“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
was to discover the enemy fleet as early as possible and to strike it
before it could draw within carrier range of the island. Accordingly,
on 30 May, in order to place the heavy bombers as far forward as
possible, six B-17’s of the 26th Bombardment Squadron (H) were
flown up to Midway, followed on the next day by six more from the
431s Squadron, two from the 31st, and one from the 72d.” In addi-
tion to these forces, two casually attached squadrons en route to the
South Pacific, the 18th Reconnaissance and the 69th Bombardment
squadrons, each contributed two torpedo-carrying €3-2 6’s which were
flown up to Midway, along with six of the Navy’s new TBF”.’’ With
all these reinforcements, Midway was badly overcrowded. By 3 June,
Captain Simard had available on the tiny islet a force of 30 PBY’s, 4
B-2 6’s, I 7 B- I 7’s, and 6 TBF’s, all in addition to the planes of MAG-2 2.
Behind Midway and off to the northeast the carriers Y o r k t o m , Enter-
prise, and Hornet had rendezvoused on 2 June after racing up from
the South Pacific following the Coral Sea action. This was something
the enemy did not know and would not know until the dive bombers
struck him.
All these forces, every plane, would be needed, for the bulk of the
Japanese imperial navy was converging upon Midway; if ever it could
break through to the island, it could overwhelm the defenses. From
the northwest, under Admiral Nagumo, came a task force of four
of the enemy’s most effective carriers, supported by two battleships.
From Saipan to the southwest, under Vice Admiral Kondo and
screened by a powerful surface force including two more battleships,
came the transports, carrying approximately 2,500 army troops and
special naval landing forces to occupy the two islands comprising
Midway; and out to the west of the island aboard the tremendous
Yamato was Admiral Yamamoto himself, leading the main body of
the fleet with most of the remaining heavy units of the imperial
navy.91
The burden of long-range search rested upon the PBY-5A’s and the
B-17’s; twelve of the latter covered long arcs extending 800 miles out
from Midway on 31 May and I June, but they sighted nothing and
they could not cover the area lying beyond 300 to 400 miles northwest
of their base, for here visibility was Their efforts held the flight
crews aloft for thirty hours in the two days prior to combat, nor
could the crews rest in the intervals between flights, for it was neces-
sary for them to service their own planes, in co-operation with the
456