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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 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 new de~tination.’~’The critical hour had come in the Pacific, and all available planes were moving west-west from Hawaii to Midway, from Hamilton and March to Hickam, and westward across the North American continent to fill the vacuum created on the Pacific coast by departures for Hawaii and the Aleutians, where the enemy also was expected. O n z June the War Department ordered the 97th Bombardment Group and the 1st Fighter Group to the West Coast on assignment to the Western Defense Command.140They would be released in approximately a week from this new and would return to New England from the Pacific coast to resume preparations for their trans-Atlantic movement, but the resultant delay occasioned by this emergency cost at least two weeks.* The 3 1 s Fighter Group had been ordered on 4 June to proceed to England, but without the B-17’~of the 97th to lead the P-39’s across it was not considered practicable to move the unit by air.142And so the 3 1st went by water, and having left its planes in the United States for the lack of space, it reached England by the middle of June to take up its station at Atcham and High Ercall west of H ~ n t i n g d 0 n . l ~ ~ In lieu of the P-39’s left behind, the unit promptly acquired RAF Spitfires, in which it began training almost at once.144Thus it came about that the first complete American combat group in the European theater entered battle with British planes. It was not alone in this par- ticular for it was followed in July and August by the 5zd Fighter Group, which also made its movement by water and was equipped in the theater with Spitfires.145 Meantime, preparations had been pushed for the delayed move- ment of the 97th, the Ist, and the 60th. O n 15 June, General Spaatz, stopping at BLUIE W E S T I in his flight across the North Atlantic, advised Arnold by radio that all B-17’~not needed for escort of the P-38’s should proceed without delay, and that the pursuits should follow not later than 2 1 June, by which time the C-47’s should also be ready.146 O n the 18th the VIII Fighter Command from its tem- porary headquarters at Grenier Field issued orders for the movement: * On 2 June, the 97th left the concentration area and flew across the country in two separate elements, one to McChord Field, Washington, by way of Mitchel Field, Ft. Leavenworth, and Boise; and the other to Hammer Field, Fresno, California, by way of Scott Field and Albuquerque. On I I June both elements left the Pacific coast, and by 18 June they had returned to their stations at Grenier and Dow fields. The 1st Fighter Group left Dow Field on 5 June and flew to Morris Field, North Carolina, on the first leg of its journey to the west. On 6 June it was ordered to return to Dow Field and departed for there on the same day. 642
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