ISBN - 978-1-46850-563-4
| Anything, Anywhere, Anytime is the story of the United States Army and United States Air Force troop carrier mission, as it developed beginning in the 1930s and continued through the Vietnam War and it's later absorbtion into the Military Airlift Command. Although there was limited use of airplanes to drop supplies to US troops in France during World War I - two US Army Air Service officers were awarded the Medal of Honor for dropping supplies to The Lost Battalion - it wasn't until the outbreak of World War II in the Philippines that US Army transports became active in the combat role. Captain Paul I "Pappy" Gunn organized an ad hoc air transport squadron that provided valuable support to American and Filipino troops fighting the Japanese on Luzon. Gunn was ordered to Australia where he was placed in command of Far East Air Force Air Transport Command, a unit that formed the basis for the development of troop carrier doctrine world-wide. In early 1942 when the US Army Air Forces reorganized, the existing air transport command became I Troop Carrier Command; a few weeks later existing air transport units were redesignated as "troop carrier." Troop carrier squadrons played an important role in every theater of war, particularly in the Southwest Pacific, China-Burma-Theater, North African and European Areas of Operations. By the end of World War II, the troop carrier mission was fully recognized as one of the air force's three combat missions, the other two being fighter and bombardment. |
| In 1947 the US Air Force was established, and Air Force troop carriers became responsible for the air lift of supplies into the blockaded city of Berlin less than a year later. In 1950 troop carriers began operations in Korea, then in French Indochina - although their role there was clandestine. In the 1950s Tactical Air Command troop carrier squadrons were the key element in the new doctrine of instant response to overseas "trouble spots." Then came Vietnam. |
| Yet, in spite of the tremendous record achieved by troop carrier crews in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, very little has ever been published about it. The few books devoted to airlift have been written about the role of the logistical mission of the Army Air Transport Command and its successors, Military Air Transport Service, Military Airlift Command and Air Mobility Command. The larger and militarily more important role of the troop carrier mission - it was redesignated as "tactical airlift" in 1967 - has been ignored. |
| The author, who spent eleven years in Tactical Air Command and Pacific Air Forces troop carrier/tactical airlift squadrons and MAC military airlift squadrons, began work on this history in the early 1990s. drawing on sources such as the official history of the US Army Air Forces in World War II, Ennis Thompson's book on 315th Air Division operations in Korea and the US Air Force Office of Air Force History volume TACTICAL AIRLIFT in it's Southeast Asia series. The information related in this work can not be found in any other single source. |
| Anything, Anywhere, Anytime is in production and available for purchase. Send $31.95 (includes postage and handling) to Sam McGowan, 3727 Hill Family Lane, Missouri City, TX 77459. Order from the publisher and from online booksellers such as Amazon.com (see lnk above), Barnes and Noble, BooksAMillion, Powell, etc. . Electronic versions will be available from the publisher. |