“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
varied from “very slow” to over zoo miles per hour, were observed to
parade across the ~kies.‘~These mysterious forces dropped no bombs
and, despite the fact that 1,440rounds of antiaircraft ammunition were
directed against them, suffered no losses. There were reports, to be
sure, that four enemy planes had been shot down, and one was sup-
posed to have landed in flames a t a Hollywood intersection.80 Resi-
dents in a forty-mile arc along the coast watched from hills or rooftops
as the play of guns and searchlights provided the first real drama of
the war for citizens of the mainland. The dawn, which ended the
shooting and the fantasy, also proved that the only damage which
resulted to the city was such as had been caused by the excitement
(there was at least one death from heart failure), by traffic accidents
in the blacked-out streets, or by shell fragments from the artillery
barrage.81
Attempts to arrive at an explanation of the incident quickly became
as involved and mysterious as the “battle” itself. The Navy immedi-
ately insisted that there was no evidence of the presence of enemy
planes, and Secretary Knox announced at a press conference on 2 5
February that the raid was just a false At the same conference
he admitted that attacks were always possible and indicated that vital
industries located along the coast ought to be moved inland. The Army
had a hard time making up its mind on the cause of the alert. A report
to Washington, made by the Western Defense Command shortly after
the raid had ended, indicated that the credibility of reports of an attack
had begun to be shaken before the blackout was lifted. This message
predicted that developments would prove “that most previous reports
had been greatly exaggerated.” 8 3 The Fourth Air Force had indicated
its belief that there were no planes over Los Angeles. But the Army
did not publish these initial conclusions. Instead, it waited a day, until
after a thorough examination of witnesses had been fini~hed.~”On the
basis of these hearings, local commanders altered their verdict and
indicated a belief that from one to five unidentified airplanes had been
over Los A n g e l e ~ . ~ ~Secretary Stimson announced this conclusion as
the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two
theories to account for the mysterious craft: either they were commer-
cial planes operated by an enemy from secret fields in California or
Mexico, or they were light planes launched from Japanese sub-
marines.86In either case, the enemy’s purpose must have been to locate
antiaircraft defenses in the area or to deliver a blow at civilian morale.
284