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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.
“Cooper”10 pages
T H E E I G H T H A I R F O R C E remedied in the theater.28 To increase the number of officers ex- perienced in the ways of the Army, commissions were also issued to noncommissioned officers of the Regular Army, some of whom came to hold highly responsible staff positions in the Eighth. Action taken during May and June also helped to fill shortages of enlisted per- sonnel, but many units were brought up to strength only at the port of embarkation and on the very eve of departure. T h e story with reference to shortages of equipment is similar. Substantial progress was made toward a solution of the problem, but some units went overseas without full equipment-a not unusual event in the hectic days of 1942." A major preoccupation at all levels of the Eighth during the spring was training. In the operational training units (OTU) of the Second and Third Air Forces, intensive effort marked the preparation of planes and crews for projected movement across the Atlantic. Orders directed that particular attention be paid the problems of rendezvous between bombers and fighters, for Generals Arnold and Spaatz already had established the policy that fighters of the Eighth Air Force would be used primarily for escort of its bomber^.^' Ground crews received their training on the job mainly, though some individuals were sent to technical schools for special training.31 Preparations for the movement of the Eighth to Britain included an early dispatch of advance echelons of the several headquarters. A total of 39 officers and 348 enlisted men, representing Eighth Air Force headquarters and the bomber, fighter, and service commands, reached England early in May to join the so-called Bomber Command Shadow Staff under General Eaker.32Other officers, individually and in groups, followed during May and June to undertake particular tasks connected with the establishment of the Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom. In the unavoidable haste of these first days, confusion and embarrassment resulted from the occasional failure of individuals to understand and follow newly established channels for communication between the British and thc A m e r i c a n ~ , ~ ~but the emphasis belongs elsewhere. By the end of May, plans and prepara- tions in England and the United States had reached a point that per- mitted a beginning to be made in the overseas movement of the Eighth. Indeed, the first large body of its troops was already on the way. 617
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