“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…
L O S S O F N E T H E R L A N D S E A S T I N D I E S
On that same day the enemy imposed on the Allies a crushing
defeat a t Darwin, at the other end of the ferry route. Four of his
carriers, after moving south from Palau, had waited several days near
Amboina for the hour to Allied intelligence was not without
some ~ a r n i n g , ' ~and since I 5 February the newly activated 3 3d Pur-
suit Squadron had been flying patrol over the waters northwest of
Darwin. O n 19 February, however, its planes had been scheduled for
an attempt to get through to Java. In fact, ten of the p-40'~had taken
off for Koepang at approximately 0900, but when they were about
half an hour out of Darwin a weather report from Timor proved so
unpromising that the planes turned back. On their return, Major Pell
led one flight of five planes in for a landing at the RAAF field, having
left the other five for patrol above.80Just at this point, warning came
through of Japanese aircraft approaching Bathurst Island, some fifty
miles away to the northwest, and before further details could be
secured the radio frequency was jammed. Major Pell immediately led
his flight back into the air, and a t approximately 1000 an enemy force
of more than fifty bombers escorted by fighters struck in an unex-
pected approach from the south.'l
T o oppose this overwhelming force there were only the 33d's
pathetically few P-407S, which one after another were shot down.
Major Pell was killed when forced to bail out of his plane a t approxi-
mately seventy feet. Lts. Charles W. Hughes, Jack R. Peres, and Elton
S. Perry also lost their lives, while Lts. John G. Glover, Max R.
Wiecks, Robert F. McMahon, Burt H. Rice, and William R. Walker
safely parachuted from riddled planes. Only Lt. Robert G. Oestreicher
managed to bring in his bullet-punctured P-40 to a normal landing.*'
Having thus destroyed the American interceptors in the first strike,
the enemy returned two hours later with another and equally large
formation which carried through its bombing runs virtually without
opposition. The total cost to the enemy could not have exceeded ten
planes shot down, and may have been considerably less.
On the other hand, the Allies had lost, in addition to the nine P-40's
destroyed in the air, two more P-qo's, six Hudsons, and one LB-30
on the ground. RAAF facilities and the commercial airport had been
badly hit. Even more serious was the damage done to shipping and
harbor facilities. Three American ships-the destroyer Peary, the
transport Meigs, and the merchantman Maunn Lou-and as many
other Allied vessels had been sunk. Eight more vessels sustained serious
393