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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.
“Independence Day”9 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 not fall within the province of the base depot,” nor could it be per- formed at combat stations without a wasteful dispersion of ikilled personnel. The need was for an advance depot, or depots, through which supplies from the base depots could be distributed to combat stations, and at which urgent maintenance and repair beyond the capacities of the combat group could be provided.”‘ The bomber command plan of 2 0 March recommended that a “mobile air depot,” the standard AAF designation for that type of service organization and a term reflecting the emphasis on mobility in the earlier GHQ Air Force, be established a t Molesworth in Huntingdonshire.”* Dur- ing the spring, planning agencies in the United States as well as those in England gave attention to the need for a complete service organi- zation and the placing of air depot groups within reach of the combat stations.lle But whether because of the almost overwhelming number of tasks requiring attention and a natural tendency to give first place to the fundamental problem of the base depot, or because of a certain difficulty in shifting the emphasis from a mobile to a static system, Eaker was compelled to report to Spaatz in May that the principal lag in the development of an adequate organization in Britain fell in the general area of “the Air Service Command Depots and establish- ments.”120Not until after the arrival of the VIII Air Force Service Command in July was a comprehensive plan fully developed. Another phase of the problem that required close attention was the securing of adequate storage space in a country already strained in this particular virtually to capacity. In the location of base depots the question of storage had been a major consideration, but it became evident that these establishments could not meet the need, and in June steps were taken to find a total of 3,000,000 square feet. By the end of the month the Eighth had secured approximately 750,000 square feet, and another 1,160,000 square feet not yet available had been located. Storage areas fell in general in the neighborhood of the western ports of Liverpool and Bristol, with additional space at Bur- ton-on-Trent northwest of Huntingdon, and in Northern Ireland.lZ1 With the formal establishment of the Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom at the end of June, its service organization still remained largely in the stage of planning and construction. The plans had been drawn on an ambitious scale and in keeping with the AAF’s * Langford Lodge, originally conceived by General Brett as performing third echelon maintenance, was now to be a base depot for fourth echelon maintenance. 63 8
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