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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.
“Lockheed”11 pages
T H E E I G H T H A I R F O R C E pilots had been ferrying bombers across the North Atlantic since 1940, and since the summer of 1941 the Air Corps Ferrying Com- mand had given attention to the development of facilities along the route; but in April 1942, these facilities were still unequal to the demands of such a movement as was now And so while General Eaker directed preparations in England and General Spaatz supervised the organization of a force in the United States, the Ferry- ing Command, under General George, redoubled its efforts to prepare the airway along which so many of the AAF’s planes were destined to find their way into ~ 0 m b a t . l ~ ~The route ran from Presque Isle in Maine to Goose Bay in Labrador, then either by BLUIE WEST I (Narsarssuak) on the southern coast of Greenland or BLUIE W E S T 8 (Sondre Stromfjord) on the west coast to Reykjavik in Iceland, and thence to Prestwick, the British terminal of trans-Atlantic flights on the west coast of Scotland. T h e distances involved varied from the 569 statute miles separating Presque Isle from Goose Bay to the gruel- ing 1,002 miles from there to BLUIE W E S T 8. It had been decided by the middle of April that the combat groups would fly their own planes-the 97th its B-I~’s,the 1st its P-38’5 the 3 1 s its P-39’s-and that the Eighth Air Force would have responsi- bility for the m 0 ~ e m e n t . l ~ ~T o the VIII Fighter Command, under Brig. Gen. Frank O’D. Hunter, General Spaatz assigned control of the entire air movement. Because of the special hazards involved in the dispatch of fighter aircraft on long overseas hops, the B-17’s were to be detailed to lead flights of up to six aircraft on each leg of the journey. The pilots, who had been trained for combat rather than for ferrying, required special training, and so it was planned to move all units into a concentration area for the purpose about the middle of May.135 Accordingly, on the 15th of that month the three groups were ordered to Grenier Field in New Hampshire and Dow Field in Maine.136During the first week of June, the 60th Transport Group with its C-47’s was added to the movement and ordered to Westover Field in Massachusetts, where it, too, came under the control of the VIII Fighter Command.137 But while the combat units of the Eighthin New England studied the problems and procedures of the projected air m ~ v e m e n t , ” ~the Japanese fleet steamed toward Midway; and on I June, orders went out from Washington suspending the movement of the Eighth and directing that all planes be held on six hours’ notice for dispatch to a 64‘
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