“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
from the several official sources are difficult to reconcile, but a fair
estimate might include about 7,800 trainers and 3,500 service planes,
largely DHq’s, built in U.S. factories by 11 November 1918, and
5,000 planes bought abroad.20At that date 499 DH-4’s were assigned
to squadrons a t the front. Of 2 , 9 2 5 planes reaching the AEF’s Zone of
Advance during the war, only 696 were of American make. Perhaps
about 30,000 service and training engines were produced. The rate of
production was rapidly accelerating a t the end of the war, standing
then a t 260 DH-4’s per week, or about 13,500 per year.’l Six months
more of war might have seen an Army air force such as had been
promised in June 1917; but actually the “regiments and brigades of
winged cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to
“sweep the Germans from the sky.”
Air Service, AEF
The activities of the Air Service in the AEF were inevitably affected
by the poor showing made at home. When General Pershing arrived
in France in June 1917 he had only the most rudimentary elements of
an air staff. Nevertheless, an ambitious AEF Aviation Project was
formulated and dispatched homeward in a cable of 11 July. As
amended on 18 September, this plan called for the deployment in
France by 3 0 June 1919 of 260 tactical, 36 training, and 90 replace-
ment squadrons. With auxiliary services it would require about I 2 5,000
men.22Preparations were initiated to care for this large force. Pershing
as early as June 1917 had removed aviation from control of the Signal
Corps, setting it up as the Air Service, AEF, with a chief and with
separate divisions for the Zone of Advance and the Zone of the In-
terior. He arranged for the purchase from the French government of
some 5,000 aircraft, largely pursuits, and for the establishment of air-
fields, depots, and training schools.2s
The administration of the ambitious project was far from perfect.
Liaison with the Aviation Section in the States was poor, and air
commissions sent to Europe sometimes acted without co-ordinating
with the AEF. In November, Brig. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois, an
aviator who had been prominent in instigating the $640,000,000 pro-
gram at home, arrived to become Pershing’s Chief of Air Service.
Foulois brought a large staff which included more recently commis-
sioned civilians than Regular Army 0ffice1-s.~~Individual ability hardly
compensated for lack of experience in staff work. Internal jealousies
I 0