“Nevers”44 pages
- p. 43 …cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to
“sweep the Germans from the sky…
- p. 46 …Mitchell never received an American air force commensurate with
the ambitious idens of air power which…
- p. 49 …This project, like so many others, had lagged, and the Air Service was
never equipped during…
- p. 50 …the Army or the Air Corps?” but never, “Are
you in the Army or the Corps…
- p. 55 …any Air Service officers, and I have never heard
anybody yet-any Air Service officer-against…
- p. 69 …But one axiom,
with its corollaries, never varied. T o him the airplane was first and…
- p. 75 …Powerful air attacks resolutely pressed home could never be
completely stopped, but their effects could best…
- p. 94 …rate for the time being, the decision never-
theless left an open question as to how…
- p. 121 …large-scale warfare; production of combat types never exceeded 300
aircraft a month. The pattern of…
- p. 122 …the German Air Force, the
Regia Aeronautica never exhibited sufficient power to be decisive in
the…
- p. 133 …Except for a few raids against French
factories, the force had never been employed in a…
- p. 140 …into
a complete war economy production was never equal to the demands
of our own forces…
- p. 150 …Long-term needs
of the Air Corps and the sudden availability of funds in quantities
never…
- p. 181 …Actually, the Air Staff had
never approved of the method followed in RAINBOW No. 5 . l…
- p. 217 …Members of the Hawaiian Air Force, who had never flown
heavy bombers, began to receive intensive…
- p. 219 …were not then satisfactory for permanent garrisons. Never-
theless, the commander of the Hawaiian Department, Lt…
- p. 227 …T h e planes never reached their destination. Other
bombardment units were being prepared for transfer…
- p. 241 …responsible officers, a few crucial points
have never been satisfactorily explained.
T h e general pattern…
- p. 277 …motors, sole-
noids, and gun mounts-were never found. After many hours of fruit-
less search…
- p. 288 …planners and
from which AAF Headquarters was never to deviate.
The translation of the accepted grand…
- p. 303 …the principal features of the plan
were never challenged, it was subsequently revised in a draft…
- p. 309 …W a r Plans Division was
never incorporated into GHQ and remained a potential rival to…
- p. 336 …the shooting and wrote that they were never
able to make out an airplane.g6It is…
- p. 412 …As it happened, the B-24's never
returned to India, but, instead, remained in the…
- p. 457 …Meanwhile the Edsall with the remaining
pilots had headed for Java, never to be heard from…
- p. 492 …Squadron was assigned, but which it would never reach, going from
Australia to Tongatabu; ( 3 ) Christmas…
- p. 500 …deck of a carrier presented a problem never
before challenged by Army planes. Hence an accelerated…
- p. 502 …the bows and wetting the flight deck. Never before had this been
accomplished, yet now it…
- p. 509 …Island, in the
Louisiade Archipelago.” They were never needed, for on 7-8 May
the two…
- p. 513 …exist, it was at a point which never reached the
aircrews, for on the operational level…
- p. 524 …handicaps under which
AAF planes had operated. Never were more than fourteen B- I 7’s…
- p. 527 …AAF planners clung firmly to their belief that
proper observance of economy of force would never…
- p. 531 …Crews which had
previously never loaded torpedoes now for the first time fitted these
weapons into…
- p. 544 …But the Japanese never at
any time based their bombers in appreciable numbers a t either…
- p. 548 …26's in torpedo-dropping, but they never would be put into
All told, the record…
- p. 556 …until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com-
mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had…
- p. 560 …pressed into service against the Germans," and never reached the
CBI." Colonel Haynes had reached India…
- p. 606 …reason that the Antilles Air Task Force
never evolved, as did I Bomber Command, into an…
- p. 614 …that reason deserving a high
priority, could never dispose of the U-boat menace but must…
- p. 635 …In Washington the Munitions Assign-
ments Board t had never considered this schedule as more than…
- p. 670 …they bombed from 39,200 feet, and never
below 30,000. By AAF standards they had…
- p. 672 …Goering had never put enough bombers over England,
nor had he concentrated his forces on the…
- p. 690 …of co-operation and combined action probably never
before equaled by the military forces of two…
- p. 729 …shoot at aerial targets, and several
had never operated a turret in the air. This deficiency…
T H E A R M Y A I R A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S
serious question that the latter could be expected in the future to
perform traditional functions in connection with bombardment mis-
sions. As he explained:
During these exercises, observation aviation appeared woefully obsolete in
performance, as did pursuit aviation in speed characteristics. Since new bom-
bardment aircraft possesses speed above two hundred miles per hour, any inter-
cepting o r supporting aircraft must possess greater speed characteristics if they
are to perform their missions. In the case of pursuit aviation, this increase of
speed must be so great as to make it doubtful whether pursuit aircraft can be
efficiently or safely operated either individually or in mass.
The answer to the problem thus posed was suggested in a statement
of first-rate importance to an understanding of ideas which subse-
quently governed the thinking of the Air Corps. “Bombardment avia-
tion,” General Westover observed, “has defensive fire power of such
quantity and effectiveness as to warrant the belief that with its modern
speeds it may be capable of effectively accomplishing its assigned
mission without support.” Indeed, the “ability of bombardment avia-
tion to fly in close formation and thus to insure greater defense
against air attack, together with improved efficiency of silencers and
camouflage,” argued that “no known agency can frustrate the accom-
plishment of a bombardment mission.” lS6
That the bomber would have the first call in the development of
new equipment, and that the trend of thought favored a combination
of the reconnaissance and bombardment function in one plane, was
suggested by an engineering study, undertaken in July 1933 by the Ma-
teriel Division at Wright Field, of the problem of “maximum range”
with “a 2,000 pound bomb load.” The result of that study indicated
that a range of 5,000 miles at a speed of 2 0 0 miles per hour was prac-
ticable. Accordingly, in December the Air Corps submitted to the
War Department in its so-called Project A a proposal to build a
plane of that range. In support of the proposal it was pointed out that
such a plane would “not alone reinforce either coast line.. . but would
definitely enable.. .reinforcement of.. . Panama and Hawaii.” l S 7
T h e action of the War Department General Staff was prompt
enough. Tentative approval having been given on 19 December 1933,
a $609,300 Air Corps budget for long-range bomber development was
approved “in principle” on 1 2 February 1934, and on 1 2 May the
Chief of Staff authorized the negotiation of contracts with the Boeing
and Martin companies for preliminary designs and engineering
65