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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.
“King”32 pages
T H E A R M Y A I R A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S appointed in each of several departments-War, Navy, Commerce- to supervise aviation. The Lampert report, published on 1 3 December,46 was in many respects an indorsement of Mitchell’s ideas. On the central issue of organization, after an analysis of six possible schemes, it favored the single Department of Defense with equal representation for air, ground, and naval forces. These dissident reports evoked a wave of new air bills in Congress, ranging from Representative Charles Curry’s detailed plan for a Department of Defense to a War Department- sponsored bill providing only minor change^.^' The bill which was finally enacted purported to be a compromise, but it leaned heavily on the Morrow recommendations. The Air Corps Act of 2 July 1926 4 8 effected no fundamental in- novation. The change in designation meant no change in status: the Air Corps was still a combatant branch of the Army with less prestige than the Infantry. The establishment of an air section in each division of the General Staff was prescribed for a three-year period. A new Assistant Secretary of War was to be named to help in “fostering military aeronautics,” but in the absence of a more definite mission his usefulness would be determined by the attitude of the Secretary. Specific provisions were aimed a t removing complaints in respect to flying officers’ rating, pay, and promotion and at regularizing procure- ment procedure. T o remedy existing deficiencies in personnel and equipment, the law authorized a five-year program to bring the Air Corps up to a strength of 1,518 officers, 2 , 5 0 0 flying cadets, 16,000 enlisted men, and I ,800 serviceable aircraft. The skepticism with which Air Corps officers viewed this legislation was confirmed by the experience of the next few years. Funds were not made available for the authorized expansion, and for that failure the War Department and the Bureau of the Budget, rather than Con- gress, seem to have been respon~ible.’~Directed reforms were not carried out to the satisfaction of the officers concerned, and token representation in the General Staff accomplished little. The ineffec- tiveness of the Air Corps Act confirmed proponents of a sweeping reorganization in their opinions; between 1926 and 1935 twelve bills for a Department of Aeronautics and seventeen for a single Depart- ment of Defense were presented in Congress.6oNot one was reported favorably, however, and by 1933 many Air Corps officers had come to believe it hopeless to strive longer for independence from the War 29
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