When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Germany and Italy joined Japan four days later in declaring war against the United States, intelligence essential for the Army Air Forces to conduce effective warfare in the European and Pacific theaters did not exist. The manuscript tells the intriguing story of how airmen build intelligence organizations to collect and process information about the enemy and to produce and disseminate intelligence to decision makers and warfighters in the bloody, horrific crucible of war. More that organizational history, this manuscript reveals the...

On March 15, 1916, the 1st Aero Squadron arrived at Columbus, New Mexico, its train steaming into the crowded, chaotic town at 9:15 in the morning. Led by Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois, a lantern-jawed, bantam-weight former enlisted man, the squadron included eleven officers, eighty-two enlisted men, and one civilian technician. Under Foulois's direction, the men unloaded an automobile, six motorcycles, and twelve motor trucks, vehicles rare in 1916 New Mexico and even rarer in an army still wedded to the horse and mule. These were followed by wooden crates containing eight wood, wire, and fabric...

To some people, the Korean War was just a "police action," preferring that euphemism to what it really was - a brutal and bloody war involving hundreds of thousands of air, ground, and naval forces from many nations. It was also termed a "limited war," in that it took place in a small region of the world versus the worldwide conflict that had ended less than five years earlier. But this "police action," this "limited war," cost an estimated 2.4 million military casualties on both sides, while at least another 2 million civilians were also casualties. The United States military alone suffered...

This is an institutional history of flight training by the predecessor organizations of the United States Air Force. The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane, built and successfully flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in 1909, and paced both lighter-and heavier-than-air aeronautics in the Division of Military Aeronautics of the Signal Corps. Americans flew combat missions in France during World War I and during World War II. During this first era of military aviation, the groundwork was laid for the independent United States Air Force. This document is primarily based on official documents...

This document is part of the United States Air Force's Korean War Fiftieth Anniversary Commemorative Series. "We now know, as we never knew it in the Air Force before, that we can fly anything, anywhere, any time. Climate, mountains, oceans-those can't stop us."

In commemoration of the Korean War, the U.S. Air Force History Program published several works. One is this manuscript, a companion volume to the air war chronology entitled The USAF in Korea: A Chronology, 1950-1953, which details monthly and daily USAF activities and operations in the theater. This pamphlet, The USAF in Korea: Campaigns, Units, and Stations, 1950- 1953, provides information on the ten combat campaigns of the Korean War and gives an organizational view of tactical and support organizations carrying out combat operations. It also locates organizations or elements of...

Before the Korean War, the primary mission of Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer's Far East Air Forces was air defense of the Japanese homeland. Most of the aircraft constituting Stratemeyer's inventory were interceptors, not designed for the type of combat that would be required now that the United States was joining in the UN effort to end the war in Korea. The Joint Army/USAAF doctrine of 1946, known as Field Manual 31-35, Air Ground Operations, was also considered outdated in the present circumstance. A new approach to warfighting had to be developed in response to the strong influence of...

The fight for air superiority began the day the Korean War started and only ended with the armistice three years later. Once the shock of the North Koreans' invasion wore off, it did not take long for the United States Air Force, assisted by other United Nations air forces, to destroy the North Korean Air Force. The arrival of the MiG-15 in November 1950, often flown by Soviet pilots, changed things considerably however. For the remainder of the war, bitterly contested air battles were fought almost daily. Yet despite a decided numerical superiority in jet fighters, the Communists were never...

The Air Force History and Museums Program has prepared accounts of the United States Air Force and the war in Southeast Asia according to a design that reflects the compartmentalized nature of the conflict itself. Besides the special studies like the illustrated history (The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973: An Illustrated Account) and the monographs, some of them quite lengthy, on topics like rescue or tactical airlift, the Air Force history program has published volumes on the air wars over South Vietnam and Cambodia, North Vietnam, and Laos. This book is the last of...

No experience etched itself more deeply into Air Force thinking than the air campaigns over North Vietnam. Two decades later in the deserts of Southwest Asia, American airmen were able to avoid the gradualism that cost so many lives and planes in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Readers should come away from this book with a sympathetic understanding of the men who bombed North Vietnam. Those airmen handled tough problems in ways that ultimately reshaped the Air Force into the effective instrument on display in the Gulf War. This book is a sequel to Jacob Van Staaveren's Gradual Failure: The...