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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

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.

  • p. 43 …cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to “sweep the Germans from the sky…
  • p. 46 …Mitchell never received an American air force commensurate with the ambitious idens of air power which…
  • p. 49 …This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was never equipped during…
  • p. 50 …the Army or the Air Corps?” but never, “Are you in the Army or the Corps…
  • p. 55 …any Air Service officers, and I have never heard anybody yet-any Air Service officer-against…
  • p. 69 …But one axiom, with its corollaries, never varied. T o him the airplane was first and…
  • p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be completely stopped, but their effects could best…
  • p. 94 …rate for the time being, the decision never- theless left an open question as to how…
  • p. 121 …large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300 aircraft a month. The pattern of…
  • p. 122 …the German Air Force, the Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in the…
  • p. 133 …Except for a few raids against French factories, the force had never been employed in a…
  • p. 140 …into a complete war economy production was never equal to the demands of our own forces…
  • p. 150 …Long-term needs of the Air Corps and the sudden availability of funds in quantities never…
  • p. 181 …Actually, the Air Staff had never approved of the method followed in RAINBOW No. 5 . l…
  • p. 217 …Members of the Hawaiian Air Force, who had never flown heavy bombers, began to receive intensive…
  • p. 219 …were not then satisfactory for permanent garrisons. Never- theless, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt…
  • p. 227 …T h e planes never reached their destination. Other bombardment units were being prepared for transfer…
  • p. 241 …responsible officers, a few crucial points have never been satisfactorily explained. T h e general pattern…
  • p. 277 …motors, sole- noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit- less search…
  • p. 288 …planners and from which AAF Headquarters was never to deviate. The translation of the accepted grand…
  • p. 303 …the principal features of the plan were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft…
  • p. 309 …W a r Plans Division was never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to…
  • p. 336 …the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane.g6It is…
  • p. 412 …As it happened, the B-24's never returned to India, but, instead, remained in the…
  • p. 457 …Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from…
  • p. 492 …Squadron was assigned, but which it would never reach, going from Australia to Tongatabu; ( 3 ) Christmas…
  • p. 500 …deck of a carrier presented a problem never before challenged by Army planes. Hence an accelerated…
  • p. 502 …the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been accomplished, yet now it…
  • p. 509 …Island, in the Louisiade Archipelago.” They were never needed, for on 7-8 May the two…
  • p. 513 …exist, it was at a point which never reached the aircrews, for on the operational level…
  • p. 524 …handicaps under which AAF planes had operated. Never were more than fourteen B- I 7’s…
  • p. 527 …AAF planners clung firmly to their belief that proper observance of economy of force would never…
  • p. 531 …Crews which had previously never loaded torpedoes now for the first time fitted these weapons into…
  • p. 544 …But the Japanese never at any time based their bombers in appreciable numbers a t either…
  • p. 548 …26's in torpedo-dropping, but they never would be put into All told, the record…
  • p. 556 …until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com- mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had…
  • p. 560 …pressed into service against the Germans," and never reached the CBI." Colonel Haynes had reached India…
  • p. 606 …reason that the Antilles Air Task Force never evolved, as did I Bomber Command, into an…
  • p. 614 …that reason deserving a high priority, could never dispose of the U-boat menace but must…
  • p. 635 …In Washington the Munitions Assign- ments Board t had never considered this schedule as more than…
  • p. 670 …they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never below 30,000. By AAF standards they had…
  • p. 672 …Goering had never put enough bombers over England, nor had he concentrated his forces on the…
  • p. 690 …of co-operation and combined action probably never before equaled by the military forces of two…
  • p. 729 …shoot at aerial targets, and several had never operated a turret in the air. This deficiency…
N O T E S T O P A G E S 4 1 4 - 2 0
Gps.; msg. #57, Ulio to C G USAFIA, 16
Mar. 1942; interview with Maj. John
Davies, 9 Dec. 1942.
28. History, 38th Bomb. Gp.; msg.,
MacArthur to AGWAR, 24 Apr. 1942.
29. From the RAAF Intelligence
Summaries, it would appear that almost
all of these Catalinas and Hudsons which
were not lost in combat were lost either
in accidents or completely worn out
from overwork.
30. RAAF Intel. Sums.
3 1 . History, V Fighter Command;
George Henry Johnston, T h e Toughest
Fighting in the World (New York,
1943). pp. 1 3 , 5 2 ; Osmar White, Green
Amour (New York, 1945), pp. 56, 72,
76.
32. The two major bases for opera-
tions against the Japanese in the North-
eastern Area were Townsville and Port
Moresby. At Townsville, there were at
least four operational fields at this time:
Garbutt, Anti1 Plains, Reid River, and
Charters Towers. Others were to be con-
structed up the Cape York Peninsula, the
most important being Iron Range. At
Port Moresby, there were three being
used: Seven Mile, which was the major
field; Three Mile and Ten Mile, both
of which were little more than emer-
gency fields. In wet weather, for ex-
ample, pursuit operations had to be trans-
ferred from Three Mile to Seven Mile.
(Histories, 35th and 36th Sqs.) Plans
were under way for the construction of
four more fields near Port Moresby, and
all would be operational by October.
3 3 . RAAF Intel. Sums.; 435th Over-
seas; G O 18, Hq. Allied Air Forces, 6
June 1942.
34. ON1 Combat Narratives, Early
Raids in the Pacific Ocean, I Feb.-ro
Mar. 1942; RAAF Intel. Sums.; 435th
Overseas; USSBS Memo fNav 1 1 , 16
Oct. 1945. T h e Joint Army-Navy Assess-
ment Committee listed only three ships
as having been sunk: one cargo vessel by
joint Army-Navy efforts, and one con-
verted light cruiser and one converted
minesweeper by carrier planes.
35. Msg. $625, Wainwright to WD,
28 Mar. 1942.
7 16
36. H e reported that before leaving
Corregidor he had prepared plans for
an air attack to be staged from Australia
through Mindanao against points in the
Philippines, and General Sutherland later
stated that MacArthur “originated the
idea” of this attack. (Msg. #56, Mac-
Arthur to Marshall, 3 1 Mar. 1942; inter-
view with Lt. Gen. Richard K. Suther-
land by Walter D. Edmonds, 4 June
37. Histories, 27th and 3d Gps.; 13th
and 90th Sqs.; 435th Overseas; Obert and
Brown statements.
38. Histories, 27th and 3d Gps.; 12th
and 90th Sqs.; 435th Overseas.
39. Msg., Marshall to MacArthur,
#I097, 4 Apr. 1942; CM-IN-3458 (4-19-
42), USAFFE to Marshall, #AC 365, 19
Apr. 1942; CCS 10th Mtg., 7 Mar. 1942;
JCS 5th Mtg., 9 Mar. 1942; CCS 12th
Mtg., 17 Mar. 1942; USSBS, Employment
of Forces.
40. USSBS, Employment of Forces.
See discussion of modifications of orig-
inal directive in JWPC 87/1, z Oct. 1943.
41. G O I , Hq. SWPA, 18 Apr. 1941.
MacArthur believed that none of his
forces was adequate to carry out his
directive. Without a carrier, he said, his
naval forces would be limited only to
minor operations; except for less than
two divisions of Australian infantry, his
ground forces were inadequately trained;
and because of a lack of organization and
training, his air forces would require at
least four months of intensive effort to
reach a satisfactory condition. (Msg.
#538, MacArthur to Marshall, I May
42. G O I (with Annex I ) , Hq. Allied
Air Forces, 20 Apr. 1942.
43. Interview with Lt. Col. C.D.
Kauffman, Signal Sec., FEASC, 1 2 Aug.
1944; Lt. Gen. George Brett report, Air
Operations in Australia, Summary Q,
in AFSHO files; GO I and 4, Hq. Allied
Air Forces, 20 Apr. and 2 May 1942;
memo for C/S, W D from Maj. Gen.
Robert C. Richardson, Jr., Report #f, 9
July 1942-
4. Richardson Report #5; GO 6, Hq.
Allied Air Forces, X I May 1942; Brett
report, as in n. 43.
‘945.)
1942.)

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