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Progress Made

During December, recruiting efforts, numbers recruited, and expansion of the WAC program in AAF continued to gain ground. On 8 December General Giles sent a message to all WAC personnel in Air Forces, praising their works as he had observed it on a recent field trip and urging them to assist in the Air WAC recruiting campaign.  He closed by saying, "Let me remind you that it is the record you have made which has convinced the AAF of the great value of Air Wacs, and which has brought about this campaign." On 12 December the AAF opened "Air WAC Week" throughout the nation, in order to emphasize the fact that Air WAC recruiting was continuing, even though the All States recruiting campaign had closed 7 December, on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. During the week air bases everywhere honored their Wacs at retreat parades and other ceremonies, open houses were held so that civilian friends could see the WAC units, and special recruiting drives were conducted. By 20 December Air Force recruits had for the second week numbered over half of all WAC recruits enlisted in the army during the week. On 25 December General Arnold sent a Christmas message to all Air Wacs in which he expressed "deep appreciation of the job you are doing for the Army Air Forces" at 170 air bases throughout the nation. He wrote: "I believe you have added a touch of the remembered and loved things of home to the Christmas season for many men of the Army Air Forces who are serving at bases far from their own homes, and, on behalf of all the solders in the AAF, I thank

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