“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
leaguered garrisons,36and plans for a special mission were completed
a t a conference attended by General George, Col. John H. Davies,
and others in Melbourne on 7 April. Accordingly, in the early morn-
ing of 11 April, ten B-25’s equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks and
three B-17’s took off from Darwin for the 1,500-mile flight to Min-
danao. General Royce was in command; Colonel Davies led the €3-2 5’9
and Capt. Frank Bostrom the B- I 7’s. All planes having arrived safely
at Del Monte, the B-25’~were then dispersed to neighboring auxiliary
fields. During the next two days attacks were made against shipping
and docks at Cebu, air and harbor facilities at Davao, and Nichols
Field on Luzon. The six badly worn and battered pursuit planes avail-
able on Mindanao were used in attempts to pin down enemy fighters
at near-by Davao airfield, and for protection of the bombers in land-
ing and taking off. They were unequal to the task, although during
the period they flew more sorties than the bombers. Enemy bombings
of Del Monte destroyed one of the B- I 7’s and seriously damaged the
other two. Indeed, only two heavy bomber sorties were completed,
one against Nichols Field and the other against shipping targets in
Cebu harbor. The B-25’s operated from better-concealed strips, and
in over twenty sorties sank one and possibly two other transports and
shot down three enemy a i r ~ r a f t . ~ ?
The American flyers returned to Australia with the loss of only one
B-17 and no casualties. The scope of the mission had been indeed
record-breaking; Captain Bostrum, for example, recorded thirty-eight
hours in the air and in all had flown approximately 6,000 nautical
miles to drop a load of bombs on Nichols Field. But one load of bombs
could count for little in the final checkup, and some of the participants
questioned whether the results justified the extraordinary effort re-
quired. Others returned with a memory chiefly of gallant men who
had serviced their planes on Mindanao-men who already knew their
doom. For this was the last major attempt to fly across the far-flung
battle lines to their aid.38
The Allied Air Forces
Meanwhile, in Australia and in Washington consultations proceeded
on urgent questions of command and organization. The dissolution of
the ABDA Command had left no provision for an over-all command
of Allied resistance to the southward thrust of the Japanese. Their
conquest of the Netherlands East Indies had created distinctly sep-
4’8