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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.
“King”32 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 toward strategic bombardment was not strong enough to protect Bomber Command from numerous diversions from its primary objec- tives or from continued criticism. Just as the Eighth Air Force was moving into combat, Sir Arthur Harris felt it necessary to draw up an apologia for Bomber Command’s achievements16’ and to brand as wanton propaganda” English efforts to belittle the results of its b~mbing.’’~T o General Arnold he wrote: “We can defeat the enemy if we are not defeated by our friends.”’64 The friends, one gathers, were in the other services. When the US.chiefs of staff accepted the strategy of ABC-I, it was patent that in the event of an early involvement in war the United States could not immediately deploy large ground forces in Europe. This fact encouraged acceptance of a long prelude of strategic bombardment, but even in 1941 American leaders showed a more lively concern for the invasion of Europe than did the British. When the British presented their review of strategy a t the Atlantic conference, the Joint Board found it to give “an undue importance to the probability of success solely through the employment of bombing offensives.” 165 In this critique, the US.services presented a united opinion which was not apparent in their internal considerations. In the Joint Board Estimate of US.Over-all Production Requirements of 11 September, each of the services supported its request for ma- teriel with a statement on strategy; that of the AAF (AWPD/I) was much closer to the British than was that of the Army or Navy. Ac- ceptance of AWPD/I would have given to heavy bombers the same sort of priorities they enjoyed in the British production program. T o this the Navy was strongly opposed, and its campaign against accept- ance of the implications of AWPD/I was staunchly buttressed by references to British experience furnished by SPENAVO in London. Messages from that office cast doubts upon the results of the RAF bomber offensive and criticized the production priorities which made that campaign possible; they showed, too, a corollary desire to revise anticipated schedules for four-engine bombers in order to favor pro- duction of U.S. and British carrier-based planes.las From the evidence of a single isolated Bomber Command mission, Vice Adm. R.L. Ghormley, SPENAVO’s chief, concluded that daylight bombing in force was unsound except at very short range under heavy escort, and that night bombing was ineffective and expensive.16‘ These attacks on policies fundamental to AAF and RAF alike (1 594
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