C H A P T E R 16
* * * * * * * * * * *
PLANS, POLICIES,
A N D ORGANIZATION
N THE Pacific, the air war began with the surprise attack on
Oahu. The Japanese, for reasons sufficiently cogent, had chosen
I to launch the attack in the quiet of a December Sunday morning.It was sudden, all-out war. Within a matter of hours, or at most of a
few days, American air forces in Hawaii and the Philippines were
all but annihilated.
In the European theater, the AAF went to war more deliberately,
choosing the Fourth of July, 1942, as an appropriate day to strike. It
was only a token blow-six Eighth Air Force light bomber crews
flying borrowed Bostons in an RAF routine sweep against enemy
airfields." During the seven months which had intervened since
Pearl Harbor, the AAF's war against Germany had been confined
to antisubmarine patrols. In the Pacific, pilots had become veterans
and combat units had burned out before the first sortie was flown
over the European continent. When, on 1 7 August, the Eighth Air
Force dispatched the initial U.S. bombardment mission against occu-
pied France, t the first phase of the Pacific war had run its course.
The Jap, in a series of rapid thrusts, had reached his widest perimeter.
He had been checked in the Coral Sea, defeated decisively at Mid-
way, and had pulled back from his feint at Dutch Harbor to hibernate
on Attu and Kiska. H e had conquered northern Burma, cutting the
road to China; but already the Tenth Air Force with its newly formed
China Air Task Force had begun the long struggle to maintain an air
link with China. Port Moresby, key to the defense of northeastern
Australia, had been saved from amphibious assault by the success of
* See below, pp. 658-59.
t See below, pp. 661-64.
557