The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

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
the US.Navy in the Coral Sea, and the attack from over the Owen
Stanley range, just inaugurated by the Japanese army, was soon to
boomerang in the Allied drive for Buna. In New Guinea, then, and
in the Solomons where the Marines had landed on 7 August, the
Papuan and Guadalcanal campaigns were just ushering in the second
phase of the Pacific war-that of limited and local offensives which
might put American forces in position to initiate later the long drive
northward.
This order of things was not of our choosing; it stemmed from
the complete success of the initial Japanese attacks. Prewar decisions
to concentrate first against Germany had been based on the assump-
tion that Japanese forces could be contained by a strategic defensive;
the simultaneous destruction of Allied sea and air striking forces
had gravely altered the situation. Hence, though Anglo-American
strategists could reaffirm in general terms their earlier view of the
paramount importance of Germany, they found it necessary to divert
to the Pacific a heavy share of the immediately available air strength,
with all that implied in shipping and logistical support. This reversal
in priorities, though temporary, inexorably retarded the air effort in
Europe-and so it was that the bomber campaign against Germany,
conceived in 1941as America’s first offensive against the Axis, limped
into action some thirty-six weeks after war began.
In the meanwhile, however, preparation for the air war against
Germany had gone on, somewhat hampered by successive reappraisals
of over-all strategy. It is with those preparations and their first fruits
that this section is concerned. The present chapter deals largely with
plans-the general strategy, the mission of the Army Air Forces
therein, and the means by which its leaders proposed to accomplish
that mission. The following chapter will describe the actual estab-
lishment in the United Kingdom of the Eighth Air Force and its
logistical support. And finally, that this volume need not close with-
out a t least one blow against Germany, the last chapter will tell the
story of the first AAF bombardment mission over western Europe.
The Bonzber Offensive in World Strategy
When the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, the Army Air Forces was
shunting air units to the Pacific in a desperate effort to bolster U.S.
defenses in the Far East. But during most of 1941 the Air Staff in
its planning had followed, enthusiastically and with few misgivings,
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