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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.

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“United Press”36 pages

  • p. 2 THE UNIVERSITYOF CHICAGOPRESS, CHICAGO8 LONDON The University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada Copyright 1948 by…
  • p. 48 …An Associated Press dispatch of 10 October gave a contemporary judgment of the importance of this…
  • p. 55 …Air Service (Corps) found it difficult to press vigorously for reorgani- zation and, by default, leadership…
  • p. 56 …In 1919the W a r Department was pressing for a drastic revision of the military establishment…
  • p. 61 …It held that there was no danger of an air attack on the United States and…
  • p. 64 …GHQ Air Forcq a trial than to press for more radical measures, and Howell’s group…
  • p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be completely stopped, but their effects could best…
  • p. 98 …based air operations in defense of the United States and its overseas posses~ions.’~T w…
  • p. 99 …General Westover’s report concluded that “all Air Force units could be concentrated on either coast…
  • p. 130 …the Admiralty began to press for control of naval air units, while the army attempted to…
  • p. 149 …basic and advanced Responsibility for crew and unit train- ing was vested in the GHQ Air…
  • p. 164 …A m y air units in the Territory existed primarily for the defense of this and…
  • p. 176 …no military alliances were made which would commit the United States to war; the plans only…
  • p. 278 …There were also grounds for hoping that heavy bomber units now based on Darwin might increase…
  • p. 285 …From 1938 the United States had invoked sanctions against Japan in the form of moral em…
  • p. 287 …Over-all Strategy and lmmediate Deployment On 2 2 December, the press announced dramatically the arrival…
  • p. 289 …ground units sent in that direction were not destined for immediate combat. No major invasion of…
  • p. 323 …Seizure of bases in Canada or Mexico for later attacks on the United States. Capture of…
  • p. 366 …United state^,^ and the British them- selves were forced to withdraw some pilots from combat units…
  • p. 380 …Upon the request of the Ferrying Command, the State Depart- ment again pressed for an answer…
  • p. 397 …the summer and fall, first as the United States Middle East Air Force and later as…
  • p. 430 …Attempts had been made to replace these obsolete craft by purchase from the United States, but…
  • p. 440 …But as the Japanese pressed forward the Americans were given no opportunity to get set. The…
  • p. 463 …personnel that would be reassigned to infantry units whose rosters already included many representatives of the…
  • p. 552 …pines and more recently of American air units operating in the Netherlands East Indies, he was…
  • p. 560 …Moreover, examination proved that most of the basic equipment of the units, including badly needed trucks…
  • p. 563 …Grady arrived from the United States for a comprehensive survey of Indian resources with reference to…
  • p. 564 …TO C H I N A graphic units, and unfavorable atmospheric conditions combined to make high…
  • p. 607 …Thus the AAF units engaged in the anti-U-boat war became almost a t once…
  • p. 628 …Army air bombardment units would operate offensively in collaboration with the Royal Air Force, primarily against…
  • p. 658 …was to operate in the United Kingdom.14' All air units initially based there were to…
  • p. 683 …of the units of the infant Eighth until their departure for the United Kingdom several months…
  • p. 691 …The RAF proposed that American fighter units be integrated with its own under a plan eventually…
  • p. 748 …533.) By 1928he was (Patrick, United States in the Air, pp. 190-91.) 38. Charges of…
  • p. 770 …y.W D Press Release, 2 1 June 1941. 9 1 . AR 95-5, 3a. 92…
  • p. 857 …Presque Isle, 344, 347-49, 641, 644-45 Press comment: B-17, 662-63; danger of…
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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