“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 , 1939-41
German aircraft production; the German High Command, apparently
still convinced that the hostilities could be concluded in short order,
seemed to feel that no great expansion in the Luftwaffe was necessary.
T h e operations in eastern Europe, the Alediterranean, and North
Africa necessitated the use of so large a proportion of German air
strength that air attacks against England and against British shipping
in the west dwindled almost to the point of cessation. During the last
six months of 1941 no night attack against Britain exceeded 1 5 per
cent of the maximum scale of effort made during the autumn of 1940.
T h e Luftwaffe was assuming a defensive attitude in the west. Hitler
was said to have promised Luftwaffe leaders that the air offensive
against Britain might be resumed after the defeat of But the
opportunity had come and gone in 1940, and the future held for
the Luftwaffe in the west only a defensive mission.
Operations of the RAF after the fall of 1940 were as widely dis-
persed as were those of the Luftwaffe. T h e RAF had heavy com-
mitments in North Africa, where it was joined by units of the Royal
Australian Air Force and of the South African Air Force, and there
were defensive responsibilities in the Mediterranean and in the Far
East as well as in the home islands and over the submarine-infested
waters about Britain, These commitments, however, did not prevent
British air chiefs from developing a central strategic focus in their
war plans. Tactical employment of air power was one method of aerial
warfare, and a very necessary one, but the core of R A F thinking was
expressed in the simple statement that the “bomb is the primary
weapon of air power; the bomber is the chief means of conveying it
to its target; an air striking force composed of bombers is the chief
means by which a nation wields its air power.” 4 0 T h e aggressive cast
of R A F thinking had not led to neglect of the air defensive, as the
performance of Fighter Command revealed in the Battle of Britain.
But R A F doctrine stipulated that its defensive aviation should be no
larger than was necessary to provide a reasonable defense against air
attack. T h e emphasis belonged to the air striking force.
Nothing in the Battle of Britain had shaken the strong conviction
with which these principles were held by RAF leaders, who saw in
the German effort the power of the air weapon even when misused.
They knew too how near the Luftwaffe had come to the achievement
of its objectives, that had Goering been willing or able to continue
the bombardment in spite of tremendous losses, the R A F must ulti-
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