“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
baja; commercial airports at Cheribon, Semarang, and Jogjakarta; and
a considerable number of emergency landing fields well distributed
across the countryside. The Dutch had also constructed modern air-
fields on Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and Amboina, and suitable a t least
for use by pursuit planes were the fields on Timor, Soemba, and Bali.13
But the government of the Netherlands East Indies lacked a modern
air force. In January 1942 its approximately 150 planes were all of
ancient make: the pursuits were either Curtiss or Brewster models,
and the bombers were principally Martin B-10's. Attempts had been
made to replace these obsolete craft by purchase from the United
States, but the demands on American production at the time were
altogether too great to permit a meeting of the Dutch request either
as to the models desired or the time of de1i~ery.l~Decidedly limited,
too, was the aid that could be expected from the Royal Australian Air
Force.15 Much of its strength in Australasia consisted of obsolescent
planes, and the demands for a defense of Australian territory were
immediately pressing. The Japanese would land a t Rabaul in New
Britain on 2 3 January and before the month had run its course would
bring under air attack New Ireland and Lae, Madang, and Salamaua in
New Guinea.
The hope of an effective air defense of the Netherlands East Indies
depended chiefly therefore upon plans for reinforcement of the AAF
in the Southwest Pacific. The eighteen P-40's and fifty-two A-24's
which had reached Brisbane on 2 2 December, even when joined with
the fourteen B-17's brought down from Del Monte to Darwin, con-
stituted hardly so much as a token force. But as the British and Amer-
ican staffs assembled in their ARCADIA conference a t Washington,
it was proposed to build up AAF strength in the western Pacific to a
total of two heavy and two medium bombardment groups and six
pursuit groups. Plans called for an early transfer from the United
States of 80 heavy bombers, 114 medium bombers, and 480 pursuit
planes.'' The heavy bombers would go by air, under a schedule call-
ing for 3 B - I ~ sto leave the United States on or about 24 December,
the same number on the following day, and thereafter at the rate of
6 bombers per day." '' It was anticipated that 5 5 pursuit planes, with
crews, would reach Australia by 8 January and an additional 125
within ten days thereafter; a complete pursuit group with 80 planes
was scheduled to leave San Diego on or about 10 January. The ex-
* See above, pp. 332-36.
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