ARMY AIR FORCE HISTORICAL DIVISION STUDIES

The Air Force Historical Research Agency is the repository for Air Force historical documents. The Agency's collection, begun in Washington, DC, during World War II, moved in 1949 to Maxwell Air Force Base, the site of Air University, to provide research facilities for professional military education students, the faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public. It consists today of over 70,000,000 pages devoted to the history of the service, and represents the world's largest and most valuable organized collection of documents on US military aviation.


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NINTH AIR FORCE IN THE ETO: OCTOBER 1943 TO APRIL 1944

This narrative has been prepared by the Historical Division, AC/AS, Intelligence as a contribution to the history of the Army Air Forces in the current war. The study has been drawn largely from materials forwarded by the Historical Section, Ninth Air Force.


NINTH AIR FORCE: APRIL TO NOVEMBER 1944

This narrative was prepared by Lt. Col, Robert H. George, who served as historical officer of the Ninth Air Force from the fall of 1943 to the close of 1944 and who was subsequently reassigned to the AAF Historical Office.


Based largely on materials forwarded from the theater by him and his associates of the Historical Section, Ninth Air Force, the narrative is the result of firsthand experience as well as careful research.


DEVELOPMENT OF THE LONG-RANGE ESCORT FIGHTER

This monograph relates the history of the long-range escort fighter from 1914 through World War II. The story is concerned primarily with the development of the fighter and the problems incident there after and with the employment of the fighter in Europe and the Pacific.


The study was written originally as a doctoral dissertation by Dr. Bernard Boylan of the University of Missouri. Dr. Boylan wrote his dissertation while holding the USAF Historical Division's Fellowship from 1953-54.


THE WAR AGAINST THE LUFTWAFFE: AAF COUNTER - AIR OPERATIONS APRIL 1943 - JUNE 1944

In 1940 the Luftwaffe appeared to dominate the European Continent. After the successful exercises in Spain (1936-39) and Poland (1939), the German Air Force covered the invasion of Norway, crushed French aerial resistance in the brief weeks of the Battle for France, and as the summer drew near, was poised triumphantly on the brink of the Channel before opening the Battle of Britain.


This study looks into the U.S. Army Air Forces planning of air operations in the early part of its involvement of World War II and details first operations against the Luftwaffe through the spring of 1944.


THE PREFLIGHT SCHOOLS OF WORLD WAR II

This monograph is a study of preflight training in the AAF from 1941 to 1953. As used in this study "preflight" refers to the phase of training prior to actual flight instruction. The origin and organization of preflight training are described in detail, with particular emphasis upon pilot preflight. Before the United States began to expand its air forces, there was little need for training cadets prior to their entrance into primary. But the large expansion in pilot, bombardier, and navigator training quotas during World War II made necessary the inauguration of some kind of indoctrination program to compensate for the wide differences in the quality of trainees: preflight therefore was an attempt --during World War II -- to raise the common level of learning and avoid the high elimination rates that were characteristic of the post-war training programs. Since the fall of 1952 the principal purpose of preflight, however, has been one of motivation.


This writer has attempted to trace briefly, for background purposes, the high points in the history of military aviation in the United States from its "beginning to World War II. Various AAF training programs (primary, basic, and advanced} and pilot production quotes are discussed only in their relation to the preflight picture, and therefore constitute an insignificant aspect of the monograph. The present, study was written by Dr. Eugene Hollon, Associate Professor of History, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma.


COMBAT SQUADRONS OF THE AIR FORCE - WORLD WAR II

This collection of squadron histories has been prepared by the USAF Historical Division to complement the Division's book, Air Force Combat Units of World War II, which contains histories of groups, wings, divisions, commands, and air forces.


The 1,226 units covered by this volume are the combat (tactical) squadrons that were active between 7 December 1941 and 2 September 1945. Thus the book does not include earlier squadrons which, having been demobilized, inactivated, or disbanded prior to 7 December 1941, did not have active service during World War II; nor does it include squadrons created after 2 September 1945. Since the policy of the Air Force, however, has been to use units with prior records of service, and particularly those with the longest and best wartime records, this volume covers most of the combat squadrons that are active at present and that can be active in the future.


USAF CREDITS FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ENEMY AIRCRAFT - WORLD WAR II

World War II was the only true worldwide conflict in which airpower played a significant role; where World War I, Korea, and Vietnam were limited geographically in application of U.S. airpower, it was not. This presented researchers into the victory credits of the war with some special problems. There was never a single list of official victory credits for World War II, and, in fact, there were no uniform rules governing the award of credits in the various theaters and air forces.


Researchers for this project followed carefully prepared guidelines set forth by the USAF Historical Division as “Instructions for Study No. 85, Criteria for Determining Victory Credits.”


A PRELIMINARY LIST OF U.S. AIR FORCE ACES 1917 - 1953

Responsibilities for historical matters pertaining to aces was assigned to the USAF Historical Division Headquarters, Unites States Air Force on June 1957. In keeping with that responsibility, the Division established Project ACE in May 1959 for the compilation of a list of the aces of the U.S. Air Force, 1917-1953. An official list of World War I victory credits had been published by the Air Service in 1920, and official list of Korean War aces had been issued by the Department of the Air Force in 1957. No comparable materials were available, however, for World War II. Several persons and agencies had prepared lists of World War II aces, but, as might be expected, these lists differed in important respects. Further, in some cases it was impossible to discover what sources and methods has been used in developing those lists; in those instances where sources and methods were known or could be learned from the list themselves. It appeared that some important materials may not have been consulted. The major task before the USAF Historical Division, therefore, was the preparation of a list of World War II aces.