“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…
A I R W A R , 1 9 3 9 - 4 1
highly publicized dive bomber or Stuka. Goering had successfully
opposed the navy's desire for its own separate air arm, and the Luft-
waff e held responsibility for coastal patrol, overwater reconnaissance,
and other activities in conjunction with naval forces.
In the same month that Hitler issued decrees effecting the reorgani-
zation of the Luftwaffe, he asserted that the Reich would expand to
include ten million Germans beyond her borders. Within one month
Austria had become the first victim of Nazi aggression. During their
occupation of Austria the Germans used approximately 400 aircraft,
more than one-fourth of the number being transport aircraft which
brought 2 , 0 0 0 soldiers to Vienna. The Luftwaffe soon absorbed the
small Austrian Air Force and was again employed by Hitler in Sep-
tember 1938 when some 5 0 0 German aircraft assisted in the invasion
of the Sudetenland. A year later the might of the Luftwaffe was
released in open warfare. By that time, September 1939, the German
Air Force was equipped with approximately 4,000 first-line aircraft,
of which some 1,800 were bombers and 1,200 were fighters. Behind
it stood an aircraft industry then capable of producing approximately
1,100aircraft a month, but actually producing each month about 500
aircraft of all combat types.28Clearly, it was not anticipated that the
venture now about to be launched would involve too heavy a commit-
ment. In its internal organization the Luftwaffe seemed to have
achieved most of its objectives, and it was ready to prove its worth as a
co-ordinate member of the Wehrmacht.
On I September 1939 the Lufnvaffe and German army forces
inaugurated a lightning-like campaign which saw the virtual annihila-
tion of the Polish army within twenty days. The German Air Force,
which had 1,000bombers and 1,050 fighters in operational condition,
met no effective opposition from the Polish Air Force, which con-
sisted of less than 500 planes of all types, most of them obsolescent.
The Lufnvaffe was used both to eliminate the air opposition and as
an advance striking force for the army. So successful was the Polish
campaign that the Germans saw no need for major change. Army
commanders felt that the results justified their conception of the air
force as a tactical weapon to be used primarily in support of the
ground forces, while Luftwaffe chiefs took satisfaction in the per-
formance of their fighters and dive bombers. There was no demand
for the creation of new types of aircraft or for an increase in aircraft
p r o d u c t i ~ n . ~ ~
89