“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 R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
nese aggression in Asia. AAF Headquarters felt that a striking force of
heavy bombers would be a necessary part of any attempt to guarantee
the security of the Philippines, and there was a feeling among War
Department officials that the presence of such a force would act “as
a threat to keep Japan in line.” Consequently, and as a part of the
over-all plan for maintaining a strategic defensive in the Pacific, the
AAF now allocated to the Far East four heavy bombardment groups,
to consist of 2 7 2 aircraft with 68 in reserve, and an additional two
pursuit groupd\of 130 planes.80
Although the supply of aircraft in the United States did not permit
immediate implementation of these plans, the necessary authority was
received early in August when the Secretary of War approved a pro-
gram for sending modern planes to the Philippines as soon as they be-
came available. Arrangements were made for fifty P-qoE’s to be sent
directly from the factories and for twenty-eight P - ~ o B s ,taken from
operating units, to be shipped to the Philippines in September. Pro-
curement of heavy bombers was more difficult, for in the summer of
1941 not a single group in the AAF was completely equipped with
such planes. The 19th Bombardment Group, which had ferried the
first B-17’s to Hawaii in May, was selected for permanent transfer to
the Philippines, and the group was given priority in the assignment of
B-17’s. So urgent was the need for heavy bombers in the Far East,
however, that the AAF did not wait for the 19th Group to pioneer
an air route to the Philippines. By the end of July it had been decided
that a provisional squadron from the Hawaiian Air Force would make
the first flight of land-based bombers across the Pacific.
Preparations for the flight were made with utmost secrecy. Since
information was lacking on airfields in Australian territory, two Army
officers were flown by Navy plane from Honolulu in order to survey
facilities at Rabaul in New Britain, a t Port Moresby in New Guinea,
and a t Darwin in Australia. Runway construction on Midway and
Wake islands was pushed by naval authorities, while picked crews
from the Hawaiian Air Force underwent intensive training for the
unprecedented flight. On the morning of 5 September the 14th Bom-
bardment Squadron ( H ) , consisting of nine B- I 7D’s and seventy-five
crew members under the command of Maj. Emmett O’Donnell, Jr.,
took off from Hickam Field and headed for the first stop a t Midway,
I, I 3 2 nautical miles distant. T h e first leg of the flight was completed
after seven hours and ten minutes. The crews refueled and serviced
178