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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.
“United Press”36 pages
T H E A R M Y A I R A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S with something of a time lag, the several organizational changes in the air arm which have been noted above. T h e influence of the General Staff over air doctrine is clearly shown in Training Regula- tion 440- I 5, Fundamental Principles of Employment of the Air Serv- ice (26 January 1926). This manual states that the organization and training of air units is to be “based on the fundamental doctrine that their mission is to aid the ground forces to gain decisive success.”115 This principle is to guide all operations, but the nature of the aid will vary with the type of aviation units involved. Some units must operate as an organic part of the ground command, and their aid will be direct; others may “CO- operate by indirect support in the area of the ground battlefield or at a distance therefrom.” Such indirect support is peculiarly the function of the GHQ air force, which “is self-contained and is capable of rapidly shifting its activities from one theater of operations to another, transporting the equipment and personnel necessary for its efficient operation and upkeep.” At outbreak of war it first gains control of the air, then attempts to disrupt enemy communications and move- ments. Thereafter it assists the army directly in battle or “indirectly, wheq conditions are favorable, by carrying out special missions at great distance from the ground forces” against critical areas of the enemy country. And the GHQ air force is of special value in coast defense, both in reconnaissance and in attacks on approaching fleets.l” Compared with Mitchell’s bold claims this was pale stuff, and it was a fitting coincidence that his resignation from the Army came on the day after T R 440-15 was published. But its authors, following in all respectability the recommendations of the Lassiter Board, had at least ascribed to GHQ aviation something of the functions of a striking force; further the Air Service was not then prepared to go. Even at the Air Service Tactical School a t Langley Field the teaching was f a r from radical. Textbooks published there in I 926 constitute perhaps the most detailed analysis of employment of military aviation yet to come from a W a r Department agency. That on Bombardment specifies that the course is to deal primarily with “operations in support of, or in conjunction with, large forces of ground troops” rather than with bombardment “in what may be termed ‘independent air force opera- tions.’ ” Hence the approach is always “from the standpoint of various ground situations,” both in open warfare and on a stabilized front; even strategic bombardment is so treated.”‘ T h e authors, unlike 45
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