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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 Wash”17 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 brought vigorous rejoinders from the War Department and Air Min- istry,lss and the attacks were not at the time successful. A more dangerous threat to the program of strategic bombing as conceived in AWPD/I, if not to production priorities, came from the efforts of the JCS to swing strategy over to a second front. This meant shorten- ing rather than eliminating the bomber offensive, but inevitably it placed a new emphasis upon close support. T h e AAF supported the new trend, but with evident disappointment on the part of some of its members. O n the whole, American airmen had been somewhat less outspoken than British in claims that air power alone might crush Germany, but this reflected, perhaps, their inferior position in the military organization rather than any serious misgivings. Eaker's re- action to BOLERO, as expressed in a letter of 26 April 1942, may be taken as typical: After two months spent in understudying British Bomber Command it is still believed that the original all-out air plan for the destruction of the German war effort by air action alone was feasible and sound, and more economical than any other method available. General Arnold points out, however, that the required means is not now available, and time does not allow for the completion of this total air effort, hence it now seems wise to combine a limited air effort with ground forces to open up a Western European When Spaatz arrived two months later, he could maintain in friendly debate with Harris the official American view that the invasion was necessary to victory, but it was essentially a question of whether strategic bombing would be the sole weapon or only the most impor- tant.''O In neither case was there any doubt as to the crippling effects of an all-out attack on German industry. But as to the mode of attack there was still no unanimity of opinion. When in 1941 the two air staffs began planning their combined attack on Germany, the RAF was already engaged in a bomber offen- sive over Europe with a carefully chosen system of objectives and a technique adapted to the means available. Then and later Bomber Command was forced, somewhat grudgingly and at times only through pressure from the government, to divert a considerable share of its effort to attacks on tactical objectives, often maritime in na- ture."' But in mid- I 94 I , preferred target systems consisted of trans- portation centers and the industrial communities surrounding them. This choice marked a change from earlier attacks on the oil industry, and the rationale of that shift was explained by the British at the 595
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