Documents / Document
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.
“Italian Air Force”14 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 expeditionary force, and GHQ aviation, in addition to its role of close support, would assist materially in off shore reconnaissance and inter- ception of an enemy expedition. But such functions required a closer definition of the respective responsibilities of the Army and Navy, a problem that was referred to the Joint Board of the Army and Navy. In a report, “Doctrines for the Employment of the GHQ Air Force,” 2 6 September 1934, the Joint Board accepted in substance the recom- mendations of the Drum and Baker reports, but the tendency of both chese reports to discount the role of air power was reflected in a much less clearly defined statement of Air Corps responsibilities in national defense than had been hoped for in 1931.12* A year later the Air Corps mission was described more formally in a revision of Joint Action of the Army and Navy, promulgated on I I September 1935. This pro- vided that the Army air component was “ t o operate as an arm of the mobile Army, both in the conduct of air operations over the land in support of land operations and in the conduct of air operations over the sea in direct defense of the coast”; under certain conditions Army aviation was also to conduct “air operations in support of or in lieu of naval forces.” lZ5These passages were ambiguous enough to be accept- able to both Army and Navy and too ambiguous to be of service to either. In October 1934,Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff, had for- warded to appropriate commands the Joint Board’s paper on employ- ment of the GHQ Air Force.lZOIn anticipation of the imminent reorganization of the Air Corps he directed that air doctrines be re- stated “with a view to a broader understanding of the Air Corps’ place in the scheme of national defense and in expectation of doing away with misconceptions and interbranch prejudices.” lZ7 On 2 I December, Brig. Gen. C.E. Kilbourne of the General Staff’s War Plans Division forwarded to the Chief of the Air Corps, as a “sighting shot,” a draft proposal for “Doctrines of Army Air Corps.’’ This paper drew heavily upon the Drum and Baker reports, though it gave to the counterair activities of the GHQ Air Force a greater prominence than had either. Kilbourne’s draft was criticized severely by members of the Air Corps Tactical School and of the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps, including Maj. Carl Spaatz, be- cause it subordinated strategic bombardment to attacks on enemy air power.12QA somewhat more acceptable statement appeared in a re- vised edition of T R 440- I 5, Employment of the Air Forces of the 48
Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 863 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.