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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 Wash”17 pages
T H E B A T T L E O F T H E A T L A N T I C was to be organized as a unit for antisubmarine “and related opera- tions” on the East and Gulf coasts. Air bases were to be established at strategic locations in order to take maximum advantage of the mobility of land-based aircraft. As soon as available, ASV-equipped aircraft would be welded into units “particularly suited for hunting down and destroying enemy submarines by methods developed by our experimental units which have been operating off Cape Hatteras.” Mobility was to be the keynote of this reorganized force. When a unit moved to an area outside the Eastern Defense Command, it would operate under the control of the particular sea frontier com- mander concerned, but it would still remain assigned to the I Bomber Command. Movement to and operation in areas beyond the juris- diction of the parent organization would be viewed as a temporary deta~hment.?~ Admiral King’s reaction to these cautious proposals was expressed with equal caution. While approving in general of the plan, he made it clear that he intended to make no radical change in the existing system of operational control vested in the sea frontier commanders. It would be necessary for the commander of the Eastern Sea Frontier, who was responsible for the protection of shipping in both the Eastern and Gulf Sea frontiers, to request air coverage for convoys operating outside the Eastern Sea Frontier from the commander of the Gulf Sea Frontier. This arrangement, he explained, did not present any administrative difficulty. It would mean only that aircraft attached to one sea frontier would not be required to operate in another sea frontier “unless exceptional conditions make it necessary.” In a note to the sea frontier commanders concerning General McNarney’s proposal, he further clarified his policy by stating that the division of aircraft, both Army and Navy, as between the sea frontiers, would be a matter under the cognizance of his headquarter~.?~ While these discussions continued with little promise of radical reorganization in the program as a whole, shipping losses continued to occur a t an appalling rate. On 19 June, General Marshall expressed his fear that “another month or two” of similar losses would “SO cripple our means of transport that we will be unable to bring suffi- cient men and planes against the enemy in critical theaters to exercise a determining influence on the war.” 7 2 This note of alarm elicited from Admiral King an energetic defense of the system of convoy and an equally positive criticism of the AAF doctrine of an air offensive 5 47
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