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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 , POLICIES, A N D O R G A N I Z A T I O N and operational losses included eight of the twenty Fortresses, and others were grounded for want of repairs. It was dubious that two of the x,Ioo-lb. bombs customarily used had hit assigned targets, and not an enemy fighter had been destroyed.’” One long ton of bombs delivered a t a cost of eight B-17’s was an expensive mode of warfare. In the face of these failures, British enthusiasm for the Fortress One cooled rapidly and RAF skepticism as to the feasibility of American tactics seemed confirmed. One AAF observer noted that “while the first British reaction was one of confidence in the B-17C because of its ability to withstand gunfire, this original confidence has been dis- sipated.” lg8 In retrospect, the failure is easy to explain. The B-17 had been designed to operate at 25,000 feet, and while there was in America some talk about substratosphere bombing, training had been a t designed altitude or lower. The British had taken the plane much higher; in one mission they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never below 30,000. By AAF standards they had greatly overloaded the plane. Failures in hastily modified oxygen and heating systems had lowered crew efficiency. Guns had frozen and windshields had frosted, and when German fighters had attacked-at altitudes up to 32,000 feet-the Fortress had lacked speed to escape, firepower and visibility to fight back.lggGoebbels had in derision labeled the planes “Flying Coffins.” The RAF had never sent the B-17’s out in forma- tions large enough to insure a proper bomb pattern-four was the maximum eff ort-and bombardiers, though experienced, had not re- ceived sufficient training with the Sperry bombsight, which for secu- rity reasons had been substituted for the Norden.“’ The experience accorded a handful of B-24’s also delivered in Eng- land in the spring of 1941 had been no more gratifying: good initial publicity had been followed by undue delay in modification and a preference on the part of the British for using the Liberator as a transport or sea-search plane.’O1 General Arnold was not unnaturally concerned over reports of the manner in which B-17’s and B-24’s were being handled in England when heavy bombers were needed desperately for the expanding AAF. Unfavorable British comment came most inopportunely while the AAF was working strenuously to secure, in the Victory Program, a top priority for its heavy bombers. Too much adverse criticism might discredit the equipment as well as the doctrines of the AAF. As an air officer in SPOBS put it, “The success or failure of the initial results of the B-17’s bombing 60 I
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