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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.
“Independence Day”9 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 of the tactical units under a single head, the new arrangement was far from ideal. Most of the specific administrative difficulties which arose during the next few years stemmed from two basic inconsistencies: divided authority between the Air Corps and the corps areas and between the two elements within the Air Corps.6oAs to the first, the Air Corps presented a unified front in attempting to secure an ex- empted status' for all airfields; such status, minus the important prerogative of court-martial jurisdiction, was granted in May I 936, revoked in November 1 9 4 0 . ~ ~In respect to its internal organization, Air Corps opinion, like the Air Corps itself, was divided. The ultimate purpose of the air arm was effectiveness in combat. Command respon- sibility for that mission within the Air Corps devolved upon the Com- manding General, GHQ Air Force. But he had no voice in the individual training and indoctrination of his crews or in the develop- ment and procurement of equipment. Over those functions the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps (OCAC) had control. The two agencies were on the same command echelon, reporting separately to the Chief of Staff. Essentially it was a revival of the functional dualism which had proved so mischievous in 1917-18. Andrews and Westover, agree- ing on the need of a single chain of command under the Chief of Staff, differed as to which of the offices should take precedence. Year after year, studies and conflicting recommendations were made without result. Finally, under the stress of an incipient rearmament program, the consolidation was effected on I March 1939. By a War Depart- ment directive, both the GHQ Air Force and the OCAC were made directly responsible to the Chief of the Air Corps.'j2 The new arrangement was to prove short-lived, but, since it coin- cided with the inauguration of a vast expansion of the Air Corps t under threats from abroad, it may serve here as a convenient terminus. A quarter-century had passed since the first official recognition had been accorded the air arm by the act of 18 July 1914.Air Corps of- ficers, no longer militantly crusading in public f or independence, had little cause for complacency with the fruits of their long struggle. Read out of context, the story of that struggle can be made to appear, as the Baker Board interpreted it, an attempt of ambitious officers to further their own petty interests by escape from the salutary control of a beneficent General Staff. Certainly air officers had a normal share * Le., administrative independence from the corps areas. -f See below, Chap. 4. 32
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