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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. 14 …But the final choice remained with the commanding general, who in some instances moved in advance…
  • p. 36 …sufficiently advanced to support limited offensives in both the European and the Pacific theaters. The history…
  • p. 40 …Advanced training was for the most part scheduled for overseas schools, where combat experience of the…
  • p. 43 …Of 2 , 9 2 5 planes reaching the AEF’s Zone of Advance during the war…
  • p. 45 …Trenchard, then com- mander of the Royal Flying Corps, and was profoundly impressed by his advanced…
  • p. 46 …the Zone of Advance, the I Corps, the First Army, and the First Army Group, advancing…
  • p. 47 …The rest of his offensive forces Mitchell concentrated along the axis of the American advance. Since…
  • p. 51 …among the several armies.’ Aviation officers had to accept this concept, but the most advanced thought…
  • p. 63 …Its report in October 1933 did not accept the more advanced ideas of the Army’s…
  • p. 68 …on the details of aerial combat, they seldom represent the most advanced thought within the Army…
  • p. 70 …to have been geared closely to the advance of the ground armies. His boldest plan, a…
  • p. 71 …the field of battle of either armies or navies.“ But this unpleasant thought was advanced as…
  • p. 76 …who might provide advanced bases. H e had come to consider that “the basis of air…
  • p. 87 …the doctrine of air war taught in the Air Corps’ most advanced school a t the…
  • p. 88 …One was the acquisition of more advanced bases. That was a political matter, wholly foreign to…
  • p. 91 …the years immediately follow- ing the war, when as yet commercial aviation had not advanced to…
  • p. 93 …the quest for cleaner lines the retractable landing gear had been introduced.lG8If the advances made…
  • p. 96 …mission of coastal defense and that the proposal was advanced under circum- stances decidedly favorable to…
  • p. 112 …Numerous forecasts of such a development had been voiced since the end of the earlier conflict…
  • p. 117 …In contrast to the 2 0 0 hours in primary, basic, and advanced training then being…
  • p. 119 …in the organization of their air forces the Italians were much further advanced than the Japanese…
  • p. 122 …Force, the aviation department sought to promote the growth of “civilian” airlines, the advancement of aeronautical…
  • p. 125 …Though the Luftwaff e hardly proved to be so overwhelming a force as its advance notices…
  • p. 126 …The Lufnvaffe was used both to eliminate the air opposition and as an advance striking force…
  • p. 127 …Leading the rapidly advancing Panzer divisions through the Low Countries, the Stukas bombed troop concentrations and…
  • p. 129 …supply resulting from the speed of the German advance, the success of the RAF at Dunkirk…
  • p. 131 …By the summer of 1940 the breath-taking advance of German forces had destroyed all effective…
  • p. 134 …After seizing key airdromes, the advance German forces were supplied and reinforced by Junkers 5 2…
  • p. 135 …In addition, the rapid German advance dis- rupted the air supply and maintenance system and a…
  • p. 149 …the best flying weather and each including a number, steadily growing, of basic and advanced Responsibility…
  • p. 161 …miles to the That attack argued too for the next eastward advance of the Ameri- can…
  • p. 164 …islands, proved inadequate against the Japanese surprise attacks, but the advanced island airstrips were to be…
  • p. 165 …the United States and Alaska. And, as elsewhere, protection of Alaska called for more advanced outposts…
  • p. 170 …New estimates, submitted in &/lay by the W a r Plans Division of the General Staff…
  • p. 183 …T h e British chiefs of staff did not envisage the use of the vast numbers…
  • p. 198 …so far advanced as those in Newfoundland. Surveys which were made during the spring and summer…
  • p. 201 …32 The organization of the Caribbean Air Force represented a marked structural advance over the force…
  • p. 204 …Of the several outlying sites in the eastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico presented the most advanced stage…
  • p. 211 …advanced bases, a series of inter- mediate airfields, a chain of fields between Anchorage and the…
  • p. 213 …the requirements for accommodating a pursuit group in the same area.51These moves had not advanced…
  • p. 217 …of the Navy to maintain the long-range reconnaissance that would be required for advance notice…
  • p. 226 …The Interceptor Command was composed of the 24th Pursuit Group, whose pilots had received advanced training…
  • p. 246 …But as the day advanced the sea had roughened, and approximately fifty planes were smashed in…
  • p. 251 …execution of the plan for an early morning attack, and gave the Americans advance notice of…
  • p. 253 …mission without advance reconnaissance. T h e interview did not indicate whether the question of an…
  • p. 274 …the steady advance of the enemy from the north and addi- tional landings along the Luzon…
  • p. 278 …in advance of the scheduled date of 15 January. Both the Army and the Navy were…
  • p. 281 …and the disposition of Air Corps troops in advance thereof in order to accomplish your assigned…
  • p. 282 …Shanghai to acquire advanced bases; (b) by exerting slow pressure through the Nether- lands East Indies…
  • p. 291 …These problems were intimately related, and any ready solu- tion was complicated by the whirlwind advance…
  • p. 327 …than “a cadre sent to the territory in advance of the main body.” 32 T o…
  • p. 334 …the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two theories to account for the…
  • p. 335 …between the W a r and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army…
  • p. 337 …It would be necessary to know in advance of the approach of enemy craft. Next, there…
  • p. 338 …time proved less effective,lo4 for advance warning of the enemy's approach did little good…
  • p. 350 …the Pacific coast defense zone, arrangements had been completed with the Canadians to provide advance warning…
  • p. 358 …Prospects for completing the work in advance of an anticipated spring attack on Dutch Harbor were…
  • p. 397 …his staff to work out in advance details for the staging + See below, p. 493. 34'
  • p. 399 …an advance task force of engineer, coast artillery, and general service troops arrived in the waters…
  • p. 403 …T e n enlisted weather specialists accompanied the American advance task force into southern Greenland in…
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
Mitchell, are dubious of the morale value of bombing civilian popula-
tion centers, and they deplore the fact that “the strategical employ-
ment of bombardment in stabilized warfare is popularly conceived to
be the true role of that class of aviation”-a concept for which Mitchell
was largely responsible. Such use of the bomber “will have an im-
portant bearing on the outcome of the war, but it must not take pre-
cedence over the support of ground operations by proper tactical
employment.”
In April 1928 the commandant of the same school-now called the
Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS)-sent up through channels for
War Department approval a paper, “The Doctrine of the Air
Force.” ‘19 The paper reflected in its treatment of crucial issues the
very modest organizational gains authorized in the Air Corps Act of
2 July 1926. The Office of the Chief of the Air Corps rejected the
paper on the score that it subordinated the air force to the ground
force and went on to develop its own concept of war, which was
borrowed directly from Mitchell. This branded as unsound the basic
principle of the Field Service Regulations:
The objective of war is to overcome the enemy’s will to resist and the defeat
of his army, his fleet or the occupation of his territory is merely a means to this
end and none of them are the true objective. If the true objective can be
reached without the necessity of defeating or brushing aside the enemy force
on the ground or water and the proper means furnished to subdue the enemy’s
will and bring the war to a close, the object of war can be obtained with less
destruction and lasting after effects than has heretofore been the case. At
present the Air Force provides the only means for such an accomplishment.120
Within a very few years this was to be the dominant theme a t the
school, but its textbook, The Air Force, published in 193I , was less
unequivocal in its estimate of air power. The manual taught that “vic-
tory is practically assured to the commander whose air force has
gained and can maintain control of the air, even if his ground forces
are merely equal or somewhat inferior to those of his enemy.” But it
hedged in predicting that “the next war will begin about where the
last ended, and the air force will be subordinate, although a most im-
portant auxiliary, to the ground forces.” l Z 1
In general, these manuals were hardly consistent with national poli-
cies. The mission of the Army was defense of the United States and
its outlying territories, but the theory of war therein described is
wholly that of the strategic offensive. Both the Field Service Regula-
46

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