“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…
P E A R L H A R B O R A N D C L A R K F I E L D
With American pursuits held for reconnaissance and American
bombers withdrawn to the Del Monte field on Mindanao, General
MacArthur’s care to avoid a premature commitment of his forces left
the enemy to continue his landing operations almost unopposed.
While strengthening their beachheads at Aparri and Vigan, the
Japanese made threatening gestures off the coast of southern Luzon
and increased the tempo of their air offensive. O n 1 2 December, more
than I O O enemy aircraft were over southern Luzon picking targets at
Clark Field, Batangas, and Olongapo. The same points were hit again
on the following day, with the addition of destructive attacks on Niel-
son and Nichols fields. In spite of orders to avoid battle, American and
Filipino pilots at times attempted interception. Thus on the I 3th, Capt.
Jesus Villamor led six ancient P-26’s in interception of some fifty-four
attacking bombers; the harassing tactics of the Filipino flyers mini-
mized damage to their Batangas field.’5 But such sporadic efforts
proved of only momentary and local significance.
Planned combat missions during the period from I o to I 8 December
were few. O n the 12th Major Combs carried out a single-plane mission
against enemy transports at Vigan. No hits were scored. O n 14 Decem-
ber six B-17’s were scheduled for a bombing attack on a Japanese
bridgehead near Legaspi in southern Luzon, but only three of the
bombers, piloted by Lieutenants Wheless, Adams, and Vandevanter,
reached the target. Of these, Wheless’ plane became separated from
the others in low-hanging clouds over Mindanao and made the attack
alone from 9,500 feet. Before the results of the bombing could be
observed, eighteen enemy pursuits swarmed around the plane. All four
gunners were wounded, Pfc Killin fatally, but four enemy planes
were apparently destroyed. Wheless in an extraordinary display of
airmanship nursed his riddled bomber back toward Del Monte, but
was forced to crash-land on a small barricaded field a t Cagayan (Min-
danao) in a drizzling rain. Of the other two planes to reach the target,
Vandevanter’s escaped without being attacked, but Adams’ B-I 7 was
continuously attacked from the time it reached the target area.
Machine-gun bullets cut through the plane, wounding several of the
personnel and knocking out two engines. After a forced landing on
the island of Masbate, just across the strait from Legaspi, the crew ran
for cover while persistent enemy fighters completely destroyed the
plane by ~trafing.’~O n I 6 December, Lieutenants Wagner, Church,
2 1 9