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The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

Air Force Historical Studies Office · 863 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is Volume One of The Army Air Forces in World War II, titled Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate. The University of Chicago Press first published it in 1948, and the Office of Air Force History reprinted it in 1983. The front matter explains how the AAF historical program was set up during the war. The index covers Pacific, Atlantic and European operations, and nothing in the text concerns unidentified aerial phenomena.

  • 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
B-26’s groped in the fog and mist for the carriers. At 0845 on the 4th,
a PBY of Pawing 4, piloted by Lt. Marshall C. Freerks, USNR, had
reported contact with three enemy vessels, including one or two car-
riers, a t a point approximately 160 miles southwest of Umnak, and in
response to this report, six B-17’s and one LB-30 took off from Kodiak,
headed for Cold Bay, where they would refuel and carry on the
search.13* At the same time, the B-26’s of the 73d Bombardment
Squadron (M), which were awaiting orders at Elmendorf, were
directed to move out to Forts Randall and Glenn, and the 77th’~B-26’s
were on the two forward fields ready to attack when ordered. Already,
on the 3d, Captain Meals had taken off twice from Fort Glenn with a
flight of B-26’s but had seen nothing, and one B-26 had crashed on land-
ing a t Umnak when its landing gear collapsed, sending the torpedo
tumbling end over end down the runway.135
On the 4th, the B-26’s were out again, in response to Lieutenant
Freerks’ report which reached Umnak at 0900. From Umnak, Captain
Meals’ flight of five B-26’s ran into an area of low ceiling and fog,
which forced the planes to return a t I 355 without locating the target;
but from Cold Bay, another flight of five B-26’s was out to search, this
one under Col. William 0. Eareckson. Again the flight missed the
target, except for the plane piloted by Capt. George W. Thornbrough,
who had lost the main formation. Captain Thornbrough found the
enemy force, made his run on the Ryujo, and dropped his torpedo so
close that it fell over on the far side of the vessel where it failed to
exp10de.l~~Thornbrough was keenly disappointed, and though he
had been ordered to await the other planes at Umnak, he flew back
to Cold Bay where he rearmed, this time with 500-lb. A P bombs,
refueled, and returned to the attack. Some time later he was heard over
Cold Bay, where he was “on top” but despite every effort could not
be guided in. Several weeks later, his smashed plane was found east
of Fort Ra~~dall.’~’It was not easy to find the enemy’s ships in the fog
and clouds. On the afternoon of the 4th, Captain Dunlop of the 36th
Squadron led out a flight of five B- I 7’s and one LB-30 from Cold Bay
on a flight which lasted from 1545 to 2145, but the aircrews saw
nothing. Lt. Thomas F. Mansfield, taking off later, was joined by Capt.
Jack L. Marks, and these two located the enemy task force. Marks
pulled up into the overcast to drop five bombs blindly, while Mans-
field went down to minimum altitude and headed for a cruiser. This
468

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