“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
below in fact prohibited flights except at certain hours of the day.32
It is not surprising, then, that with no more than a dozen B-17’s in
commission, the effort that could be made served principally to pro-
vide reconnaissance for the Allies and an occasional harassment of the
enemy. Between 23 February and I April, the B-17’s flew approxi-
mately twelve missions, of which number six were directed against
Rabaul, one against Koepang in Timor, and four against targets in the
Lae-Salamaua area. T h e small scale of the effort receives additional
emphasis from the fact that the six Rabaul missions actually put a total
of only fifteen B-17’s over the target, or an average of less than three
planes per mission. T h e weather was frequently unfavorable, mechani-
cal difficulties at times interfered, and enemy reaction was likely to be
vigorous. Claims of two hits on heavy cruisers were unsubstantiated.
In short, the value of these missions lay chiefly in the intelligence
acquired.33
Attacks directed against Lae and Salamaua sought to neutralize
these points as staging bases for air raids on Port Moresby. Air units in
Australia were as yet in no condition to undertake more than a few
sorties, but the Navy had two carriers within reach and on 10 March,
just two days after the enemy’s landings in the Huon Gulf, 104 planes
took off from the Lexington and Yorktown in the Gulf of Papua. Fly-
ing through a pass in the Owen Stanley range, they swarmed over the
Japanese landing craft at Lae and Salamaua. With the loss of only one
plane, they returned to enter claims for the sinking of five transports
and a number of war vessels, though later reports indicate that a
cruiser and three destroyers had been damaged rather than sunk.
Eight B - I ~ ’ s ,following hard upon the Navy planes, damaged one
transport and reported that at the conclusion of this joint undertaking
four ships were left burning, two sinking, and another All
told, it was a successful effort, but it did not dislodge the enemy and
thereafter Lae and Salamaua became principal objectives of land-based
air attack.
T h e most ambitious single effort of these early days in Australia
was directed once more against the Philippines rather than New
Guinea or the Bismarcks. Late in March, General Wainwright had
requested that a squadron of bombers be sent, in the hope that they
might break the Japanese blockade long enough to permit the move-
ment of supplies from Cebu to C ~ r r e g i d o r . ~ ~General MacArthur
himself was reluctant to abandon all hope of assistance to the be-
4’ 7