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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
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 statement of allocation policy which the Combined Chiefs might act on after their The discussions were opened in London on 26 May, first in a gen- eral meeting with Churchill, later among the airmen alone.34Arnold reviewed the aircraft situation in the U.S. armed forces and the effect of commitments to China and the U.S.S.R.; he stressed the President’s desire that “every appropriate American-made aircraft be manned and fought by our own crews.” 35 This principle the British were willing to accept if it carried the corollary determination “to bring into ac- tion against the enemy at the earliest possible date in the appropriate theaters the greatest strength in fully trained air forces that it was possible to create out of the combined aircraft production, trained manpower and shipping of the United Nations.” 3 5 Several days of intensive study and debate followed, as Americans and British pre- sented their respective views on problems of allocation, deployment, supply, maintenance, and operations. An VIII Bomber Command officer remarked that “the meetings were in the nature of a horse trade.” ’’ An old hand a t this sort of give-and-take, Arnold confessed that he found it “exceedingly difficult to conform 1 0 0 % with the principles” insisted on by the two governments. On the 30th’ he presented Portal with a memorandum outlining the American reac- tion to the Essentially the document represented a com- promise, and Arnold saw only a few issues which promised any great difficulty in solution: the British desire for reinforcement of the Middle East; the RAF Coastal Command’s request for long-range bombers, which would saddle the AAF with a burden more appro- priately the Navy’s under the U.S. organizational system; and the competitive demands for light bombers, a type badly needed for any air-ground co-operation, which must come almost entirely from U.S. factories. In his reply of the 31st, Portal recognized “what a very real effort you have made to meet our point of view.” He commented on the controversial points and suggested that the agreement be con- summated after Arnold’s return to washing tor^.^' His suggestion was followed. After further negotiations in Wash- ington, the Arnold-Towers-Portal agreement was adopted on z I June, Air Vice Marshal J.C. Slessor signing for Portal.“ The correlative principles accepted in London were repeated, with the added pro- viso that revisions in allocation should be so framed that combined strength in each theater should be maintained or increased. To con- 567
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