“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
bombers from North America to the home base.57 A glance at the
map will show that the shortest and best possible alternate routes
crossed the middle Atlantic by way of Bermuda and the Azores or
direct from Newfoundland to the Azores, and thence northeast to
the United Kingdom. Use of the Azores depended on the consent of
Portugal, and negotiations were opened with that country for the
establishment of an airdrome on one of the islands in the group, to
be manned by a security force of American air and ground troops.
No definite answer had been received from the Portuguese government
when the North Atlantic shuttle service was suspended on I 8 October
1941. Upon the request of the Ferrying Command, the State Depart-
ment again pressed for an answer, but Portugal was unwilling to
jeopardize its neutral it^.^'
Blocked for the time being in the effort to establish a transport
service across the middle Atlantic to Britain, the Air Corps turned its
attention in October and November 1941 to the opening of a service
to Cairo over the South Atlantic route. Two survey flights were made
over the route in Ferrying Command B-24's in September and early
October. The first of these, which served also to carry Maj. Gen.
George H. Brett, Chief of the Air Corps, on a special mission to the
Middle East, left Bolling Field on 3 I August for Cairo and proceeded
as far as Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf before returning to
Washington on 7 October. Lt. Col. Caleb V. Haynes served as pilot
and Maj. Curtis E. LeMay as co-pilot on this pioneer 26,000-mile trip,
the first flight over the whole of the South Atlantic route from the
United States to the Middle East and return." Shortly thereafter,
Lieutenant Reichers traversed approximately the same route from east
to west on his flight home from Moscow.* 6 o
The decision to open a regular transport service came early in
November, following a request for the transportation of personnel
and equipment to Cairo to organize the air section of the U.S.
North African Military Mission.'l Formal orders to open a regular
service were given to the Ferrying Command, and on 14 November
the first B-24 left Bolling Field. Lt. Edson E. Kester was at the con-
trols, with Capt. Lawrence M. Thomas acting as co-pilot. Brig. Gen.
Elmer E. Adler, newly appointed chief of the air section of the mis-
sion, headed the passenger list."z Four other transports departed
* See above, p. 318.
326