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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.
“Churchill”21 pages
T H E E I G H T H A I R F O R C E By no means the least significant of the influences growing out of arrangements with the British for the occupation of airdromes was the effect on the organization of the Eighth Air Force. In taking over British fields, the unit of transfer was normally an RAF group area, which, in the case of No. 8 Group, was to have twenty-one fields, divided into seven “clutches” of three fields each. One of the three fields in each clutch acted as a wing or station headquarters and it alone had direct communication with group headquarters, which, in turn, was the only station in the group area having direct communi- cation with RAF Bomber Command headquarters. Since without extensive modification of the communications network it would be impossible for VIII Bomber Command headquarters to exercise direct control of the operations of all bombardment groups, General Eaker planned the establishment, originally on a provisional basis, of combat wings, each of which was to exercise operational control of three groups. Although much larger in numbers of aircraft and personnel, the combat wing would parallel the RAF wing in the communica- tions network, and would be, a t the same time, a desirable operational echelon of the VIII Bomber Command. T h e combat wings were to be grouped in threes or fours under bombardment wings which, in turn, were directly responsible to VIII Bomber Command head- quarters. T h e bombardment wings, which developed into the great air divisions of 1943-45, resembled the RAF groups in that their head- quarters were the only installations having direct communications with VIII Bomber Command headquarters. This pattern of organiza- tion, dictated by both communications and operational considerations, would be in existence in the Eighth Air Force by the spring of 1943.’’ No part of the problem of establishing an American air force in Britain was more fundamental, or entailed more difficulties, than that of providing adequate supply and maintenance. A modern air force operating on the scale planned for the Eighth consumes almost un- believable quantities of fuel and lubricants; requires in addition to the normal supplies of any military organization vast stores of spare parts and tools; and depends for its continuing operation upon facilities for repair and maintenance ranging all the way from the relatively simple equipment used by the ground crew to elaborate and extensive base depots. These speak more forcefully than does anything else, unless it be the aircraft factory itself, of the simple fact that the airplane is a product of the machine age and remains dependent on its technical 63 3
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