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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 E I G H T H A I R F O R C E organizations in the British Isles.41 It remained the ranking AAF command until the opening of General Spaatz’ headquarters on 18 June. The preparatory effort which meantime fell under Eaker’s direc- tion may be conveniently divided into two broad categories-logistics and operations. In either category much of the work consisted of planning, for the immediate future or on a long-range basis. It was natural that actual accomplishments were largely within the realm of logistics, for before the bomber campaign could begin much had to be done in such important if unspectacular fields as supply, mainte- nance, transportation, technical training, and housekeeping. Opera- tions in the narrowest sense could begin only with the first attack on the enemy, but even when conceived in the usual fashion to include operational training and the development of auxiliary opera- tional techniques, the Eighth was long handicapped by lack of combat planes and of tactical experience. It was possible to draw upon the rich operational experience of the RAF, however, and during the spring and early summer of 1942, basic decisions in the field of operational planning prepared the way for a degree of co-operation and combined action probably never before equaled by the military forces of two great nations. The story provides another significant chapter in the long history of Anglo- American relations. If a t times leaders of the RAF tended to view paternally the untried theories of the AAF and displayed an under- standable disposition to guide the Americans along paths tested in the bitter experience of actual combat, they at the same time under- stood and respected the organizational capacity and the experimental temperament of the people with whom they were now allied. And if the Americans were inclined to insist upon the establishment of a completely independent air force, one that would be copartner and not junior partner in the assault on Germany, they also represented an organization that for over two years had sought helpful lessons in the experience of the RAF and had found there proof of its own basic assumptions. Differences on certain matters would persist throughout the war, as was only natural, but to the many ties which joined the two peoples there was added in this instance the bond that makes all airmen one. The Eaker plan of 20 March assumed that in the highly important field of target selection the work would be done in conference be- 6 2 I
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.