An Unarmed Air Force During the summer of 1941 General Arnold grimly took stock of the consequences of the disastrous gap between orders and deliveries. The GHQ Air Force, supposedly the air man’s great offensive or striking arm, could muster only two groups of heavy bombers (70 aircraft), two groups of medium bombers (approximately 114 aircraft), two groups of light bombers (approximately 114 aircraft). and three groups of pursuit (225 aircraft), nine groups or a paper total of 523 airplanes in all. But even this force was, the General felt, something of an absurdity since it lacked the mobile air depots essential for sustained operations in the field and, worse still, to operate even those nine groups involved the use of obsolete equipment—B-18’s and P-36’s without leakproof tanks, gun turrets, armor and all the other modifications shown necessary by the war in Europe. The Army’s aerial striking force, said General Arnold, was at “zero strength.” He concluded bluntly: the air arm was not ready for war. Not until sometime after March 1942 would aircraft production be expected to begin outstripping training and pile up a backlog of aircraft. The small number of aircraft available to tactical units in the field was in itself alarming, but this was not the only danger present. Even those aircraft reported as “tactically available” by the pitifully few groups and squadrons in the field were not always really available. At one point during the summer of 1941, for example, the Chief of the Air Corps reported that two whole squadrons of heavy bombers, B-17’s, and an entire group of medium bombers were grounded for want of parts or because of structural defects appearing after delivery. In some cases even aircraft officially “accepted” by the War Department were not in fact complete. Production of Bell P-39 fighters, for example, ran well ahead of propeller production. To avoid a pile-up, air arm officers arranged to accept the units as assembled, fly them to an air base, remove the propeller, ship it back to Bell, fly away another, and so on. Whatever the paper records may have indicated to the contrary, the air arm had a number of lame ducks on hands. Even after Pearl Harbor, tactical units continued to list aircraft on strength reports even though they lacked guns, turrets, radios, and bombsights—without which they would be of little use in a shooting war. Keywords: Buying Aircraft For The Army Air Force in World War II, procurement, government contracts,GHQ Air Force, Mobile Air Depot, General Arnold, Propellor production, Bell P-39, Aircraft production

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