“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 B A T T L E L I N E IN T H E PACIFIC
distance. One faction favored halting at the Shortland Island area, off
the southern end of Bougainville, while another advocated expanding
all the way down to the New Hebrides with the intention of severing
the South Pacific line of communications between the United States
and Australia. The final compromise of the local command settled
on taking the entire chain of the S010mons.~~
As early as February, the US. Navy had definite indications of an
enemy offensive which might extend down the Solomons to New
Caledonia or Fiji, and though as yet there were few combat surface
units in the Rabaul area, by mid-April the Japanese were moving
forces into Palau and Truk, obviously preparing for a thrust to the
Anticipating that the operations would commence around 28
April, the US. Navy assumed that the enemy would attempt a sea-
borne invasion of the lower Solomons, or Port Moresby, or both. The
assumption was correct in both cases. Early in May an enemy force
moved down to Tulagi on Florida Island, lying directly across the
Sealark Channel from Guadalcanal, where the Japanese immediately
set about preparing a seaplane base for use in operations against New
Caledonia or Port Moresby. The primary goal now was Port Moresby,
whose capture apparently was regarded by the Japanese army as a
relatively simple operation and by the navy as necessary for the secur-
ity of R a b a ~ I . ~ ~Certainly Moresby was a key point, for if it was useful
to the Japanese, to the Allies it was the key to defense of northern
Australia and a point of departure for future offensive operations
against the Bismarck Archipelago. In preparation for the move against
Port Moresby, in May the enemy moved his Genzan Air Group with
twenty-seven planes and 300 flying personnel into Vunakanau at
Rabaul, and on eight of the twelve days preceding 7 May, Japanese
bombers carried out heavy air attacks on Port M o r e ~ b y . ~ ~
Rapidly, during the first week of May, Allied forces rushed to meet
the thrust. On I May two US.carrier task forces, built around the
Lexington and the Yorktown, rendezvoused 375 miles south of San
Cristobal Island, while at Townsville and up a t Port Moresby the
medium bombers of the 13th and 90th squadrons, A-24’s of the 8th
Squadron, and B-26’s of the z2d Group (M) were prepared for the
anticipated strikes. B-I 7’s of the 19th Bombardment Group’s 435th
Squadron, based at Townsville and staging through Moresby, scoured
the sea lanes leading down from Rabaul, flying all the way to Kavieng
on the ~ d . ~ ~On the evening of 3 May, Rear Adm. Frank J. Fletcher
447