“RAF”60+ pages
- p. 12 …T h e term “first narrative,” bor-
rowed from the RAF, was frequently used to describe…
- p. 16 …history would constitute a lifetime assignment-the RAF’s history of
World W a r I…
- p. 47 …being made
up of aircraft from the RAF’s Independent Force, the whole of the
French…
- p. 48 …early 1917.O n 6 June 1918the RAF’s Independent Force had been
established with its…
- p. 53 …Most radical was the independent air force,
usually drawing heavily upon the RAF and its Air…
- p. 114 …I when a
British mission of retired RAF officers and others arrived in Japan to
assist…
- p. 127 …At Dunkirk the Luftwaff e momentarily yielded supremacy to the
RAF, which was able to gain…
- p. 128 …After French surrender on 2 2 June, only the RAF remained
for the Luftwaffe to conquer…
- p. 129 …T h e RAF and the Battle of Britain
The German bombing of Britain in World…
- p. 130 …The RAF retained its autonomy; but, even so, sentiment for
many years, like that in the…
- p. 131 …it was
hoped that the badly ournumbered RAF would be able to hold off
any German…
- p. 132 …By the end of September the RAF had asserred its control of the air
over rhe…
- p. 133 …It will take no credit from the RAF’s outnumbered “few” to sug-
gest that the…
- p. 136 …Operations of the RAF after the fall of 1940 were as widely dis-
persed as were…
- p. 137 …on strategic bombardment, would find in the RAF a stout and under-
standing ally. It is…
- p. 171 …British requirements amounted to
49,385 planes, including first-line strength and wastage for the RAF…
- p. 186 …with fresh data and a familiarity with RAF
experience. Actual authorship of a military document is…
- p. 290 …to
prewar plans, was to join the RAF in the attack on Germany. This
project was…
- p. 338 …Fortunately, the RAF,
magnificently served by such advisers as Robert Watson-Watt,
rapidly went beyond the…
- p. 341 …enjoyed
through the co-operation of the RAF unusual opportunities to com-
pare results with those…
- p. 343 …United States military mission in London, the
RAF offered the services of Robert Watson-Watt, Scientific…
- p. 369 …The majority
of the Hudsons were delivered a t Montreal to the RAF Ferry Com-
mand…
- p. 391 …of its production was required by the
RAF to meet current operational commitments. The gasoline had…
- p. 398 …an
initial mission to participate with the RAF in the bombardment of
Germany. Questions remained regarding…
- p. 404 …air force personnel were
concentrated at the RAF base a t Reykjavik, occupying facilities on
the…
- p. 553 …of models considered obsolescent for AAF and RAF needs,
and cadres of American pilots and ground…
- p. 555 …were considered obsolescent by the AAF and
RAF) previously allocated to Sweden were released for the…
- p. 556 …in addition to collaboration with a small RAF contingent in
defense of Rangoon, he provided patrol…
- p. 557 …Even when the
enemy after his first experience sought to wipe out the RAF and
A…
- p. 565 …General Naiden’s survey indicated that the normal
run should be between the RAF base a…
- p. 566 …Unable to
challenge seriously the enemy’s supremacy in the air, meager RAF
and A V…
- p. 568 …May, the bombers struck at
Mingaladon, former RAF airdrome near Rangoon which the Japanese
were using…
- p. 570 …fensive efforts between the Tenth and the RAF, and on 1 5 April the
War Department…
- p. 571 …Accordingly, on
24 May the order committing the Tenth Air Force to operations
under RAF supervision…
- p. 609 …It also reflected the profound influence exerted by the RAF
Coastal Command on AAF thinking. That…
- p. 610 …Fleet
Air Arm by creating a special RAF command, equipped and trained
for sea search and…
- p. 614 …control in terms comparable to those governing RAF
Coastal Command. Almost from the beginning, the question…
- p. 615 …it had
been the experience of the RAF “that a purely defensive policy only
leads to…
- p. 619 …On the tactical side,
valuable assistance was obtained from an experienced RAF crew
which flew two…
- p. 626 …bomber crews
flying borrowed Bostons in an RAF routine sweep against enemy
airfields." During the seven…
- p. 628 …current allocation of heavy bombers to the RAF.6 N o immediate cut
was contemplated; and…
- p. 630 …was suggested that for the present the RAF
would assume sole responsibility for the air offensive…
- p. 633 …the conduct in co-operation with the
RAF of an offensive against western Europe in 1942…
- p. 634 …T o
the Air Staff, as to RAF Bomber Command, the bomber offensive
had figured as…
- p. 635 …Now that the SLEDGEHAMMERJROUNDUP strategy had
been accepted, the RAF wanted the United States to increase…
- p. 636 …the British desire for reinforcement of the
Middle East; the RAF Coastal Command’s request for…
- p. 637 …I ) allocate to
Great Britain for the RAF and Dominion air forces aircraft according
to an…
- p. 647 …TRIGGER,
a plan to set up in America, with RAF aid, a model air defense sector…
- p. 648 …important fea-
tures were borrowed from the RAF. H e proposed to effect a sharp
cleavage…
- p. 649 …Because AAF bombers would have the special mission, in co-operation
with the RAF, of attacking…
- p. 653 …Chaney must provide for their operational control with-
out recourse to the RAF. Chaney’s immediate…
- p. 656 …forces and the RAF, provision must be
made for two chains of command-that of the…
- p. 657 …i.e., Eighth Air
Force = RAF; VIII Bomber Command = RAF Bomber Command) ;
and while it provided…
- p. 659 …Under these conditions, relations with
RAF Bomber Command were more important for the Eighth Air
Force…
- p. 660 …ning for the bomber offensive with the RAF.
Daylight or Dark?
As an argument in favor…
- p. 661 …weapons are the Russian army and the RAF.” 1 5 5
It is significant that this…
- p. 662 …Critics complained of the RAF’s failure to provide adequate close
support for ground operations in…
- p. 663 …Messages from that office cast doubts upon the results of the RAF
bomber offensive and criticized…
- p. 664 …When in 1941 the two air staffs began planning their combined
attack on Germany, the RAF…
- p. 665 …Even before the war, RAF preference had run to night tactics for
strategic bombardment, an attitude…
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
struck secondary objectives on the Japanese mainland, and enemy re-
ports indicated that the missing planes also bombed their targets. Some
honest errors of bombing and gunnery had occurred when bombardiers
overshot their marks, sending bombs into thickly settled districts, and
these were used by the Japanese to justify the subsequent execution of
the captured men. On the positive side, the mission had demonstrated
the feasibility of launching heavily loaded medium bombers from
carriers at sea under actual combat conditions, although it should be
remembered that such an attempt was not repeated during the war.
Upon the Chinese the effects were most unforrunate, for not only
had their theater lost the future use of the sixteen bombers, but they
soon lost their eastern airfields to the Japanese, who advanced upon
Chuchow from the Hangchow area on 1 5 May. Within a short time
the fields a t Chuchow, Yushan, and Lishui had fallen into enemy
hands. If the mission was designed permanently to depress enemy
morale, it probably fell short. It was too light and could not be fol-
lowed by a sustained effort, but significantly enough it did cause the
Japanese to give serious thought to improvement of the homeland’s
defenses and led them to retain four army fighter groups in Japan
during 1942 and 1943 when they were urgently needed in the Solo-
m o n ~ . ~ ?What was probably the greatest achievement of the Doolittle
raid is the most difficult to assess. The prevailing evidence, however,
indicates that it came at just the time when Japanese army and navy
leaders were debating the advisability of further expansion beyond
their originally defined defensive perimeter. The raid seems to have
lent additional weight to the arguments for pushing out the defensive
line-to rest perhaps even on Midway, New Caledonia, and the Aleu-
tians.48 Finally, the Tokyo raid was a hypodermic to the morale of
the United States, which had suffered the worst series of military re-
verses in its history.
T h e Coral Sea
While the secretaries of the staff planners in Washington ex-
changed proposals concerning the fate of the South Pacific islands,
Japanese generals and admirals debated the strategy by which they
most effectively might preserve their newly won southern empire.
From later interrogations with some of the participants in these de-
bates, it is possible to reconstruct the broad outline of their plans.
They, like the Allied planners, faced divergent opinions within the
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