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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. 43 …cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to “sweep the Germans from the sky…
  • p. 46 …Mitchell never received an American air force commensurate with the ambitious idens of air power which…
  • p. 49 …This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was never equipped during…
  • p. 50 …the Army or the Air Corps?” but never, “Are you in the Army or the Corps…
  • p. 55 …any Air Service officers, and I have never heard anybody yet-any Air Service officer-against…
  • p. 69 …But one axiom, with its corollaries, never varied. T o him the airplane was first and…
  • p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be completely stopped, but their effects could best…
  • p. 94 …rate for the time being, the decision never- theless left an open question as to how…
  • p. 121 …large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300 aircraft a month. The pattern of…
  • p. 122 …the German Air Force, the Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in the…
  • p. 133 …Except for a few raids against French factories, the force had never been employed in a…
  • p. 140 …into a complete war economy production was never equal to the demands of our own forces…
  • p. 150 …Long-term needs of the Air Corps and the sudden availability of funds in quantities never…
  • p. 181 …Actually, the Air Staff had never approved of the method followed in RAINBOW No. 5 . l…
  • p. 217 …Members of the Hawaiian Air Force, who had never flown heavy bombers, began to receive intensive…
  • p. 219 …were not then satisfactory for permanent garrisons. Never- theless, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt…
  • p. 227 …T h e planes never reached their destination. Other bombardment units were being prepared for transfer…
  • p. 241 …responsible officers, a few crucial points have never been satisfactorily explained. T h e general pattern…
  • p. 277 …motors, sole- noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit- less search…
  • p. 288 …planners and from which AAF Headquarters was never to deviate. The translation of the accepted grand…
  • p. 303 …the principal features of the plan were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft…
  • p. 309 …W a r Plans Division was never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to…
  • p. 336 …the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane.g6It is…
  • p. 412 …As it happened, the B-24's never returned to India, but, instead, remained in the…
  • p. 457 …Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from…
  • p. 492 …Squadron was assigned, but which it would never reach, going from Australia to Tongatabu; ( 3 ) Christmas…
  • p. 500 …deck of a carrier presented a problem never before challenged by Army planes. Hence an accelerated…
  • p. 502 …the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been accomplished, yet now it…
  • p. 509 …Island, in the Louisiade Archipelago.” They were never needed, for on 7-8 May the two…
  • p. 513 …exist, it was at a point which never reached the aircrews, for on the operational level…
  • p. 524 …handicaps under which AAF planes had operated. Never were more than fourteen B- I 7’s…
  • p. 527 …AAF planners clung firmly to their belief that proper observance of economy of force would never…
  • p. 531 …Crews which had previously never loaded torpedoes now for the first time fitted these weapons into…
  • p. 544 …But the Japanese never at any time based their bombers in appreciable numbers a t either…
  • p. 548 …26's in torpedo-dropping, but they never would be put into All told, the record…
  • p. 556 …until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com- mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had…
  • p. 560 …pressed into service against the Germans," and never reached the CBI." Colonel Haynes had reached India…
  • p. 606 …reason that the Antilles Air Task Force never evolved, as did I Bomber Command, into an…
  • p. 614 …that reason deserving a high priority, could never dispose of the U-boat menace but must…
  • p. 635 …In Washington the Munitions Assign- ments Board t had never considered this schedule as more than…
  • p. 670 …they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never below 30,000. By AAF standards they had…
  • p. 672 …Goering had never put enough bombers over England, nor had he concentrated his forces on the…
  • p. 690 …of co-operation and combined action probably never before equaled by the military forces of two…
  • p. 729 …shoot at aerial targets, and several had never operated a turret in the air. This deficiency…
P L A N S , P O L I C I E S , A N D O R G A N I Z A T I O N
little political imagination to foresee the nature of the coming con-
gressional elections if operations in the chosen theater were indefi-
nitely postponed.
The American position in respect to a second front was not with-
out a certain weakness. What with the current rate of production,
the heavy materiel responsibilities to allies, the status of trained units,
and, above all, the dearth of shipping, the United States could not at
an early date deploy and support in a European campaign any large
forces. This meant that the British must bear the heaviest initial bur-
den, and in March there was some doubt in the General Staff that
they would underwrite a large-scale operation under those condi-
t i o n ~ . ’ ~Nevertheless, study on the projected invasion continued
throughout March, and on the 27th, WPD was ready with its “Plan
for Operations in Northwest Europe.” Three days later AWPD added
its accompanying plan for air operations.*’ The project called for an
invasion of northern France either in autumn 1942 or spring 1943.
There were to be four phases of air activities: preparation and train-
ing; a preliminary strategic bombardment campaign; close support of
ground forces during and after the landing; and a return to strategic
targets when the proper equipment was released from covering the
landing. The Combined Staff Planners doubted that the requisite air
superiority could be achieved by September, but were confident of
success by the following spring.”
The plan was approved in principle by President Roosevelt, and on
8 April General Marshall and Harry Hopltins arrived in London to
elicit British support. In his first meeting with the Chiefs of Staff
Committee on the gth, Marshall urged that a firm decision be reached
soon as to the locality and timing of the main Anglo-American effort;
this was needed to guide production, allocation, training, troop move-
ments, and the like. American preference for an early assault on
western Europe he ascribed to the necessity of aiding the Red army
and the desire to get U.S. troops into an active theater where they
could gain experience in large-scale operations. The United States,
because of its heavy commitments elsewhere, could not build up a
great force in England before spring 1943; but if the Russian situation
deteriorated badly, it might be necessary to mount a more modest
6L emergency operation.” By mid-September the Army would have in
the United Kingdom one armored and two and one-half infantry
divisions, supported by some 400 pursuits, 300 bombers, and zoo
563

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.