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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 The first shipment reached Liverpool on I I May, after a two-week voyage. The several headquarters detachments joined the bomber command staff at High Wycombe; the zd Air Depot Group went to Molesworth, the I 5th Bombardment Squadron to Grafton Under- wood, whence it moved to Molesworth in June.126 Destined to become the first Eighth Air Force unit to enter combat, the 15th Squadron began its training with RAF Bostons instead of the specially equipped night fighters earlier intended for it.12' Back in Washington the chief difficulty in moving the main part of the ground echelon was to find the necessary shipping, a problem that was not solved until the Queen Elizabeth was made available for an early June trip and the War Department gave to the Eighth a priority for the shipment of 15,000 troops in that month.128During the preceding month, warning and movement orders reached the several headquarters concerned, and from stations throughout the country, but especially from the concentration area in the southeast, the assigned units moved to Fort Dix, where the Eighth Air Force had established its own temporary Staging Area Command to facili- tate the final preparation^.^^' The first contingent of about 1,200 men, out of the total of more than 11,000, sailed on 29 May with a slow convoy, which also carried 7,500 tons of Eighth Air Force equipment, and did not reach England until 1 2 June. The remainder, comprising chiefly the ground echelons of the 97th Bombardment Group, the 1st and 3 1st Fighter Groups, the 60th Transport Group," the 5th Air Depot Group, and other service units, left New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth on 4 June and arrived in the United Kingdom six days later.13' Everything considered, the movement had been completed remarkably close to the date originally set. A critical shortage of shipping continued, but high priorities were accorded additional bomber, fighter, transport, and service units that were to follow during the summer.lS1 Even so, the prospect of an early commitment of the Eighth to battle depended upon a plan to fly its planes and aircrews across the Atlantic. This plan, which covered the intended movement of fighters as well as bombers, represented at the time a more daring decision than would be true of any similar action today. In early 1942, AAF pilots were becoming accustomed to long and hazardous overwater flights, but the AAF had not as yet made the idea commonplace. RAF *Transport units were redesignated "troop carrier" in July 1942. 640
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