“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…
D E F E N S E O F T H E W E S T E R N H E M I S P H E R E
human habitations were scarce, the terrain was wild and desolate, few
radio aids existed, and maps were incomplete or misleading. Particu-
larly poor conditions prevailed between Fort Nelson and Watson
Lake, and in this area, as one pilot observed, “any haphazard guessing
will lead to disaster.” 3 1 Bitter experience quickly demonstrated the
costliness of sending untrained aircrews over this route. Essentially,
then, for the first months of the war Alaska had no adequate air
defense. T w o days before the outbreak of hostilities, Col. Everett S.
Davis, pioneer Air Corps leader in Alaska, had aptly characterized the
force a t his command as no more than “a cadre sent to the territory in
advance of the main body.” 32 T o carry out plans, fortunately already
agreed upon, for moving up the main body presented a task of the
highest priority, for spring would bring weather favorable to a major
enemy attack.
Concern over the safety of the hemisphere was not limited to fears
for its outposts. By an order of I I December, the Western Defense
Command became a theater of operations; 3 3 on 2 0 December, a similar
order provided for an eastern theater along the Atlantic By
these acts, defense received priority over all training activity in both
coastal zones, which were now raised to a new category of defense
(Category C ) in recognition of the fact that minor attacks were not
only possible but probable.35It will be noted that it was not anticipated
that enemy forces could bring to bear any sustained attack on the con-
tinental area, but, as Pearl Harbor had so forcefully demonstrated, a
single and well-directed blow could inflict serious injury.
That the chief focus of attention fell first on the Pacific rather
than the Atlantic coast is explained by the former’s peculiarly exposed
position following the Pearl Harbor attack.” Concentration of some of
the larger aircraft plants in that region appeared to offer especially
tempting bait for a Japanese raid. Fortunately, news of the start of war
did not come as a complete surprise to the military forces there. T h e
warning message sent by the War Department to the Western Defense
Command on 27 November 1941,indicating that negotiations with
Japan in effect had terminated and that war was probable, had resulted
in an acceleration of measures being taken to provide an aircraft warn-
ing service.3EDefense arrangements were further facilitated by the
.On the Atlantic side, principal concern was with the pros ect of submarine at-
tack. AAF participation in the inauguration of emergency patroPs is separately treated
below in Chapter 15.
277