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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
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 struggle in Washington which was to result in the reorganization of the War Department on 9 March.* Eaker arrived in London on 20 February and on the next day met with Chaney and his staff. That groLp of thirty-five included only four air officers; of the ground officers, Eaker found some who were “fair minded,” others “definitely antagonistic to air forces and Air effort.” ‘14 One carried this hostility to the point of sending back to an Air Corps officer “all his staff work which mentions Army Air Forces, requiring them to be rewritten to eliminate the word ‘Air.7” ‘15 In such an atmosphere, Eaker could hope for little success. Reporting on the conference he wrote apropos of air organization: I found a complete inflexibility of mind on that subject in the Chaney staff. They had made up their minds and no argument would change them in the slightest. I presented the arguments as strongly as I could but without the slightest effect. They are unalterably opposed to an Army Air Forces in Britain. They say that they are perfectly able to handle this in addition to their other duties and such an organization would make them merely rubber stamps. They consider that function their primary mission here and are not willing to surrender it.1le The last consideration was perhaps the deciding one. Under RAIN- BOW No. 5 the bomber command had been conceived as the most important element in USAFBI-indeed as the only one with an of- fensive mission-and it seems plausible to suppose that Chaney, an airman who had seen more of World War I1 bombardment than any of his colleagues, may have been unwilling to relinquish control of operations. That, a t any rate, appears to have been Eaker’s interpre- tation when he wrote: I could not believe any man did not wish to be pushed up to a higher job, but I found one. They [USAFBI] are the Air Force Headquarters as they see it and they are reconciled and even believe in being subordinate to the British. I could not make them see that General Chaney should sit in a t the Chiefs of Staffs’ conferences and be coordinate with the highest military echelon, the Air Force Commander being at the R.A.F. leve1.*17 Whatever the motivation, USAFBI firmly rejected Eaker’s sugges- tions; when he asked for a headquarters for Spaatz, Eaker “was told quite definitely and pointedly, that he [Spaatz] was not coming and that there was not to be an Air Force Hq.” ‘18 The official reply to Washington, if less pointed, was equally firm. In a cable addressed See above, pp. 257-64. 5 8 5
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