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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.
“Scientific American”6 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 I1 portant air Similar opinions were voiced frequently by Pershing,Io6and a year before his retirement they received their most authoritative formulation as doctrine in the Field Service Regulations, U.S. Army, revised by the General Staff and promulgated on 2 No- vember 1 9 2 3 . The authors of this manual derive their theory of war from Clause- witz. “The ultimate objective of all military operations is the destruc- tion of the enemy’s armed forces by battle. Decisive defeat in battle breaks the enemy’s will to war and forces him to sue for peace.” lo7 Decisive results are obtained only by an offensive, which is made suc- cessful by the concentration of superior forces “both on the ground and in the air” at the proper place and time.los Such concentration, to be effective, involves teamwork. “No one arm wins battles. The com- bined employment of all arms is essential to success.” looBut the “CO- ordinating principle which underlies the employment of the combined arms is that the mission of the infantry is the general mission of the entire force. The special missions of other arms are derived from their powers to contribute to the execution of the infantry mis- sion.” In short, infantry was still queen of battles, the air arm only one of her several handmaidens. Sections devoted specifically to the Air Service elaborate this point of view. For observation and attack aviation its validity is obvious.111 Pursuit, the “most vital element of the air service,” establishes and maintains air supremacy by its “essentially offensive” operations, thus affording effective protection to other air categories and to ground troops.112The enlightening proposition that the “mission of bombard- ment aviation is the bombardment of ground objectives” is amplified by a designation of the most important targets. These lie “beyond the effective range of artillery,” but apparently not far beyond; they con- sist of objectives “vital to the functioning of the enemy’s line of com- munication and supply.”113 There is no mention of strikes against the industrial system which constituted the source of his supply; pre- sumably such operations were not to be considered profitable. The chief mission of aviation was close support of ground forces. The Field Service Regulations had not been revised in whole when World War I1 began. But, being general in character, they had been framed with the idea that each arm would describe its principles of combat in its own training and in the Air Service (Corps) these were subject to periodic changes. The revisions reflect, 4 4
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