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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.
“Sumatra”6 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 including bombardment and pursuit aviation, in offensive operations. Specifically, he was asked to review in light of the new strategy the command structure outlined in his letter of 2 0 September and in his radio messages of 3 0 January and 2 7 February, and to suggest any modifications that seemed desirable.lZ6If this was not an order to adopt Arnold’s suggestion, the implications were plain enough. A week later, on the eve of his flight to the London BOLERO confer- ence, Marshall cabled that Spaatz would organize and train an air force in the States, and later direct its operations under USAFBI.”’ This was definite. Whatever detailed shape Chaney’s plan might take, its general outlines had been determined. While Marshall was in Lon- don, Arnold sent him, on 1 2 April, the air plan for BOLER0.12* Already approved by WPD, this called for [he establishment in Eng- land of the Eighth Air Force with its thre constituent commands. air force organization to be established in Great Britain; but tacitly on I May and unequivocally on the following day he indicated that he had accepted Arnold’s plan in all important respects.1so Within a few days he had given practical demonstration of his concurrence by making arrangements for the actual siting of the headquarters of the Eighth Air Force and the VITI Bomber, Fighter, and Service Commands.’s1 Thus when Spaatz assumed command of the Eighth Air Force at Bolling Field on 5 May,132the air organization for USAFBI had been determined along general rather than specific lines. H e was anxious to clarify his responsibilities under the BOLERO plan, but was to find that no easy task. The commitment to BOLERO had perhaps tipped the scales in favor of Arnold’s plan, but in some respects it had com- plicated the organizational problem. For one thing, the “balanced” air force contemplated for the invasion seemed to require a more elab- orate internal structure: already the VIII Ground Air Support Com- mand had been activated, on 2 8 April,1ss and other commands were to be added soon.* The invasion would call for much closer co-opera- tion with surface forces than had the original concept of a bomber offensive, and in delineating the exact relations which the Eighth would have toward other U.S. forces and the RAF, provision must be made for two chains of command-that of the theater and that to be set up later for the invasion force, Ultimate decisions lay with the Chaney held up his own arrangements “pen!iing clarification” of the * See below, p. 616. 587
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