“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
within ten years, and with frequent changes in the chief of staff,
French aviation had little opportunity to develop in accordance with
a definite, long-range program.
Until mid-1934 French army aviation, which like the German was
used chiefly for army co-operation, was under the jurisdiction of the
War Ministry, while naval aviation was controlled by the Ministry
of Marine. In July 1934, the ArmCe de 1’Air (French Air Force)
was established by government decree as “an independent army
capable of participating, on the one hand, in aerial operations and in
the air defense of territory and, on the other hand, in combined
operations with the land and sea forces.” In keeping with French
military traditions, however, the air force remained closely attached
to the army. T h e reorganization of 1934 did not affect commercial
or naval aviation. T w o years later another reorganization assured the
French Air Force of autonomy, if not complete independence. In
order that command of air units might be separated from command
of territorial units, a decree of September 1936 established a unified
command for all air units other than naval. T h e aircraft industry was
nationalized a t about this time, and a subsequent slump in production
saw the output of military airplanes reduced within less than two
years to the negligible rate of ten planes per month. By this time the
combat efficiency, organization, morale, and equipment of the French
Air Force had dropped to an unprecedented low.
Hurried attempts to rebuild the French Air Force were made after
the Munich conference in 1938. Both local production and foreign
purchases of aircraft were increased, but the revival came too late.
France entered World W a r I1 with an air force which was deficient
in every respect. Besides the low level of morale which characterized
all the French forces, the air force did not have a sufficient number
of bombers for offensive action, and it lacked sufficient fighter
strength for defense against the Germans. Ground troops did not
have adequate air support, while the lack of liaison and reconnais-
sance aircraft constituted a further deficiency. If any thought had
been given to the use of the French Air Force as a strategic weapon,
it had failed to materialize. The weaknesses of the French Air Force
contributed substantially to the success of the Luftwaff e in the spring
of 1940. After French surrender on 2 2 June, only the RAF remained
for the Luftwaffe to conquer.
The success of the Luftwaffe up to this point seemed to indicate
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