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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 for autonomy, it was also in some degree prophetic; for within a few months both authors were involved in the arduous task of providing a sound administrative and command structure for the Army's largest overseas air force-that scheduled to operate from the United King- dom. Dry topic or no, organization must figure prominently in this chapter. The ABC-I report of 2 7 March 1941 had enunciated two principles for the control of combined operations: unity of command in each theater, and integrity therein of the forces of each nation." Born of bitter experience in World War I, those principles were cherished by both Americans and British, and the early allocation to each of theaters of primary strategic responsibility facilitated more specific arrangements once the United States entered the war. The first prac- tical test came in the Southwest Pacific, where the ABDA Command was established in January I 942 under those trying circumstances which have earlier been dcscribed.t The command problem in the United Kingdom was in some respects less complex, and in the ab- sence of sustained enemy attacks its solution was of less immediate urgency. Yet because of the strategic importance of the European theater, the organization of American and British forces therein be- came a matter of grave moment. The British, naturally, had been charged with primary strategic responsibility in that area. With the adoption first of BOLERO, then of TORCH, the question of an expeditionary-as opposed to the theater-command structure was raised. Meanwhile the organization of the U.S. forces in Great Britain had to be determined, as well as the internal structure of the air com- ponent. The Army Air Forces was deeply concerned with the or- ganizational problem a t each of these three levels, but of most interest here is the process by which the Eighth Air Force was established under the European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army (ETOUSA) . Aside from its intrinsic significance, the story aptly illustrates a point made in a previous context: $ that regardless of the legal position of the AAF as a service and training organization without combat func- tions, its chief was in fact a most powerful agent in the conduct of war in the several theaters. The command agreements in ABC-I, couched in most general * See above, p. 138. t See above, pp. 367-71. $ See above, pp. 265-67. 5 76
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