“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
the American fleet, it was a t the same time necessary for the Japanese
to eliminate the danger of an effective reaction from the Hawaiian Air
Force. Accordingly, and simultaneously with the initial attack on the
fleet, twenty-eight bombers in three waves escorted by pursuits car-
ried out a ten-minute raid on buildings of the Hawaiian Air Depot
and the hangar line at Hickam Field. After a fifteen-minute lull, the
attack was renewed by five or six high-level bombers which fruit-
lessly bombed the baseball diamond; six to nine others dropped down
to 150 feet for a more damaging attack on the No. I Aqua System,
the technical buildings immediately behind the hangar lines, the con-
solidated barracks, and on planes parked almost wine tip to wing tip
on the warming-up apron. A third attack at approxlmately 0900 by
from six to nine planes scored hits on technical buildings, dispersed
planes, barracks, the parade ground, and the post exchange.’
At Wheeler Field, principal pursuit base, the first bombs fell shortly
after 0800. Approximately twenty-five dive bombers approzched the
field a t an altitude of about 5,000 feet, went into a dive, and released
their bombs over the hangar line. Within a few minutes the air seemed
full of planes circling in a counterclockwise direction but otherwise
maneuvering according to no apparent pattern. Though this attack
lasted for no more than fifteen minutes, other planes strafed the field
shortly after 0900. Bellows Field, third of the major Air Corps instal-
lations, suffered less than did either Hickam or Wheeler. Only one
plane out of the enemy’s first wave of attack, and that a fighter,
directed its attention to this field. But nine more fighters came over
soon after 0900 to give the field a thorough strafing for about fifteen
rnin~tes.~
In comparison with the havoc wrought by the planes that the Japa-
nese First Air Fleet threw against Hawaiian air and naval installations,
the reaction of defending air units was pitiful. The enemy had
achieved the crushing advantage of surprise. Moreover, under the
alert in effect since 27 November AAF planes were concentrated for
protection against sabotage, with an allowance of four hours’ notice
to make them ready for flight, instead of being dispersed in readiness
for a prompt take-off. In the circumstances, it was virtually impos-
sible to put up anything approaching an effective air defense. In spite
of handicaps, four P-40’s and two P-36’s took off from Wheeler Field
thirty-five minutes after the initial attack, and from 0830 until 0930
Army pursuit planes flew a total of twenty-five sorties. Perhaps the
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