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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
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 allies, which must be met out of their respective allotments. But for the AAF it substantially narrowed the gap between prospective com- bat crews and combat planes, and it gave promise of providing a strong air force for BOLERO. Within a few weeks’ time, however, that promise was to be blighted by a sudden reversal of strategy. In London, on 18 June, General Spaatz assumed command of the Eighth Air Force, the organization which had been created to carry the AAF’s responsibilities in BOLERO.4z On the same date Mr. Churchill arrived in Washington with a small staff. Publicly it was announced that “the object in view is the earliest maximum concen- tration of Allied war power upon the enemy.” 4 3 In the privacy of the ensuing CCS conference, a British member ascribed the visit to the Prime Minister’s desire to discuss the co-ordination and “possible reorientation” of combined p01icy.~”In plainer English, he was not too keen about BOLERO. Much had happened in the two months which had passed since Churchill had approved that plan. Japanese naval losses in the Coral Sea and at Midway had eased somewhat the tension in the Pacific; the monsoon, rather than Allied successes, had for the moment lessened the threat to India. Elsewhere the news was bad. The long-dreaded summer campaign in Russia was in full swing. Mannstein had con- quered the Crimea, was hammering at the inner defenses of Sevas- topol. Timoshenko’s winter campaign below Kharkov had failed, and German armies were already launched in their drive for the Caucasus with its oil fields and its route to the Middle East. Nazi successes in North Africa were equally alarming. There Rommel had opened his offensive in May, driving the British back and defeating them de- cisively a t Knightsbridge on 1 3 June. Tobruk with its large British garrison was to surrender on the 2 Ist, while the conference was still in session, and a week later the retreating Eighth Army was to pull up for a last stand at El Alamein, hardly seventy-five miles west of Alexandria. With or without Japanese aid, the Germans constituted a menace to the Middle East and all it stood for-rich resources, the lend-lease route to Russia, and Britain’s link with India and the South- west Pacific. If the British interest in Egypt was most immediate, that fact was not stressed in the discussions of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Ac- cepted strategy for 1942-43 was contingent upon the progress of events in Russia. Intelligence available in Washington was still too 5 7 0
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