“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 f
In order to carry out its own assigned responsibilities in connection
with the training, the Ferrying Command established a control office
at MacDill Field in January in charge of Capt. James C. Jensen, a
veteran four-engine pilot, H e was assisted by specialists in the various
crew positions, that is, pilots, co-pilots, navigators, radio operators,
and flight engineers, all of whom had had trans-Atlantic flying experi-
ence with the B-24 shuttle services to Great Britain and Cairo. The
first step was to establish a ferrying school for the Project X crews,
with the Ferrying Command specialists and certain others serving as
instructors. Instruction was given in navigation, radio, aircraft main-
tenance, gunnery, and four-engine transition, the latter including, be-
cause of the inexperience of the crews, some instruction in night
landings and take-offs. Another important aspect of the training pro-
gram was the briefing of the crews on weather, communications, land-
ing fields, housing, messing, and health conditions along the route. The
briefing of crews for overseas flight would develop into one of the
more fundamental and specialized functions of ATC, but the pro-
cedures at this initial stage were rudimentary indeed by comparison
with the system that was later set up at aerial ports of embarkation
and a t overseas stations around the world. In addition to the informa-
tion that could be provided out of the personal experience of a few
officers, the bomber crews were supplied with maps, charts, and other
material on route conditions procured from a variety of sources by the
Ferrying Command’s intelligence section. According to officers con-
nected with the project, some 1 7 0 maps and charts and approximately
50 books and folders, comprising a mass of undigested, unwieldy in-
formation which served to confuse rather than inform, were furnished
each crew. Later, as the briefing technique improved, route informa-
tion was boiled down to the essentials and compressed into well-or-
ganized route guide^.^'
Training and briefing the crews and putting the aircraft in shape
for the overseas journey were only the first steps in the complex task
of moving Project X to the Far East. The most difficult part of the
job began after the bombers were on their way. It would have been
less difficult had more time been allowed for training prior to de-
parture, but some compromise had to be made between the urgent
need for the planes in the Pacific and the unpreparedness of the crews.
The majority of the pilots had been trained on single-engine or twin-
engine aircraft and because of the inadequate number of planes had
3 34