“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 D E F E N S E O F A U S T R A L I A
immediately assembled and put into pera at ion.^ For all practical pur-
poses, therefore, the American air forces on Luzon continued to be
the remnant of the 24th Pursuit Group, which had survived the
enemy’s initial assault-a handful of planes and fifteen pilots, who all
too aptly came to be described as the Bataan Field Flying Detach-
ment. Brig. Gen. Harold H. George of the interceptor command
directed its varied operations, supervised the maintenance of its dwin-
dling number of planes, and attended to the training of personnel in
the elementary problems existent in the field; and as the planes one
by one were shot down or worn out, he selected the air and ground
personnel that would be reassigned to infantry units whose rosters
already included many representatives of the 27th, 24th, and 19th
groups. There were problems of adjustment to unfamiliar assignments
as the pilot led his ground crew against some enemy strongpoint or
rallied soldiers trained primarily as mechanics to defend a bit of land
that for the moment was American, but there was nothing unfamiliar
about the odds to be f a ~ e d . ~
T h e missions undertaken by the American pilots from Bataan fields
were described by General George as “the hardest and the most
dangerous.” T h e primary task was that of reconnaissance, and of
occasional patrol of the forward areas. Important, too, was the
attempted defense of our own area against enemy attack. N o w and
again it proved possible to strafe enemy communications, and on one
occasion in February even to mount a mission against Nichols and
Nielson fields by seven P-401s, which in addition to strafing dropped
fragmentation bombs. Filipino agents later reported loss to the enemy
of fourteen planes destroyed on the ground and the killing of many
Japanese. Once again, on 2 March, four P-qO’S, equipped with an
attachment for a goo-lb. bomb designed by Warrant Officer Jack E.
Bay, were led by Capt. William E. Dyess, Jr., in an attack on ship-
ping in Subic Bay. Although one P-40 was shot down and the remain-
ing three crashed on landing, apparently two transports had been sunk
and other small boats damaged.6 As the Japanese blockade tightened,
even P-40’s were pressed into service as transport planes. In addition
to an occasional mission for the transportation of medical supplies
from Mindanao to Bataan, they dropped supplies to isolated units on
the ground and sometimes carried passengers crowded into the bag-
gage compartment. As malnutrition, dysentery, and malaria wore
down the American soldiers, a few aircraft that were useless for com-
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