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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.
“Pacific Ocean”16 pages
T H E B A T T L E O F T H E A T L A N T I C especially considering that it spent only a fraction of its time on combat patrol. But the important contribution of SADU was made, as intended, in the application of scientific and technological resources to antisubmarine warfare.” It kept close contact with the National Defense Research Council and kept in touch with radar experimenta- tion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by agencies of the U.S. Navy, and under the direction of other organizations both public and private. At the same time, it initiated projects peculiar to its own mission and by the end of the year its commanding officer, Col. W.C. Dolan, would be able to report on some fifty-eight pro jecmS1 Bur it was one thing to develop the weapons and tactics and quite another to use them effectively. That demanded, in Dr. Bowles’ opinion, a correspondingly fresh organization constructed on prin- ciples of physical mobility and unity of purpose. He preferred not to raise the question of over-all unity of command. Rather, he pro- posed to increase the effectiveness of the antisubmarine organization within the Army itself, by which he meant the organization of all land-based aviation connected with the antisubmarine program. This, of course, involved the jurisdiction of the Navy, for that service, having been successful in its attempt to secure land-based bombers, was preparing to build up a land-based air arm of its 0wn.t This tendency to develop two separate air forces, one in the Army and one in the Navy, for the same task, Dr. Bowles recognized as a fundamental weakness in the current program, and in doing so he pointed to the issue on which the future of AAF participation in that program depended, an issue resolved a year later only by the com- plete withdrawal of the AAF from the antisubmarine effort. He recommended, therefore, that an “Air Anti-Submarine Force” be organized under the command of a general officer who would control the entire land-based air component of the American anti- submarine forces, including all land-based aircraft employed by the Navy for the purpose. Like SADU, this force would be placed under For a discussion of some of the technical innovations in antisubmarine warfare resulting from this and other research programs, see Volume I1 of this history. t Delivery of B - z ~ sto the Navy began in August. By the end of the year, de- liveries had reached a total of 5 2 , and by I July 1943 had totaled 209, which figure was slightly above that requested in February 1942 (see above, p. 539.) Total deliveries for 1 9 4 3 were 308; for 1944, the total was 604. At the end of that year the cumulative total of B-24 deliveries had reached the figure of 964. (Figures supplied by Office of Statistical Control.) 5 5 ’
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