“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 I
Montgomery, proceeded toward the enemy beachhead a t Vigan.
O’Donnell, first to arrive over the target area, made several runs at
2 5 , 0 0 0 feet against what was mistakenly thought to be an aircraft
carrier. Mechanical trouble with the bomb racks as well as antiaircraft
fire interfered with the bombing, and it took approximately forty-five
minutes to drop eight 600-lb. bombs. No hits were observed. Parse1
had better success. He made two bomb runs from 12,500 feet. On the
first, four 300-lb. bombs were directed against a cruiser or destroyer
without effect, but of the three bombs dropped during the second run,
a t least one direct hit on a transport was claimed. Montgomery had
been allowed time to load only one 600-lb. bomb when he was ordered
off Clark Field for the security of his plane. He proceeded to Vigan,
however, and dropped his bomb in the water near the t r a n s p o r t ~ . ~ ~
The two remaining B-17’s took off from Clark Field at approximately
0930 to attack Japanese landing craft, transports, and their naval escort
near Aparri. Lt. G.E. Schaetzel, pilot of one of the planes, in making
a run over several transports at 2 5 , 0 0 0 feet, apparently scored a hit.
The B-17, pounded by antiaircraft fire and under attack by enemy
pursuit, was severely damaged, but no one in the bomber was injured
and Schaetzel succeeded in reaching San Marcelino.64
Capt. Colin Kelly in the fifth bomber had been directed to locate
and if possible sink an aircraft carrier previously reported along the
northern Luzon coast. After a search of the target area he found no
sign of a carrier, but Lt. Joe M. Bean, his navigator, had spotted a large
Japanese warship which the aircrew took for a battles hi^.^^ Indeed,
early reports of the ensuing action placed the ship in either the Harzlrna
or the Yawisbiro class.66Actually, it is now known that no Japanese
battleship participated in the initial invasion of the Philippines, and
that the Haruna, the favored choice in subsequent reports, was
engaged until I 8 December in support of the Malayan campaign. Since
training in identification of naval craft was imperfect and many Japa-
nese cruisers were as long or longer than some American battleships,
it is not surprising that such mistakes of identification were made, even
by the presumably better-trained Navy air personnel. At any rate,
Navy PBY’s claimed on the following day to have hit a ship of the
H a m a class in this same general area. Japanese sources indicate that
the ship picked out by Lieutenant Bean was in fact the heavy cruiser
Ashigara, flagship of the Third Fleet in its current operation.6T
As it moved slowly on the outskirts of the enemy convoy it made a
2 16