I was reading the minutes of Air Staff meetings today, and the one from December 17th 1941, just 10 days after Pearl Harbor, really struck me. I've always been given the impression that the reaction to that attack was sudden and firm, yet in that meeting General Spaatz himself brought up this: "Item 10. Question of Christmas leave for [a] few days." I mean, this was even a thing that USAAC people were asking about, or expecting? Spaatz's answer surprised me even more: "All right if we can get hold of them" presumably in case they were needed back, in case, oh, I don't know, something important happened? There are all sorts of other little surprises in those Staff Meeting notes, like instead of jumping in as the Arsenal Of Democracy, America in fact was short on just about everything. "British at Cairo can give us 6 tons of ammunition, half to go on B-24 and arrangements to be made for carrying the other half." Or "Colonel Sorensen to check on practicality of using 15 inch shells for bombs. Also to convert British shells to bombs."
There are some interesting tidbits about specific aircraft as well. Again, General Spaatz:, 12/19/41 "Importance of Dive Bombers was stressed. Must develop and conduct research on possibility of converting light bombers of the 54 and 84 group programs into dive bombers. Also investigation of the practicability of using light bombers as night pursuit... Also taking into consideration attaching a light weight bomb on the P-40's and other pursuit for converting them into dive bombers." They'd have to be very shallow dives in order for the falling bombs to be sure of clearing the propellers. Speaking of P-40s, the same meeting said this: "There are no objections to sending P-39's to X to replace an equal number of P-40's as the P-40's are said to be inferior to certain new types of Jap[anese] pursuit ships." Interesting that they obviously considered P-39 to be a more competitive fighter than P-40. And "X" crops up throughout these meetings as some sensitive place, but since these notes were originally classified Secret, and apparently it was still necessary to be circumspect at that level, it's intriguing.
One last example, from the 12/29/41 meeting: "General Weaver reported that the guns made by Frigidaire will not shoot. He has informed General Arnold of this condition." Wonder what that was all about?
There are some interesting tidbits about specific aircraft as well. Again, General Spaatz:, 12/19/41 "Importance of Dive Bombers was stressed. Must develop and conduct research on possibility of converting light bombers of the 54 and 84 group programs into dive bombers. Also investigation of the practicability of using light bombers as night pursuit... Also taking into consideration attaching a light weight bomb on the P-40's and other pursuit for converting them into dive bombers." They'd have to be very shallow dives in order for the falling bombs to be sure of clearing the propellers. Speaking of P-40s, the same meeting said this: "There are no objections to sending P-39's to X to replace an equal number of P-40's as the P-40's are said to be inferior to certain new types of Jap[anese] pursuit ships." Interesting that they obviously considered P-39 to be a more competitive fighter than P-40. And "X" crops up throughout these meetings as some sensitive place, but since these notes were originally classified Secret, and apparently it was still necessary to be circumspect at that level, it's intriguing.
One last example, from the 12/29/41 meeting: "General Weaver reported that the guns made by Frigidaire will not shoot. He has informed General Arnold of this condition." Wonder what that was all about?
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