“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
first of several Allied conferences met on 28 December at Amberley
Field to consider common problems and opportunities for mutual
assistance. It was agreed that American officers would assume actual
responsibility for the erection of their planes, but that to assure proper
co-ordination of the effort with plans for movement of the assembled
planes an Australian officer would be put in general charge. Since the
aircraft would have to be ferried overland for a distance of over 2,000
miles before they reached a jumping-off place at Darwin, it was
decided to establish refueling depots a t Charleville, Cloncurry, Daly
Waters, and Darwin. Though I oo-octane gasoline could be procured
from the Netherlands East Indies, this fuel was of so high an aromatic
content that it destroyed the leakproof lining of fuel tanks, and conse-
quently forced consideration of the problem of importing American
fuel. In addition to limited stocks built up before the war, the steam-
ship Mauna Loa was on the way to Brisbane with a load of 400,000
gallons, but even so the supply would fall far short of the prewar goal
of IO,OOO,OOO gallons.100
The Amberley conferences also gave attention to a problem of
training. Not only was the air route from Brisbane to Darwin a
difficult one for those who lacked experience in the area, but the over-
water hops from Darwin to the Philippines presented their own navi-
gational and combat hazards. On 28 December General Clagett and
Sir Charles Burnett, chief of the Australian air staff, agreed to inaugu-
rate a training program for A-24 crews at Archerfield and for P-40
pilots a t Amberley. Details of the two programs were worked out the
following day a t a meeting of American and Australian officers. The
Australians were given general oversight of the program, while Maj.
John H. Davies, commanding officer of the 27th Group, received
responsibility for the standard of training. The prescribed course con-
sisted of practice in night flying, dive bombing, and aerial pnnery.lo1
Thus was the foundation laid for a close collaboration between per-
sonnel of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and the AAF that
would continue through almost four years of war.
The American command charged with these and other preparations
in Australia was not technically an air organization. But for the time
being a t least, its responsibilities called principally for support of air
operations, a consideration that probably had affected the decision to
assign General Brett to the command of United States Army Forces in
Australia. On 2 9 December, two days before Brett’s arrival in Aus-
2 3 0