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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 preparation of a scheme for the administration and supply of such units with particular attention to the needs of two heavy bombard- ment groups then scheduled as the initial combat echelon.37T o take appropriate steps toward a close co-ordination of effort with the RAF, to select and make ready the fields from which the Americans would fly, to prepare for the reception of an increasing flow of AAF units, and to provide for their fundamental needs-these were the major tasks. For several weeks thereafter, the American officers, whose number was soon increased by arrival of eleven others sent from the United States, shared offices and living quarters with the staff of RAF Bomber Command. Even when on 1 5 April General Eaker took over for his own headquarters a hurriedly evacuated girls’ school at High Wy- combe in Buckinghamshire, about thirty miles west of London, he remained virtually next door to RAF Bomber Command headquar- t e r ~ . ~ *Already he had submitted to General Chaney on 2 0 March a comprehensive study of the problems involved in the establishment of an American air The Eaker plan, in accordance with Chaney’s directive, made provision for the accommodation, training, and initiation into combat of the two heavy bombardment groups which Washington had earmarked for spring delivery to the United Kingdom, and for other units which were to follow. The subsequent assignment of the Eighth Air Force to the United Kingdom would require revision of some of the planning factors used, but in general the actual establishment of the Eighth in England followed the pattern of the Eaker plan. Sections dealing with logistical problems drew partly on previous study by SPOBS and USAFBI. The organizational scheme of the American air force in Britain, long a matter of dispute between Washington and General Chaney’s headquarters, was not crystallized until after the arrival and establish- ment of Eighth Air Force headquarters in June. Meanwhile, General Eaker shared with Col. Alfred J. Lyon, air officer of USAFBI, the responsibility for making preparations to receive the Eighth. As the advance echelons of the several headquarters arrived from the United States to participate in the preparatory effort, the variety and multiplicity of AAF activities in England led USAFBI to direct General Eaker to establish some central In consequence, on 19 May the Detachment Headquarters, Eighth Air Force, under command of General Eaker, assumed control of all U.S. Army air 6 2 0
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