“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
inadequate communications frequently left no choice but to send him
out with a general directive and leave him on his own.
In immediate charge of the bombers at Malang was Col. Eugene L.
Eubank of the V Bomber Command. From Malang it was 1,500 miles
to Davao, the first target chosen. T o operate at this distance it would
be necessary to stage through an intermediate base, and of possibilities
at Kendari in Celebes and Samarinda in Borneo, the latter was selected.
Storms and low visibility forced postponement of the initial mission,
but on 3 January nine B-17’s reached Samarinda from Malang. Main-
tenance personnel, who had flown up with the aircrews, then serviced
the planes, loaded each with 2 , 0 0 0 gallons of roo-octane gasoline and
four 600-lb. bombs, and in the early morning of the following day
Maj. Cecil E. Combs led eight of the big planes off the field. H e headed
for Davao Gulf, 730 miles away, which harbored at the time approxi-
mately twelve enemy transports and perhaps twenty-four warships.
As the bombers approached the objective after five hours of flight,
they climbed to 25,000 feet and from this altitude scored hits which
possibly sank a destroyer and, according to enemy accounts, severely
damaged a cruiser. Opposition was slight, and four hours later the
B- I 7’s landed unharmed at Samarinda. The planes returned to Malang
on 5 January.31
Such were bombing operations during the early phase of the Nether-
lands East Indies campaign. Three days of flying had been required to
drop less than ten tons of bombs. The flights were made from unfa-
miliar and inadequately equipped bases, over areas that were imper-
fectly charted, and under circumstances which imposed at all times a
maximum strain upon personnel.
In selecting an advanced staging point for missions, attention had to
be given not only to the location and condition of the field but also to
the availability there of adequate stores of fuel and ammunition. The
one mission through Samarinda had exhausted the supply of IOO-
octane gasoline at that base; moreover, the field’s unpaved runway
could be used by the heavily loaded aircraft only in dry weather.
Accordingly, for a second mission to Davao it was decided to stage
through Kendari, where a store of fuel and generally more satisfactory
facilities existed. Nine of the B- I 7’s having left Malang on 8 January,
Major Combs led them from Kendari on the following day in a second
mission against enemy shipping in Davao Gulf. But mechanical diffi-
culties plagued the flight; of the nine planes, only five succeeded in
378