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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 Invaders”15 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 planners should be ready with other alternatives: GYMNAST, or campaigns in Norway or the Iberian peninsula.49Planning responsi- bilities were divided, with the Americans taking GYMNAST, the British the other two project^.^' Actually the Washington conference had postponed rather than decided the central issue of the second front for 1942, but with only three months of favorable weather remaining, postponement was al- most tantamount to refusal. Churchill was back in London by the 27th. In informed circles there it was generally accepted that there would be no cross-Channel push that year.51 On 8 July the Prime Minister informed Roosevelt that conditions favorable to SLEDGE- HAMMER would probably not arise, and suggested that the Ameri- cans push GYMNAST planning while the British worked on other agreed alternative~.~~T o the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this message seemed to endanger ROUNDUP as well as SLEDGEHAMMER. Unani- mously in favor of BOLERO with either a 1942 or 1943 D-day, they were equally opposed to GYMNAST as an expensive diversion of dubious value. Since April, they had sensed a certain lack of en- thusiasm among their British opposite members for a large-scale invasion through France, and unless the British would support whole- heartedly such a venture by 1943, the Joint Chiefs were prepared to turn to the Pacific for a showdown with Japan.53 These views were communicated to the President on 10 July.54 A week later General Marshall, Admiral King, Harry Hopkins, and a small staff flew to England to make a last endeavor to persuade the British to go along with SLEDGEHAMMER. This the British were unwilling to do. The memory of Dunkirk was still fresh and subse- quent defeats in Africa had not lessened their respect for the German army. They pointed again to practical difficulties which had been urged in April and which they thought the Americans underestimated -particularly the shortage in landing craft and the time factor. The American position was the weaker because they could not in 1942 carry their share of the load. O n 2 2 July it was definitely agreed that there would be no second front in Europe in 1 9 4 2 . ~ ~Discussion then turned to those alternatives upon which the Combined Staff Planners had been engaged. O n the 24th, the U.S. Joint Chiefs presented a new proposal for operations in 1942-43.56Preparations for ROUNDUP were to con- tinue without abatement so long as the Russian situation seemed to 5 7 2
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