“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…
D E P L O Y M E N T O N T H E E V E O F H O S T I L I T I E S
and the Philippines, having left Honolulu on 29 November in a convoy
bearing substantial reinforcement and equipment for General Mac-
Arthur's command. Movement of the air echelon had been scheduled
for the first week in December, and it actually began on the evening
of the 6th when planes of the 38th and 88th Reconnaissance Squadrons
took off from Hamilton Field in California for Hickam with instruc-
tions to push through to the Philippines as quickly as possible."l At
Del Monte the 14th and 93d Squadrons of the 19th Group, com-
manded respectively by Maj. Emmett O'Donnell, Jr., and Maj. Cecil
Combs, had come in from Clark on the 5th. Dispersal and camouflage
of the bombers proved difficult, for there was no natural cover near
the field. T h e one available spray gun was put to work night and day
to change the shining silver color of the planes to an olive drab. Huge
quantities of coconut leaves were hauled to the field by trucks ob-
tained from a local plantation, for camouflage of the dispersed planes
on the ground. T e n truckloads of leaves were required to cover ef-
fectively one B-17.l"
During the final days of November, preparations in the Philippines
had been hastened by the knowledge of increased Japanese activity
in the western Pacific. Intelligence from British sources late in Oc-
tober had warned of the presence of two Japanese aircraft carriers in
the mandated islands. Within a few weeks American commanders
learned from another warning that Japanese planes had been detected
flying over British territory, perhaps photographing some of the
Gilbert Islands. British officials in Singapore suggested that the asso-
ciated powers send their own aircraft to photograph all the Japanese-
mandated islands, the coast line of French Indo-China, and other areas
occupied by Japan. T h e W a r Department, promptly approving the
idea, notified General MacArthur on 26 November that two B-24's
equipped for high-altitude photography would depart for the Philip-
pines within forty-eight hours. T h e crews were to fly at high altitude
and to avoid Japanese planes, but they were to "use every possible
means of self-preservation" if attacked by any aircraft. T h e specific
mission of the B-24's was to photograph Jaluit in the Marshalls and
Truk in the Carolines, and to obtain as much information as possible
on the location and strength of military and naval installations. Gen-
closely with readily established facts regarding the state of preparations at Del Monte
and the anticipated movement of the 7th Group that it has been used as the basis of
the account given here.
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