“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
obvious advantages in the reinforcement of his outlying bases, but
even leaving out of account the limited strength of the RAAF, the
Allies no longer faced overwhelming odds in the defense of their
outposts.
The lack of adequate air warning facilities still proved a discourag-
ing factor. RAAF radar equipment, having only a fifty- to seventy-
five-mile range, was quite unsatisfactory, and five sCR-270’~which
had been emplaced in Australia were the only American sets available
at the end of April. As a consequence, a considerable reliance had to
be placed upon spotters in the hills and coast watchers-Australians,
for the most part, who risked their lives in the remote areas of New
Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomons to watch and send by radio
a warning of enemy activity-who would render such distinguished
service throughout the Solomon and New Guinea campaigns.l0
Progress had been made in the development of tactical skills, which
helped to overcome the disadvantages of inadequate warning and
certain superior qualities of the enemy planes. The 49th Fighter
Group in its defense of Darwin had compiled a very creditable record.
Prior to May it had lost seven of its P-40’s and three pilots while
destroying an estimated total of 38 Japanese planes and 1 3 5 crewmen.
The heaviest enemy attack had been executed by twenty-four
bombers escorted by nine fighters, and this attack had been met by
fifty P-40’s whose pilots claimed eleven of the enemy aircraft. During
May, Darwin, for a change, remained free of bombing. The enemy
returned on four consecutive days in June, his largest mission com-
prising twenty-seven bombers and eighteen fighters which were inter-
cepted by twenty-eight P-~o’s,and the final score for the month
stood at nine P-40’s against thirteen enemy losses.11 Though the Japa-
nese still could get through to Darwin, it was costly.
A substantial part of the credit must be assigned to the skill of
ground crews and other service personnel. By dint of their energetic
efforts Col. Paul B. Wurtsmith, commanding officer of the 49th
Group, could usually count on having sixty p-40’~in commission,
with the result that his pilots were rarely outnumbered. Probably of
greater significance were the conferences held after every engage-
ment for the purpose of perfecting combat techniques that would
overcome the inferior “speed, maneuverability, climb, and ceiling”
of the P-40. As a result the two-plane element had been fixed upon
as the chief reliance in combat, individual dogfighting had been out-
476