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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 date of embarkation or until the beginning of training with the Mobile Reserve Corps. It was attached for administration and supply to the Third Air Force,Dwhich continued to act as a parent to most of the units of the infant Eighth until their departure for the United Kingdom several months later. By 12 February it had become apparent to Colonel Duncan that the 24,125 men and 621 aircraft planned for the Eighth would not be adequate to carry out the mission intended for it under GYM- NAST. H e recommended, therefore, that his force be augmented by the addition of three heavy bombardment groups, one medium bom- bardment group, and three pursuit groups.1o But such an augmenta- tion of strength would have required the diversion of combat units intended for other task forces. The Air War Plans Division (AWPD), therefore, on 25 February recommended instead the elimination of GYMNAST from current projects.” The project had been period- ically deferred during February, largely because of the demands made by our hard pressed forces in the Pacific, and early in March the Combined Chiefs took under consideration a recommendation that SUPER-GYMNAST be continued as an “academic study’’ only.12 Until it was revived some months later under the name of TORCH, the North African venture ceased to affect the fortunes of the Eighth Air Force. As though to indicate the trend of policy, the Eighth already had sustained a practical reduction in strength. O n 19 February it had been instructed to make available to Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle twenty B-25’S with combat crews from its 17th Bombardment Group for the special mission to be led by him against Tokyo.” During March, intensive training of VIII Bomber Command units was in- terrupted further by the imperative demands of the antisubmarine campaign in the Atlantic; and while planes and crews of the 17th Group participated in the defense of the southeast coast of the United States, an additional sixty-seven pilots of the VIII Bomber Command were on special duty outside the continental limits of the United state^.'^ Finally, a t the end of March all combat groups then as- signed to the Eighth Air Force passed from its control to that of the Third Air Force in an administrative shift preparatory to the assignment of a new mission and of new units for its f~1filment.l~ Abandonment of GYMNAST had left the Eighth Air Force un- committed to any operation. Maj. Gen. Carl Spaatz, commanding 614
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