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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
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 mations but immediately began an investigation of means to increase the firepower of U.S. bombers. After making a detailed comparison of the British Stirling and Manchester with the Fortress One, AWPD recommended that the B-17 and B-24 be equipped with ten machine guns, mounted in turrets where possible. This followed RAF practice as to number, but the guns were to be heavier, of .50 caliber rather than . 3 0 3 . Better equipment for oxygen and heating should be de- veloped, and a board of officers should be named to draw up charac- teristics for a long-range escort plane.z11 The recommendation for increased armament was followed imme- diately, and the B-I~E-the first model to be used in combat by the Eighth Air Force-was the most heavily armed bomber in the theater. The design for the escort plane was slower in its evolution. The fail- ure to have developed such a plane was the most serious flaw in the AAF’s program, and it is difficult to account for. Again, the fact that national defense rather than strategic bombardment against European powers had been the prevailing influence in the twenties and early thirties must have been important.212The effect of Douhet’s writings a t the Air Corps Tactical School has been referred to above,” and Douhet taught that heavily armed bombers in mass formations could operate by day against fighter Whatever the reason, the AAF was approaching a major war without a long-range escort for its bomberst The type of plane recommended in AWPD/I to remedy this lack was more akin to a modified bomber than to any existing pursuit Eaker, on a mission to England in September 1941, secured information which seemed to corroborate this and eventually such an expedient was followed. Almost a year later, in August 1942, a board headed by Brig. Gen. A.J. Lyon submitted a plan for modifying the B-17 and B-24 into “destroyer escort planes.” 216 That suggestion was followed, and the resulting YB-40 and YB-41 were to have a brief and unhappy trial in the ETO. But when war came it was apparent that our early bombardment opera- tions would be run without benefit of escorts over the target, a fact which accentuated the need of improved techniques. Research toward that end had paralleled those dealing with equip- ment. A board had been established in July 1941 to evaluate bombing accuracy in the AAF, and in response to Chaney’s recommendations, * See above, p. 51. +For one possible explanation, see above, pp. 64-65. 604
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