“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
earlier in the day: “Said planes dropped leaflets which read as follows:
Way to permanent peace causing this conflict between Japan and the
U.S. Roosevelt attempt curve our independence stop we all know
than unless the US has not oppressed Japan, this war has not been
started stop Our mission is to end this war as fast as possible and in
order to achieve this end we should cooperate with Japan fully un-
quote.” Then: “ I 3:oo Reported by G-z that Fort Stotsenburg is being
bombed”; and again-“ I 3: 00 Report received from Stotsenburg
many bombers very high bombed Clark Field at I 2: 35 P.M.”
It is not even certain that the record thus provided clears up the
much debated question of just when the Japanese attack on Clark Field
began, for there is rather specific evidence which argues for a time
some fifteen minutes earlier. No clarification, moreover, is provided
for the controversial question of why our bombers were caught,
apparently without warning, on the ground. There is reason to believe
that a warning message had reached Clark Field, but the warning
evidently was not received by bomber personnel there. In response
to a specific question from the Air Historical Office which indicated
the existence of information that a warning had been sent and ac-
knowledged by Clark Field, General Eubank under date of 5 August
1947 made the following statement:
Information of the Japanese formation which attacked Clark Field about
noon, 8 December 1941, was not received by the Bomber Command prior to
tile attack. The formation was almost directly overhead at the time the air raid
warning siren was sounded and the bombs began exploding a few seconds
thereafter. One or two false air raid warning messages had been received
earlier in the day.43
And there the question must be left. Colonel Campbell is emphatic in
his recollection that a prior warning was both sent and acknowledged;
General Eubank is equally emphatic in stating that no information
reached V Bomber Command. It is entirely possible that both officers
are correct in their recollection, but in the absence of further evidence
there would appear to be little advantage in attempts to speculate on
the probabilities of misinterpretation or other human failure that
might reconcile the two accounts.
In any case, the Japanese enjoyed the good fortune of catching the
two squadrons of B-17’s on the ground at Clark Field. This had been
the enemy’s hope when he originally scheduled an attack for the early
morning, but after a postponement of several hours, he had no reason
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