“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 I R S E R V I C E I N W O R L D W A R I
fight a t a disadvantage. One day mission was sufficiently large and suc-
cessful to draw more than passing attention. O n 9 October, with some
French reinforcements, Mitchell was able to employ a force of about
2 0 0 bombers escorted by some I 10 pursuits and 50 three-place planes.
With these he attacked and disorganized German army reserves gath-
ering in the rear for a counterattack. T h e German air defense was
overwhelmed, and the area bombed with telling effect. Thirty-two
tons of bombs were dropped in this mission; subsequent operations
during the same day and the following night brought the total for
twenty-four hours to sixty-nine tons.sQIt was probably the Air Serv-
ice’s most notable bombardment effort during the war.
An Associated Press dispatch of 10 October gave a contemporary
judgment of the importance of this mission:
T h e bombing squadrons which made up this air fleet probably represent the
first definite American unit of major importance in the independent air forces
which are being built up by the Entente powers. This navy of the air is to be
expanded until no part of Germany is safe from the rain of bombs. It is a thing
apart from the fighting, observation, and bombing squadrons attached to the
various army corps. T h e work of the independent force is bombing munitions
works, factories, cities, and other important centers far behind the German
lines. It has been promised that eventually Berlin itself will know what an
air raid means, and the whole great project is a direct answer to the German
air attacks on helpless and unfortified British, French, and Belgian cities.*O
When war ended, the Air Service had not begun such attacks. Their
total “rain of bombs” for the war was about 1 3 8 tons-or, to use the
more impressive figure of the official report, 275,000 pounds. Their
deepest penetration behind German lines was 160 miles.41 Even by
the correspondent’s own definition the attack of 9 October was hardly
an independent mission. T h e sudden collapse of Germany made him
a false prophet, but his predictions were better grounded than rhose of
early 1917.O n 6 June 1918the RAF’s Independent Force had been
established with its commander, Trenchard, directly responsible to
the Air Ministry. Its mission was strategic bombardment-in Germany
when possible-and its operations had slowly mounted in intensity.
T h e principle behind this organization had been grudgingly accepted
by the French, and on 3 October the constitution of an Inter-Allied
Independent Air Force, also directed by Trenchard but “under the
Supreme Command of Marshal Foch for operation,” had been agreed
upon.42T h e Air Service was to have participated in this combined
force, which was still a paper organization when the Armistice came.
‘ 5