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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)
Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer
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.
“Sea”60+ pages
- p. 10 …the major responsibility for coverage of over-
seas operations, and in the fall of 1942 he…
- p. 53 …this department in operations over land
and sea, but none offered an acceptable solution to the…
- p. 58 …Because of the traditional importance of sea power in the national
scheme of defense, Mitchell’s…
- p. 59 …as the tactics of the ground
and sea forces,” the board recommended a ten-year expansion…
- p. 64 …entirely dependable force” for operating a t sea, and the
Army, which “with its own air…
- p. 74 …find a limited career on the high seas beyond the operational
radius of aircraft. In 1920…
- p. 76 …units should be attached to ground and sea
forces as auxiliaries.9*But, so long as…
- p. 83 …the conduct of air operations over
the sea in direct defense of the coast”; under certain…
- p. 86 …Aviation alone cannot pro-
tect our merchant marine or our troop movements by sea, but it…
- p. 96 …certain responsibilities for the
protection of coastwise sea lanes. But the Navy’s obligations, in
contradistinction…
- p. 97 …traditionally naval functions as patrol of coastal sea lanes. Placed
aboard a carrier, the airplane could…
- p. 98 …least 2 5 0 miles a t sea, and the importance of developing
seaward reconnaissance units…
- p. 105 …The Navy would provide aircraPt for
don, scouting, and patrolling over the sea and for the…
- p. 107 …It
is the only weapon which can engage, with equal facility, land, sea, and other
air…
- p. 108 …a great
nation as land power and sea power, and there is no hope for victory…
- p. 112 …advance of contact either upon land or sea, and that victory can-
not but incline to…
- p. 114 …responsible for coastal defense, convoy protection, and sea and
antisubmarine patrols. There was apparently little co…
- p. 118 …they
made relatively little provision for air-sea rescue of highly trained
personnel. In the matter…
- p. 119 …As opposed to
land and sea operations, in which the defensive attitude was easier than
the…
- p. 127 …Recon-
naissance and sea rescue work also figured in Luftwaffe operations.
The badly outnumbered Norwegian air…
- p. 128 …in combined
operations with the land and sea forces.” In keeping with French
military traditions, however…
- p. 133 …Atlantic
and in the Irish and North seas. The attempted air blockade achieved
a moderate degree…
- p. 138 …tradi-
tional policy of freedom of the seas and which denied to our govern-
ment the…
- p. 154 …Such additions to a com-
bination of Japanese, Italian, and German sea forces would have
imposed…
- p. 155 …force to intercept an enemy approaching by sea. The Navy had bit-
terly resented Air Corps…
- p. 157 …the point where it could cover all sea and land
areas from which enemy air power…
- p. 162 …The Caribbean Sea
was shaped somewhat in the fashion of a very flat wedge of pie…
- p. 173 …At the Roosevelt-Churchill conference at
sea in mid-August, Generals Marshall and Arnold had made…
- p. 177 …Near East,
India, and the Far East. Sea communications, upon which logistical
support of these widely…
- p. 181 …Hemisphere, support of naval forces in maintaining sea communica-
tions, and attacks on enemy shipping within…
- p. 188 …And to protect the
security of bases and the sea lanes which connected them with Amer…
- p. 198 …and to insure the safety of
essential sea communications.'s By the first week of December…
- p. 199 …Base commander, included inde-
pendent action againsr sea, land, and air objectives, support of land
and…
- p. 201 …and aircraft warning outposts fringing the Caribbean Sea." Dis-
tributed among the military fields and installations…
- p. 204 …and
against attacks by air, land, and sea forces, while the Navy mission
was to support…
- p. 208 …thorough reconnaissance and observation of
the air, sea, and land approaches to the Canal Zone.” Existing…
- p. 211 …base would put an increased strain on sea com-
munications a t a time when shipping…
- p. 235 …and cargo ships in harbors and at sea, confirming
the general assumption that some major move…
- p. 246 …But as the day advanced
the sea had roughened, and approximately fifty planes were smashed
in…
- p. 249 …the enemy fleet returned to the Inland Sea of Japan.17 Japanese
officials interviewed after the…
- p. 257 …a fruitless
flight over the South China Sea, where an enemy formation had been
From this…
- p. 259 …Meanwhile, the planes of the 3d Squadron returning from their
search over the South China Sea…
- p. 268 …depots had
been “completely ruined.” The submarine Sea Lion had been sunk
and other naval craft…
- p. 282 …and the prospect of breaking through the sea
blockade with a naval escort for convoys was…
- p. 286 …as its southward movement must be by sea, we counted
on neutralizing, if not wholly containing…
- p. 288 …maintenance
of designated lines of communication, both sea lanes and air routes;
forging and tightening a…
- p. 323 …This drastic shift in
the balance of sea power had exposed the Pacific coast and, in…
- p. 325 …innocent American freighter which had been at
sea without radio communication and had not heard of…
- p. 326 …by the time-consuming and vulner-
able sea route. T w o air routes were available…
- p. 329 …They were enemy
planes! I mean Japanese planes! And they were tracked out to sea. You…
- p. 332 …a Japanese submarine rose
out of the sea off Ellwood, a hamlet on the California coast…
- p. 333 …though the mysterious object tracked in from sea seems
to have vanished. At 0 2 4…
- p. 348 …on 26 March 1942 to the Eastern Sea Frontier."
It was accordingly within the Eastern and…
- p. 362 …provide for the
security of the principal sea routes and seven main air routes over
3…
- p. 363 …I N C I P A L SEA A N D A I R R O…
- p. 364 …because the Japanese had cut the
only sea and air lanes over which available reinforcements, such…
- p. 372 …around Africa
and up through the Red Sea to Egypt. A large base and an assembly…
- p. 419 …T h e former was engaged only in long-range over-
seas operations, while the latter…
- p. 433 …a key point in the defense of sea and air routes through the
South Pacific, and…
- p. 435 …an eastern invasion force would move
down through the Molucca Sea to occupy Manado, Kendari, and…
T H E B A T T L E O F T H E A T L A N T I C
in which the American forces found themselves fighting in 1942.
The British had solved the problem of co-ordinating the activities
of land-based aviation with those of the Royal Navy and the Fleet
Air Arm by creating a special RAF command, equipped and trained
for sea search and attack and placed for purposes of operational
control under the Admiralty. Details of this arrangement had been
made available to interested headquarters in Washington by the British
officers detailed to advise the American antisubmarine forces. Ad-
mittedly far from perfect, the system they described bore the author-
ity of more than two years' experience in joint action, experience
marked by close and effective co-operation between the services.
The Admiralty set forth the general pattern of antisubmarine oper-
ations and left it to Coastal Command to direct the activities of its
own units within that over-all strategic pattern. Sea and air officers
in charge of operations worked in the same quarters from identical
intelligence data presented on the same plotting charts. Interchange
of information thus became virtually automatic." 'O
N o immediate results followed General Arnold's proposal. By May,
however, the submarine situation itself pointed more imperatively
than words to the need for some change in the existing system of
control. Most of the May sinkings had occurred in the Gulf and
Caribbean areas. Scarcely adequate to protect shipping in the Eastern
Sea Frontier, the existing organization of antisubmarine operations
proved powerless to cope with a greatly extended area of activity.
Above all, there was the ugly fact that during that month sinkings in
both these sea frontiers had risen to an alarming figure. Despite ener-
getic efforts on the part of both Navy and AAF agencies to meet a
rapidly changing situation with machinery constructed essentially
on static principles, the extension of AAF antisubmarine operations
merely emphasized the faults inherent in the existing system of com-
mand and control.
The agreement reached late in March had placed unity of command
over all air forces operating over the sea in the coastal defense areas
in the hands of the sea frontier commanders. This seemed a con-
venient enough arrangement for the time being, but in reality it
merely made more definite what had hitherto been left vague. It did
* The contrast between this concept of operational control and that followed by
the US.Navy should be noted. The US.Navy preferred to exercise more detailed
supervision of the operations of Army units assigned to its control through such
lower echelons of command as the sea frontier and the naval district.
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