United States Air Force And Its Antecedents

This bibliography lists published and printed unit histories for the United States Air Force and Its Antecedents, including Air Divisions, Wings, Groups, Squadrons, Aviation Engineers, and the Women's Army Corps.

The primary focus of this work in on those privately printed unit and organizational histories produced outside the official channels of the armed services. Some official reports are included because they fall within the criteria set out below. This guide is intended to assist the user in understanding the scheme for listing the titles and the organization of entries. The unit history has been popular since the Civil War. It most often is an un-official publication written and produced by the personnel who constituted the unit. It is often an expression of pride of their accomplishments typically published just after the termination of hostilities. It can provide a wealth of detail concerning the unit's formation, combat experiences, missions etc. It often provides photographs taken by the unit members and often includes individual and/or group portraits of the personnel assigned to it. Since it was most often an un-official publication, its attention to detail and accuracy can be wanting. They were often published to bolster the moral and tended to concentrate on the positive and often ignore the negative. One of their major benefit is they often portrayed the day to day activities, hardships, and the feelings and thoughts of its members much better than many if not most of the official histories. Some of the more recent publications sponsored by the unit associations often combine the official records including after action reports and unit journal with extensive research producing extremely detailed histories. One major problem relation to the privately printed publications is that due to their nature they had extreme limited printing and distribution was most often limited to those unit member in the unit at the time of printing. They become extremely rare and can be almost impossible purchase.

Presents terms of the significant events, important leaders, and technological improvements that define the evolution of the United States Air Force.

Understand the growth and evolution of American air power with this overview of the history of the world's most successful aviation force. The United States Air Force: A Chronology captures the sweep of U.S. Air Force history from the service's inception to present times. Concise entries, arranged by date, touch upon military events such as victories and defeats; significant political, administrative, and technological changes affecting the service; and significant events in the careers of noted leaders. Daily occurrences are described within the context of greater historical events such as wars. The chronology covers all aspects of the U.S. Air Force and its historical antecedents (U.S. Air Service, Army Air Corps, and Army Air Force), commencing with the Balloon Corps in the American Civil War and extending through Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM in Afghanistan. Events of note, major and minor, are listed in the order of occurrence. The book includes all major air campaigns in all major conflicts, as well as such noteworthy events as record-breaking flights and the introduction of new aircraft.