“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 Sault Sainte Marie canals, aircraft plants along both coasts, oil
refineries off the coast of Venezuela, bauxite mines in the Guianas,
and cryolite deposits-needed in making aluminum-at Ivigtut, Green-
land. Military commanders, impressed with the damaged reputations
which had been caused by Pearl Harbor, demanded large reinforce-
ments to assure the safety of the area each was charged with defend-
ing." Had the War Department listened to all these pleas, the existing
air force would have been dispersed in small and ineffective units, and
the AAF would have been required to surrender any early hope of
building an offensive force. A system of priorities was essential, and,
because the chief fear was of further carrier raids by Japan, initial air
defense arrangements took the form of emergency reinforcements for
Panama, Alaska, and the continental West Coast."
A great deal of attention had been given before the war to the
defenses of the Panama Canal, and to a superficial observer this target
might have appeared to be well defended in December 1941.+There
were, to be sure, three pursuit groups and the equivalent of two bom-
bardment groups on duty in or near the Canal Zone, and these units
had in addition to obsolete equipment more than IOO reasonably mod-
ern airplanes.I2 T h e appearance, however, was misleading, and the
following fundamental weaknesses demanded immediate remedial
measures: of the airplanes assigned, only one squadron of B-17's was
capable of operating at high altitudes; only two ineffectual radar sta-
tions were available; neither the Army nor the Navy had enough
planes to provide adequate offshore patrols; and aircraft bases were
so concentrated that a surprise raid on two fields, situated only five
miles apart, might have destroyed two-thirds of the tactical planes
assigned to defend the ~ana1.I~
Officials in Washington were aware of the danger to the canal and
gave priority to furnishing nine additional heavy bombers.l* Pursuit
reinforcements were provided from within the Caribbean Defense
Command by transferring twenty-five P-40's from Puerto Rico to
the Canal Zone, a movement completed on 14 December.15 At the
end of December, eighty additional pursuit planes arrived in Panama
from the United States1' The critical need for aircraft warning instru-
ments was eased by the arrival on 26 December of four mobile radar
sets.17Meantime, AAF officers in Panama had taken local measures to
increase the readiness of their units. During December, planes were
* See above, pp. 160-66.
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