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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 Invaders”15 pages
T H E A R M Y A I R ARM B E T W E E N TWO WARS cal progress of commercial aviation and of foreign powers in the development of planes which in themselves forced new considerations upon those men who were charged with our national At the same time there can be no question regarding the positive contri- bution of the Air Corps itself to the development of planes of greater size and longer range. It is significant that the story of the Army’s long-range bomber has its beginning in proposals of 1 9 3 3 for the construction of an ultra long-range bomber that immediately would have relegated such a plane as the B-I 7 to the category of medium range. Equally significant is the fact that the proposed plane was intended for a mission of coastal defense and that the proposal was advanced under circum- stances decidedly favorable to its acceptance. T o understand those circumstances, it is necessary to turn back two years to the MacArthur- Pratt agreement of 1 9 3 I , which, for the time being a t least, promised a permanent settlement of controversial issues between the Army and the Navy over the use of aircraft in coastal defense. Neither space nor time will permit here an attempt to survey the extended controversy which preceded that agreement. %riefly, the introduction of the airplane as a weapon of war had brought confusion and sharp debate into areas of defensive responsibility theretofore clearly enough defined. Defense of the coast traditionally had been an Army function; it fortified and manned positions of obvious impor- tance to the defense of coastal cities and other areas of special strategic significance, and it was expected to take such additional steps as were required to repel an attempted invasion across the coast line. The Navy, on the other hand, placed a high premium on the mobility of its fleet, and, while necessarily dependent upon shore installations, it avoided commitments for coastal defense that would tend to tie down the fleet. Even the defense of naval shore installations was a primary responsibility of the Army. Because of the limited range of coastal defense weapons and an obligation for the safety of shipping, how- ever, the Navy necessarily assumed certain responsibilities for the protection of coastwise sea lanes. But the Navy’s obligations, in contradistinction to the Army’s, were limited, and it was readily admitted that final responsibility within the range of land-based weapons lay with the Army. The airplane, of course, effectively extended the range of the Army’s land-based weapons, and, in so doing, it gave to that service the means to extend its operations in defense of 61
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