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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.
“Northeast Air Command”13 pages
T H E E I G H T H A I R F O R C E of the Eighth Air Force in the United Kingdom was a mere 1,87 I troops and no American aircraft.lg4 By the first of July, a reappraisal of possibilities in the light of new demands from other theaters had brought a downward revision of the BOLERO build-up to a total of fifty-four groups less transport units, and to 194,332 men. The main strength of the Eighth would be concentrated in seventeen heavy and ten medium bombardment groups; fighter groups had been reduced to thirteen and light bom- bardment to three.lg5 These figures served as the basis upon which plans for the organization and accommodation of the Eighth were drafted during its first weeks in the United Kingdom. Even with the reductions forced by considerations of shipping, production, train- ing, and the demands of other theaters, the proposed build-up under- scored the ambitious scale on which leaders of the AAF projected plans for their major effort. An attempt by AAF Headquarters during early July to extend its estimate of the BOLERO build-up to 3 I December 1943 lends still greater emphasis to the point. Planners estimated that the total number of groups by that date would stand a t 1 3 7 , or approximately half of the currently projected strength of the AAF. There would be seventy-four bombardment groups (forty-one heavy, fifteen medium, thirteen dive, and five light), thirty-one fighter groups, twelve ob- servation groups, fifteen transport groups, four photo groups, and one mapping group, and a total of 375,000 men, of which 197,000 would serve in tactical units and 178,000 in the various service or- g a n i z a t i o n ~ . ~ ~ ~The estimate proved to be remarkably close, par- ticularly with regard to the heavy bomber force, to the actual strength established in the United Kingdom in advance of the invasion of 6 June 1944, though the figures given for the number of groups were high and for the total of personnel low. In London during July the BOLERO committee continued its work on plans calling for the accommodation of 195,000 air force troops, 556,000 ground troops, 259,000 SOS troops, and 137,000 re- placements, of whom 35,000 would belong to the AAF-all to be placed in the United Kingdom by the end of March I943.lg7But at the end of July, as has been noted elsewhere, it had been decided to abandon SLEDGEHAMMER," to mount instead TORCH, and to postpone ROUNDUP, probably until 1944. The BOLERO commit- * See above, pp. 572-73. 65 3
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