“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
transports, and two unidentified ships. T h e crews claimed twenty-
three enemy aircraft shot down, but a t the same time at least thirty-
eight of our own bombers were lost-six in combat, six by accident,
and twenty-six destroyed on the ground.111
Valuable lessons had been learned or re-emphasized. Perhaps the
chief of these was the necessity to provide, particularly for heavy
bombers, adequate air defense of bases. T h e importance of camou-
flage, of revetments, and of the use of such devices of deception and
cover as the dummy plane had received new emphasis. It was evident,
however, that none of these would be enough in the absence of pro-
vision for adequate aircraft warning, antiaircraft defenses, and strong
interceptor forces. It also had been found that the LB-30 was vulner-
able to pursuit attack and that its performance above 2 0 , 0 0 0 feet was
unsatisfactory; that the B- I 7 needed more range and armament, that
its oxygen system possessed faults, and that it required a self-sealing
bomb bay tank.'" Generally, however, the B-17 crews praised their
plane, particularly for its ruggedness in carrying them through and
getting them back, and few of them perhaps would have denied that
there was a certain aptness in a description broadcast from Tokyo
which identified the big bomber as a "four engine pursuit ship, used
for all purposes."
Though the A-24 had been inadequately tested, it gave promise of
effective use against shipping targets. Its principal weaknesses, a short
range and insufficient armament, would require the establishment of
good advance bases and provision of strong pursuit e s c ~ r t . " ~T h e
P-40 had given a good account of itself-it could outdive the Japanese
fighters, was faster in level flight, and was better armored. But the
enemy plane seemed to have more range, could outclimb the P-40,
and was more maneuverable. For the American pilot to risk a dogfight
was to flirt with suicide.'15 Indeed, by no means least among the
lessons learned was a new respect for the foe.
It could be argued perhaps that it would have been a wiser course
to avoid the piecemeal commitment of our aircraft in the Netherlands
East Indies, and to have held them in Australia until a respectable
striking force had been built up and made ready for operation from
reasonably well-established bases there. But such an argument would
ignore important considerations of morale which had a bearing,
among other things, on the Allied hope of rallying within Asia itself
resistance to Japanese aggression. T h e Australians, British, and Dutch
40'