“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
As was the case with military aviation in the United States, how-
ever, the survival and growth of the RAF after 1918 was accom-
plished only with difficulty. In addition to postwar demands for
retrenchment, the Admiralty began to press for control of naval
air units, while the army attempted to regain control of land-based
aviation. But the lessons of World War I as they pertained to avia-
tion were more deeply impressed on the British mind than they were
on the American. Moreover, Britain's geographic position and rela-
tively small population with reference to Germany lent continuing
validity to a doctrine of strategic bombardment which promised a
means of striking at the very heart of the enemy and thus of avoiding
the loss of life which in the first war had well-nigh bled England
white. The RAF retained its autonomy; but, even so, sentiment for
many years, like that in the United States, was hardly conducive to
full military preparedness, and, after the new German menace became
apparent, the RAF was forced to work against a decided disadvan-
tage of time. Fortunately, the emphasis was placed upon quality.
From 1935 forward, the Air Ministry proceeded with the develop-
ment of long-range, heavy bombers-the twin-engine Manchester and
the four-engine Stirling and Lancaster, the latter developed from the
earlier Manchester. For the urgent needs of defense, the Hurricane
and the Spitfire, two superlative fighter planes, were put into pro-
duction after 1936. Production in quantity came slowly, for ade-
quate manufacturing facilities were not immediately available. By
September 1938, the month of Munich, only one squadron in the
RAF had been equipped with Spitfires.
In its pilot and aircrew training, as in its equipment, the RAF de-
manded a high level of a~hievement.~'British air oficials recognized
that the geographic position of the British Isles was at once vulnerable
and potentially threatening to any continental enemy. The situation
demanded not only technical excellence of the air force but also an
organization designed to facilitate the defensive and offensive functions
which a European war would thrust upon the RAF. Accordingly, the
RAF was organized into bomber and fighter commands. T o these
organizations there would be added later a coastal command, charged
with special responsibilities for the protection of shipping."z
By autumn of 1939 the RAF possessed a modest but well-trained
force of airmen. Its bombers, fighters, reconnaissance planes, and fly-
ing boats were few in number but efficient in operation, and "shadow
93