 I have seen your Air Forces in combat, proud of what I have seen. When I refer to the United States Army Air Forces as your Air Forces, I mean it in every sense of the word. In two years we have come up from seventh place to first place and today we have the largest and mightiest Air Force in the world. That was a job accomplished by the will and energy of the entire people of the United States. It was accomplished by our young men who left their peacetime pursuits to become pilots, bombardiers, radio technicians, gunners, by those who operated our great commercial airlines. It was accomplished by American labor, by the veterans, the newcomers, welders, typers. We welcomed anyone who was skilled and we were grateful to those who willingly forgot their usual Sunday afternoon drives. The building of our Army Air Forces is a great achievement of a democratic people and a democratic government. Many facts have been withheld in the past for reasons of military secrecy. Some of these facts can now be given as a record of your achievements, as a report of what you have done and are doing. Every American can well be proud of this record. December 7th, 1941 the Air Forces have their own reasons for remembering Pearl Harbor. In the entire Pacific area we had left only 176 planes. We faced a formidable German Luftwaffe and a strong Japanese Air Force with an overall total less than a thousand first-line combat planes. However, though we didn't have the planes in the air, we did have them on the assembly lines. Long before Pearl Harbor, the President had requested a program of 50,000 planes a year. Due to this foresight, our entry into the war found us with our designs set. Many of our factories converted to war production and our bombers and fighters beginning to roll off the assembly lines. And we knew our planes were as good as any in the world for the latest lessons learned in Europe, such as the need for heavier armament had been incorporated. But what about the men to fly the planes? Training was the number one problem. Lines of recruits appeared all over the country. The training commands pumped them into two main arteries as the men arrived schools sprang up to take them in. Air cadets went through a variety of schools preparatory to flying while future ground crews learned a hundred different trades. Some ground men volunteered for flying jobs. Others became officers. Flyers went on to the airfields while gunnery training was given to bombardiers, navigators and other potential crew members. Gaining constantly in skill, individually trained men from a thousand schools poured on schedule into the operational training units. Here at last they become units of air power. This program keeps a lock in the United States every day more than 120,000 men. Women too are trained to do their share. Our women pilots, the WASPs, deliver planes to home bases and perform tasks such as towing target sleeves for gunnery practice. Our air wax have been trained for jobs in many phases of the service. The final stage of training is reached in the operational units. Here the individually trained men for the first time meet the teammates beside whom they will fight and the combat planes they will fly. They train in organizational units as large as a complete task force simulating combat conditions. At the Florida Tactical Center officers back from duty overseas bring new problem, new front line techniques to be worked out and taught. Some of the refinements of skip bombing were developed here. With a modified gun sight at low altitude the pilot shoots his bombs into the target and takes a basic action. In a few weeks this dummy target will be an enemy tank. In a few weeks this will be an enemy ship. When ready for combat the individual bomber team is already part of a larger team called a squadron. Four squadrons comprise a group, three groups, a wing, five wings and air division, and four divisions a bomber command. A fighter command is built up much the same way. Another vital command is the air service command. They are the boys without whom the planes would never leave the ground. To service the planes repair shops and warehouses have been established such as this one in England. These warehouses start four times as many items as there are in a Sears-Rober catalog. The service command has become the biggest export business in the world. Delivering in huge quantities. This damaged fortress, Stella, is typical of the planes that come back from a mission badly in need of the air service command. For three of Stella's mobiles were dead. The four managed to get her back to England. But she ended up in a meadow. Stella was a mess until a mobile machine shop arrived. A temporary repair depot was set up and the boys of the air service command went to work. After a few days it began to look as though Stella might use a runway again. So bulldozers were moved in. A few new parts, a few more days and two again ready to fight again. Thanks to the air service command. The three commands are the backbone of an overseas air force. This is a global war. To understand the extent of our air operation we must take a global point of view. You're looking at the world spread out from the North Pole. Today we have 15 air forces all joined together by the network of the air transport command. 110,000 miles of regularly scheduled routes. Four and one-half times around the world. Over these routes the ATC ferries planes from factory to front. It transports key personnel and delivers supplies at the rate of 10 million miles a month. It will take anywhere, anything that can possibly fit into a plane. Once it delivered to Alaska, a complete hospital in 36 hours. It flew a shipment of grenades from the United States to Guadalcanal in four days when our men needed them desperately. The little extra that can turn the tide of battle. This is the daily mission of the air transport command. Our 15 air forces were formed at different times for varied purposes. The first four were the backbone of our development. The first and fourth defended our coasts. The second and third were training forces. Eleven are in action overseas. Four team bombers were the nucleus of our first combat air force. They had escaped the Japanese drive on the Philippines. Out of bombs and ammunition, these battered early model fortresses headed for Australia, evading the swift Japanese expansion over the islands of the Pacific. This was the beginning of our fifth air force. The fifth is a self-made air force. At the start it had to improvise with whatever facilities happened to be available in the area. Nevertheless, within three months it had joined the navy in the Battle of the Car Sea, helping to sink 19 enemy vessels. Some months later, a B-24 on reconnaissance located a column of Japanese warships moving through the Bismarck Sea toward New Guinea. This was the fifth big chance. Every available plane was sent into action. For three days, 162 American and Australian planes bombed and scraped the Jap fleet. Many of our fliers came in at mass altitude to skip bomb the enemy, most of only six of our planes and 13 of our men. The convoy was smashed and an entire division of Jap troops wiped out. This marked the limit of Japanese expansion. The fifth proceeded to take the offensive against the enemy's formidable system of interlocking bases. Japanese pressure had been concentrated on Port Moresby. We countered swiftly. Our troop carrier command through 15,000 men across the Owen Stanley Range in one air movement, then kept them supplied with more than two million pounds of food and equipment a week. Guns were moved in and the wounded evacuated on the return trips. Following the spearhead came the engineers. Sometimes they had equipment. Sometimes they improvised. Whatever their tools, they built airstrips out of the jungle in record time. From these advanced airstrips, the fifth was able to strike deeper into the Jap perimeter. Great enemy airfields and installations again and again. When the Japs tried to hide their planes in the jungle, fragmentation bombs suspended from parachutes blanketed the area, as destroyed over 1,500 enemy planes, 400 of them at Wewack alone. Our air superiority in the southwest Pacific has been definitely established. To counter the Jap threat, we're building our own network of air bases on territory recaptured by our combined operations. In this task, the fifth has been reinforced by the 13th Air Force, which was organized a year after Pearl Harbor. Together these two air forces are driving forward on one of the several roads to Tokyo. The 13th was activated with units from the 7th Air Force. Today on Hickam Field, the devastation of Pearl Harbor has been repaired and a new and better Air Force is making history. Just a year after Pearl Harbor at midnight, the bombers of the 7th flew out of Hickam on the longest massed offensive flight ever made. With Midway as the only stopping point, they flew 5,000 miles to Palm Wake Island in a surprise attack. To the south, the 7th established its bases on the Elise Islands. From here it battered Jap defense installations on the Gilbert's, paving the way for the successful assault of our amphibious forces. From advanced bases on the Gilbert's, the 7th put into combat a new weapon. In addition to its deadly 50 caliber machine guns, this B-25G was equipped with a 75 millimeter cannon. Another impregnable stronghold was taken by our armed forces. The 7th is opening up another approach to Tokyo. While the 7th was being built, the Japanese used threatened in the north. In a surprise assault, they seized and fortified Kiska. We rushed planes to the 11th Air Force in the Aleutians. Finally, the Japs were squeezed out. From here we have bombed Paramushiro, Japan's northernmost naval base. The 11th represents a third road to Tokyo. Many of the planes that were rushed to the Aleutians came from Panama, where our 6th Air Force has defended the canal zone. The 6th has patrolled the Caribbean for submarines and guarded the sea routes to Africa and Europe. Based in England is our 8th Air Force within striking distance of German production center. Germany's highly developed industries are the mainstay of her war effort. Our strategic bombing has been aimed at the heart of these industries, executing the United Nations strategy of weakening Germany for the invasion. Precision bombing by daylight has been the American contribution. Night attacks on whole industrial areas has been the job of Britain's RAF. This doublebow has raised havoc with German war production. German defenses have had no rest under the 24-hour offensive. Black cities present an additional problem. As this captured film shows, the army has been forced to take charge of Berlin's frightened population. Manpower and resources have been diverted to necessary repairs. In 1943, the series of outstanding attacks marked the development of strategic bombing. Submarine yards, marshaling yards, synthetic rubber, shipyards, ball bearings, and then aircraft, Marion Berg, Hassell. Today, the huge missions over Europe must be carefully and elaborately planned. Our fliers can expect any trip to develop into a major air battle. At a dozen scattered airfields, the bombers are assembled and move to the starting lines, imposing ports and liberators under into the gray English dawn. Off on split-second schedule, the war in the air is so swift that a few moments' error may mean a missed rendezvous. They mean a missed rendezvous. Fighter fields, thunderbolts are ready, followed by twin-engine lightning. Two groups make rendezvous over the English Channel. And with the fighters patrolling the skies around the bomber formation, the air armada moves into enemy territory. Crews of the approaching air invasion is flashed through the German warning system. Fill the skies with high explosions. German sirens wail over the German fighter fields and pilots sprint to their planes. And ME 109s are on their way to challenge our men and planes. Battle is on. Despite opposition, the bombers push on deeper into enemy territory. Their progress mapped by vapor trails. In formation, the bombers can lay down a deadly pattern of protective fire. As the enemy fighter attacks, plus the anti-aircraft barrage, take their toll. Begin to show damage. Some drop behind. The commander locates the stragglers. His fighters close into the kill. This is called the big knee. Look at the battle from the German angle through German cameras and see why this is in on the target. The enemy has never succeeded in making their stick to their jobs until the bombs, while the eighth hammered Europe, a new air force known by the code name of Junior, had been activated. Its purpose, strength and destination, all secret. The secret came out in Africa. Junior was the 12th, an air force created to take part in the African invasion. Its operations were tactical. A tactical air force operates in the battle zone, smashing the enemy wherever he is vulnerable. It works with the ground troops, employing low-flying medium bombers, and hard-hitting fighter planes. It fights to establish air superiority. Indonesia in two days, the 12th wrecked 112 Nazi planes in the air and on the ground. The desperate Nazis tried to fly in reinforcements to stem the advance of our ground troops. The reinforcements arrived. In the meantime, the night air force had joined the RAF, uncovering General Montgomery's victorious march from El Alamein. At the close of this campaign, the night joined Junior, and they worked together in the invasion of Sicily and Italy. In amphibious landings, the foot soldier has to carry out one of the toughest and most dangerous of all combat assignments. Air cover is of supreme importance, both to his morale and to the success of the operation. When a beachhead is established, the enemy's full strength must be held off, until our troops have a chance to dig in, land-heavy equipment, and supporting units. The tactical air power of the 12th and the 9th accomplish this in Italy. Our planes riddle the enemy's communications, neutralize his artillery, shut up his troop plane. Because of recent developments, the 12th has moved its headquarters to Italy, the 9th is in England for current operations, and our newest air force, the 15th, has moved into Africa. With this distribution of air forces, tactical coverage can be provided for any presently contemplated land operation. From its bases in Africa and Italy, the 15th can carry out strategic bombing over the whole of Southern Europe. While from England, the 8th can plaster Northern Europe. Together they cover Hitler's entire fortress. There is no corner of his stronghold that cannot be reached by the crippling blows of strategic bombing. Our remaining two air forces have operated on the other side of the world, in India and China. Japan's unwarranted campaign of aggression began 13 years ago. A powerful Jap air force had undisputed control of the Chinese skies. These were happy days for the Jap flyers. They flew their missions almost unopposed. They murdered at will. But in 1941, while America was still at peace, some visitors arrived in China. These were the flying tigers. Under the command of a master tactician, Clarell Shanaugh. Unaware of their presence, a Jap bombing mission headed for its target, the Chinese warning system flashed the news across the hills to the tigers. Came on unsuspecting, circles around his victim to make sure the kill. The score that day was 6 to nothing. From then on, the flying tiger's combat record never dropped below 5 to 1. The flying tigers were supplied over the old Burma road. Following Pearl Harbor, Japan took Burma, cut this supply line. The tigers became members of General Shanaugh's 14th Army Air Force. But because of this same problem of supply, the 14th is still numerically small. Supplies for the 14th start the journey from the United States by ship. After a voyage that takes two months, the vital cargo is unloaded at Calcutta. The bulk of it must be pushed to the river docks. Laboriously loaded onto barges. And shipped upriver to Assam. Length of the trip, 40 days. The other route to Assam is by rail on a primitive railroad. Shortly after the trip begins, the rail becomes narrow-gauge. The agonizingly slow process of unloading and reloading starts again. Frequent accidents and irregular schedules further slow up supplies. At the end of the arduous rail trip, most of the heavy equipment is loaded on trucks for a four-day journey on rough, dusty roads. And so by ship, train, river barge, and truck, the supplies for the 14th are painfully assembled in Assam. Headquarters of our 10th Air Force. The 10th is one of our oldest Air Forces, created in haste when the Japs threatened India. Today it defends the western terminus of the only route left into China. The heart from Assam across the mountains to Kunming. The last leg of the trip is known to the pilots. It's going over the hump. The trip is as dangerous as any combat mission. Most of the time, the weather is so bad that the pilots have to make the 17,000-foot mountain passes on instruments. If they veer south, they drift into Jap-Hell, Burma, nor into 22,000-foot peaks. The crews of the liberators must ferry in their own bombs, gasoline, and everything else. In order to fly one bombing mission, they must make four trips across the hump. The gas, the tires, the food, the cigarettes, the 1,000 things our fliers must have arrive at Kunming. But the journey isn't over yet. There's one more leg into enemy territory. Hong Kong is the objective on this mission. The bombs are finally away. They've come 10,000 long miles. They've been en route for close to six months. But on this last couple of miles, they travel swift and true into the enemy target. To broaden the scope of our operations in China, we're building a supply route from Lado. The road is being built as we fight and will eventually connect with the old Burma road. When completed, it will carry some 40,000 tons per month. The conquest of Burma would further facilitate transport by opening up the port of Rangoon. But basically, we must have a direct route into China. For China, besides having obvious geographical advantages, has the great asset of its people. American trained Chinese pilots have already proved themselves in the 14th. The Chinese make expert mechanics and their manpower is limitless. Potentially, China is our best base for strategic bombing of Japan. We've struck at the enemy's defenses from every side. We've had some success. But Japan is still far away. For our 15 air forces all over the world, 1943 was a year of great achievement. We flew more than 350,000 combat sorties. But in 1944, we will fly an estimated 1,500,000 sorties. Over four times as many as last year. In 1943, we dropped nearly 200,000 tons of bombs on the enemy. In 1944, we will drop an estimated 700,000 tons. Three and a half times as many. In 1944, our strength in every category of air power will decisively outclass the enemy. As our military power grows, Germany and Japan are placing increasing reliance on non-military factors to avert their defeat. They realize the vital importance of our production during the tough year ahead. They're counting on their theory that a democratic people is too undisciplined to maintain the terrific production pace we have set. They can make the cost of victory so horrible that we will worry of the horror. We in the air force know the price of victory. Every battle takes its toll of our planes. And men, our enemies think that we will flinch at the prospect of further casualties and settle for a compromise peace. A compromise peace is the secret weapon of the enemy. Our answer is this, in the skies above these fliers who died, there will be no compromise. In enemy skies all over the world, there will be no peace. Our bombers and fighters will rise in ever-increasing numbers. The roar of our motors, the pounding of our guns, the quiet of our bombs, these sounds will never cease until our enemies below are destroyed.