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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.

  • 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 A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
nothing to meet the problem of deploying land-based aviation effec-
tively in antisubmarine warfare. The trouble was that no single com-
mand, either in the Navy or Army, was solely responsible for the
conduct of the antisubmarine war. The result was that a multiplicity
of regional headquarters within a system constructed originally to
meet the needs of a static defense robbed the air arm of what the
AAF considered its primary advantage, namely its mobility as an
offensive striking force.
Most AAF units engaged in the campaign served under the opera-
tional control of the I Bomber Command, which remained the only
organization capable of co-ordinating such an enterprise. But the
I Bomber Command was still theoretically a bombardment force, and
as long as it retained a dual responsibility its training and tactical
development had literally to be carried on at two levels-for high-
level bombardment and for low-level attack against submarines. This
situation prevented it from concentrating as fully on the anti-U-boat
war as the nature of that conflict required. The system over which
it presided was, moreover, loosely integrated. The Civil Air Patrol
served under the I Air Support Command for operational control.
I Air Support Command, in turn, operated under the control of
I Bomber Command. Units of the Third Air Force, brought in as
an emergency measure t o meet the crisis in the Gulf area in May,
operated under the control of the Gulf Task Force of the I Bomber
Command. And this system, such as it was, as yet did not extend to
the Caribbean, where the Antilles Air Task Force operated inde-
pendently under the Caribbean Sea Frontier. Administratively speak-
ing, the situation was even more complicated because all units were
administered through either the First Air Force or the Third Air
Force, both of which had to go through their respective defense com-
mand headquarters before reaching Headquarters, AAF.e' Within
the Army itself, then, the organization was poorly adapted to meet
the challenge of an opponent that operated with extreme mobility
under a strictly unified command.
Another serious difficulty arose from the fact that the AAF units
were, according to joint agreement, allocated to the sea frontier
commanders. These allocations were treated by the Navy as more
or less permanent arrangements which, except in grave emergency,
would prevent the AAF units serving under one frontier commander
from operating in the territory of another. This tendency to tie
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