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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.
“The Wash”17 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 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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