“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…
T H E A I R C O R P S P R E P A R E S F O R W A R , 1 9 3 9 - 4 1
and better protection against fire hazards. Hence in February 1940the
Air Corps completed plans for the installation of leak-proof tanks,
protective armor, and greater armament, even at the expense of speed
and useful load. A few months later Air Corps observers were sent to
France and England to study the air war at first hand, and their
recommendations led to further modernization of equipment.' ' In
May 1941, the W a r Department established the Special Observer
Group in London," and through its reports and those of occasional
special missions the Air Corps was kept constantly informed of the
latest materiel developments in England.'3 As a result of this informa-
tion as well as of the work of American scientists and engineers, there
was continued improvement in armament, signal communications,
safety devices, and other equipment.
When the United States entered the war, the Air Corps had in pro-
duction, in addition to other aircraft that would play no major part
in operations, the following tactical planes: 2 4
Air Corps In
Designa- Flight Produc-
T y p e tion Name Manufacturer Designed Test tion
Heavy Bomber B-17 Flying Boeing I934 '935 '936
B-24 Liberator Consolidated '937 '939 '940
Medium Bomber B-z5 Mitchell North American 1939 194' '94'
Light Bomber A-20 Havoc Douglas I939 '939 I940
66 " A-24 Dauntless Douglas (Navy SBD-3) 1941 1941
Pursuit P-38 Lightning Lockheed I937 '939 '940
P-39 Airacobra Bell '937 '939 1940
P-47 Thunderbolt Republic '940 '94' '94'
T h e term "in production" is misleading if taken in any but its tech-
nical sense. It has no necessary connotation of mass manufacture, but
means only that the plane had passed beyond the experimental and
test phases, and that the first number acceptable for tactical use had
rolled off the line. Thus whereas all the models mentioned above were
"in production," they represented various stages in combat readiness.
Some of them, notably the A-20 and P-40, had been tested in combat
by British crews.25 T h e B-26 was still an unknown quantity, but
experience indicated that in the B-17, B-24, and B-25 the AAF had
three bombers on which it could base its plans with confidence. T h e
Fortress
'6 ' I
" B-26 Marauder Martin '939 194' I941
' L
"
P-40 Kittyhawk Curtiss '937 I938 I940
* See below, pp. 577-99.
' 0 9