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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.
“Churchill”21 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 and These officers had come up in an atmosphere permeated with Mitchell’s ideas, and they turned to such other theorists as were available. It is often difficult, because of the multiple authorship of military documents and the poverty of information concerning offi- cers’ reading habits, to trace the evolution of a given idea in the Army. One of the instructors at the Tactical School has indicated some of the literature absorbed during this period: 1 3 7 Clausewitz (who was “right in his time”) ;Frank Simon’s The Price of Peace (“a very good book, too”) ; Liddell Hart; Goering (“the only foreign predecessor we had to follow-except old Douhet”). One might suppose that Douhet, who “really struck the first blow,” was most useful; his work had been made available in the Air Corps in an incomplete mimeo- graphed form, done into English from a French t r a n ~ l a t i o n . ~ ~ ~But even he added little to what could have been gained from a few hours devoted to Mitchell’s works. Whatever the source of inspiration, the theory of air war expounded at the Air Corps Tactical School may be summarized under the fol- lowing points: I . T h e national objective in war is to break the enemy’s will to resist and to force him to submit to our will.13* 2. T h e accomplishment of this objective may entail actual destruction of his power to resist, or merely the threat thereof, but in either case it requires an offensive type of warfare. Hence the true mission of all components of the armed services is to exert maximum destructive powers on the most vital enemy 3. T h e immediate mission of the armed forces may be: defeat of the enemy’s army, navy, or air force; the occupation of his homeland; pressure against his national economy; or operations directed against vital centers within his country. Under certain conditions the threat of a successful accom- plishment of such missions will be sufficient to enforce our will upon the enemy.141 4. These military missions are best carried through by the co-operation of the three arms: air, ground, and naval. Each has its peculiar functions and limitations. Thus aviation can aid ground forces to gain territory, but only ground forces can occupy an enemy’s land. Aviation alone cannot pro- tect our merchant marine or our troop movements by sea, but it can unaided accomplish the other functions of sea power-defense of the nation against waterborne invasions and reduction or elimination of enemy merchant shipping. And, of the three arms, only aviation can contribute significantly to all of the designated missions.142 5. T h e special mission of the air arm then should be to attack the whole of the “enemy national structure.” Under conditions of modern warfare the military, political, economic, and social aspects of a nation’s life are closely and absolutely interdependent, so that dislocations in any one will bring 5 ’
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