength of the Eighth in heavy bombers at no more than six groups until May '943. 5 26
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