“The Advance”60+ pages
- p. 14 …But the final choice remained with the commanding general,
who in some instances moved in advance…
- p. 36 …sufficiently advanced to support limited offensives in both the
European and the Pacific theaters.
The history…
- p. 40 …Advanced training was for the most part scheduled for overseas
schools, where combat experience of the…
- p. 43 …Of 2 , 9 2 5 planes reaching the AEF’s Zone of
Advance during the war…
- p. 45 …Trenchard, then com-
mander of the Royal Flying Corps, and was profoundly impressed by
his advanced…
- p. 46 …the Zone of Advance,
the I Corps, the First Army, and the First Army Group, advancing…
- p. 47 …The rest of his offensive forces Mitchell concentrated along the axis
of the American advance. Since…
- p. 51 …among
the several armies.’ Aviation officers had to accept this concept, but
the most advanced thought…
- p. 63 …Its report in October 1933 did not accept the more advanced
ideas of the Army’s…
- p. 68 …on the details of aerial combat, they
seldom represent the most advanced thought within the Army…
- p. 70 …to have been geared
closely to the advance of the ground armies. His boldest plan, a…
- p. 71 …the field of battle of either armies or navies.“
But this unpleasant thought was advanced as…
- p. 76 …who might provide
advanced bases. H e had come to consider that “the basis of air…
- p. 87 …the doctrine of air war taught in the Air
Corps’ most advanced school a t the…
- p. 88 …One was the acquisition of more advanced bases. That
was a political matter, wholly foreign to…
- p. 91 …the years immediately follow-
ing the war, when as yet commercial aviation had not advanced to…
- p. 93 …the quest for cleaner lines the retractable landing
gear had been introduced.lG8If the advances made…
- p. 96 …mission of
coastal defense and that the proposal was advanced under circum-
stances decidedly favorable to…
- p. 112 …Numerous forecasts of such a development had been
voiced since the end of the earlier conflict…
- p. 117 …In contrast to the 2 0 0 hours in primary, basic, and advanced training
then being…
- p. 119 …in the organization of their air
forces the Italians were much further advanced than the Japanese…
- p. 122 …Force, the aviation department sought to promote the
growth of “civilian” airlines, the advancement of aeronautical…
- p. 125 …Though the Luftwaff e hardly proved
to be so overwhelming a force as its advance notices…
- p. 126 …The Lufnvaffe was used both to eliminate the air opposition and as
an advance striking force…
- p. 127 …Leading the rapidly advancing Panzer divisions through the Low
Countries, the Stukas bombed troop concentrations and…
- p. 129 …supply resulting from the
speed of the German advance, the success of the RAF at Dunkirk…
- p. 131 …By the summer of 1940 the breath-taking advance of German
forces had destroyed all effective…
- p. 134 …After seizing key airdromes, the advance German forces
were supplied and reinforced by Junkers 5 2…
- p. 135 …In addition, the rapid German advance dis-
rupted the air supply and maintenance system and a…
- p. 149 …the best
flying weather and each including a number, steadily growing, of
basic and advanced Responsibility…
- p. 161 …miles to the
That attack argued too for the next eastward advance of the Ameri-
can…
- p. 164 …islands, proved inadequate against the
Japanese surprise attacks, but the advanced island airstrips were to be…
- p. 165 …the United States and Alaska. And, as elsewhere,
protection of Alaska called for more advanced outposts…
- p. 170 …New estimates, submitted in &/lay by the W a r Plans Division
of the General Staff…
- p. 183 …T h e
British chiefs of staff did not envisage the use of the vast numbers…
- p. 198 …so far advanced as
those in Newfoundland. Surveys which were made during the spring
and summer…
- p. 201 …32
The organization of the Caribbean Air Force represented a marked
structural advance over the force…
- p. 204 …Of the several outlying sites in the eastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico
presented the most advanced stage…
- p. 211 …advanced bases, a series of inter-
mediate airfields, a chain of fields between Anchorage and the…
- p. 213 …the requirements for accommodating a pursuit group in the same
area.51These moves had not advanced…
- p. 217 …of the Navy to maintain
the long-range reconnaissance that would be required for advance
notice…
- p. 226 …The Interceptor Command was composed of the 24th Pursuit Group,
whose pilots had received advanced training…
- p. 246 …But as the day advanced
the sea had roughened, and approximately fifty planes were smashed
in…
- p. 251 …execution of the plan for an early morning attack, and gave the
Americans advance notice of…
- p. 253 …mission without advance reconnaissance. T h e interview did
not indicate whether the question of an…
- p. 274 …the steady advance of the enemy from the north and addi-
tional landings along the Luzon…
- p. 278 …in advance of the scheduled
date of 15 January. Both the Army and the Navy were…
- p. 281 …and the disposition of Air Corps troops
in advance thereof in order to accomplish your assigned…
- p. 282 …Shanghai to acquire
advanced bases; (b) by exerting slow pressure through the Nether-
lands East Indies…
- p. 291 …These problems were intimately related, and any ready solu-
tion was complicated by the whirlwind advance…
- p. 327 …than “a cadre sent to the territory in
advance of the main body.” 32 T o…
- p. 334 …the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two
theories to account for the…
- p. 335 …between the W a r and Navy departments,
and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army…
- p. 337 …It would be necessary to know in advance of the approach of
enemy craft. Next, there…
- p. 338 …time proved less
effective,lo4 for advance warning of the enemy's approach did little
good…
- p. 350 …the Pacific coast defense
zone, arrangements had been completed with the Canadians to provide
advance warning…
- p. 358 …Prospects for completing the
work in advance of an anticipated spring attack on Dutch Harbor
were…
- p. 397 …his staff to work out in advance details for the staging
+ See below, p. 493.
34'
- p. 399 …an advance task force of engineer, coast artillery, and general
service troops arrived in the waters…
- p. 403 …T e n
enlisted weather specialists accompanied the American advance task
force into southern Greenland in…
T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
data.lss Military characteristics for the new 5,000-mile-range bomber,
approved by the General Staff on 16 May 1934, were adjusted to a
tactical mission for “the destruction by bombs of distant land or naval
targets” and a purpose “to reinforce Hawaii, Panama, and Alaska
without the use of intermediate servicing facilities.” June 1934 saw
completion of the preliminary contracts with the Boeing Aircraft
Company, and a year later a contract was closed for the purchase of
one XB-IS, as the projected plane had now come to be designated.lso
The plane itself was not completed until the fall of 1937, and subse-
quent tests proved that its size and weight had been conceived on a
scale too ambitious for the power plants then available. But Project A
became the parent, too, of the B-17, the B-24, and the B-29, to mention
only those heavies which carried the weight of the bombing attack on
Germany and Japan in World War 11,
The B-17 grew out of proposals distributed in 1933 among manu-
facturers for a design competition in the following year. These
proposals specified a multi-engine bomber, and all save one of the
competitors apparently assumed that the Air Corps sought only a
superior twin-engine plane. Boeing, however, undertook to develop
a four-engine bomber of revolutionary design. In July 193 5 the XB- I 7
underwent successfully its first test flight. The following month it
flew nonstop a t an average speed of 2 3 2 miles per hour from the Boe-
ing plant in Seattle to Dayton-a distance of 2,100 miles. Unfor-
tunately, the original model crashed and burned on 3 0 October 1935,
after completion of all detailed engineering inspection and study of
performance data, but before a formal evaluation board had met.lsl
Pending the final action of an evaluation board, the Air Corps had
already recommended the purchase of 65 B-17’~in place of 185 other
aircraft previously authorized for the fiscal year 1936. But destruction
of the original model, though investigation cleared the plane of
mechanical fault, was followed by a reduction by the War Depart-
ment of the figure from 65 to I 3 . In fulfilment of a contract closed on
17 January 1936, the first of the 1 3 B-17’s was delivered in January
1937, and by August of that year the full number had been deliv-
ered.lsz
The reader perhaps will have noticed the coincidence of key dates
in the origin of the heavy bomber program with other major develop-
ments affecting the role of the Air Corps in national defense. The
report of the Drum Board, with its recommendation of a GHQ air
66