Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

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LESSONS BEFORE WORLD WAR I1
Army in World War 111 (Washington: Historical Division United States Army, 1950).
The initial chapters of DeWitt S. Copp, Forged in Fire: Strategy and Decisions in
the Air War over Europe, 1940-1945 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1982) are indispensable
to understanding the U.S. Army Air Corps/Air Force transition to World
War 11.
A taste of Air Force thinking can be gleaned from the following: U.S. Congress,
Senate Committee on Appropriations, Department of the Armed Forces, Department
of Military Security, 79th Congress, 1st session, 1945 (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1945); U.S. War Department, Office of the Chief of Staff,
Tentative Field Service Regulations, United States Army, 1923 (Washington: War
Department, 1924); U.S. War Department, Final Report of War Department Special
Committee on Army Air Corps, July 18, 1934 (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1934); US. Army Air Corps Tactical School, Air Force Air Operations:
Counter Air Force (Maxwell Field, Alabama, May 1937); United States War Department,
Office of the Chief of Staff, Tentative Field Service Regulations, Operations,
100-5 (Washington: War Department, 1939); and U.S. War Department, Office of
Chief of Staff, FM 1-5, Air Corps Field Manual; Employment of Aviation of the
Army (Washington: War Department, 1940).
Among U.S. Air Force Historical Studies monographs of utility to the subject
of this essay are Robert T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School, 1920-
1940 [Number 1001 (Maxwell AFB: USAF Historical Division, Research Studies
Institute, Air University, March 1955); Martin I? Claussen, Materiel Research and
Development in the Army Air Arm, 1914-1945 [Number 501 (Washington: Headquarters,
Army Air Forces, Historical Office, 1946); and Bernard Boylan, Development
of the Long-Range Escort Fighter [Number 1361 (Maxwell AFB: USAF Historical
Division, Research Studies Institute, Air University, September 1955). Fundamental
to the context of U.S. Army-Air Corps/Army Air Forces relations are Christopher
R. Gabel, The U.S. Army GHQ Manuevers of 1941 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms,
1981); and Garrett Underhill, “Air Corps Learned Plenty on Maneuver; But
Did the Ground Troops?” Aviation 40 (1941).
Finally, the biographical approach to the study of any period always yields information,
for example, Georgii Zhukov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1971); Gray, Viscount of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1925); Andrew Boyle, Trenchard (New York: W. W. Norton,
1962); Leonard Mosley, The Reich Marshal: A Biography of Hermann Goering
(New York: Doubleday, 1974); Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 193&1939
(London: Collins, 1966); Charles Messenger, “Bomber” Harris and the Strategic
Bombing Offensive, 1939-1945 (New York: St. Martins, 1984); and Dudley Saward,
Bomber Harris: The Story of Sir Arthur Harris, Marshal of the Royal Air Force
(Garden City: Doubleday, 1985). For American biographies, see H. H. Arnold,
Global Mission (New York: Harper, 1949); Benjamin D. Foulois with C. V. Glines,
From the Wright Brothers to the Astronauts-The Memoirs of Major General Benjamin
D. Foulois (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968); John E Shiner, Foulois and the
U.S. Army Air Corps 1931-1935 (Washington: Office of Air Force History, 1983);
Alfred E Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader For Air Power (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1975); and John J. Pershing, My Experiences in the World War (New
York: Frederick A. Stokes, Co., 1931). Most assuredly, students of the American air
experience must begin with the early chapters of DeWitt S. Copp, Forged in Fire:
Strategy and Decisions in the Air War over Europe, 194&1945 (Garden City: Doubleday,
1982).
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