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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 prospect of direct intervention on the part of the United States. Hence, though the bomber offensive was treated as a prelude to inva- sion, it was conceived on a scale so huge as to obviate the mass battles of World War I. This was indicated clearly a t the Atlantic confer- ence of August 1941 when the British chiefs of staff expressed hope that the air war alone might bring about a German collapse and limit the role of ground forces to that of occupation troops; at worst, it would be a matter of mobile armored columns and local ~ a t r i 0 t s . l ~ ~ This concept of war was common enough among airmen, but it was something new that it should have governmental support. It did not pass unchallenged. In succeeding months, the high priority given to heavy bombers and the declared intention of using them exclusively in a protracted strategic program evoked much argument in England. Critics complained of the RAF’s failure to provide adequate close support for ground operations in Africa, of stress on high-level bomb- ing to the exclusion of dive bombing, of the preference shown Bomber Command over Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm.157 Public indignation over the escape of the Scharnhorst and Gneisem from Brest on I Z February 1942 brought editorial agitation for the reorganization of the RAF and reconsideration of the question of high-level bombing.158RAF estimates of the efficacy of its efforts were sometimes challenged-as, for instance, in the highly publicized mission against the Renault works near Paris on 3 March.lS9In sum, the complaints followed the familiar pattern of objections to inde- pendent air force operations which had originally stemmed from interservice differences. The criticism was eagerly seized on by the German propaganda machine. Thus, in April, a fake English voice on one of Goebbels’ radio programs announced: W e [British] should know better than anyone that the bombardment of towns can’t bring the end of the war nearer. London withstood about as heavy a bombardment as could be launched. ... T h e proper use of aircraft is to support land forces in the actual battle zone, and as the RAF isn’t large enough to fulfill all its tasks, it should be reserved for this purpose only.16’ Neither honest criticism nor propaganda brought any serious revision of policy, nor apparently in majority public opinion. An air attach6 on Chaney’s staff reported in the same month that “the British public have an erroneous belief, which has been fostered by effective RAF publicity, that the German war machine can be destroyed and the nation defeated by intensive bombing.” 161 The favorable attitude 593
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