“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
the rate of about three tons of cargo a week. Since this force repre-
sented the only ground unit, aside from guerrillas, actually engaged
in fighting the enemy, it was decided to supplement its supplies and
to provide reinforcements by air transport with a view toward launch-
ing an attack against Lae and Salamaua. This project was somewhat
delayed by bad weather and inability to provide fighter cover, but
on 2 2 May a flight by the 2 1st Troop Carrier Squadron inaugurated
a movement of about 300 troops and supplies. For more than a year
thereafter, the rough and sloping 3,300-foot runway at Wau served
as the most advanced terminal of Southwest Pacific transport opera-
tions. At the close of June, the small force at Wau even undertook
raids on the Japanese positions a t Lae and Salamaua.16
Efforts to make Lae and Salamaua as untenable for enemy bombers
as was Port Moresby for Allied bombers had been inaugurated by
the A-24’s of the 8th Squadron a t the opening of April. But prior
to their withdrawal at the end of May to Charters Towers, the A-24’s
flew only four combat missions, totaling twenty-nine sorties, from
Port Moresby. Though only two were lost in combat as against
claims of six enemy planes destroyed on the ground and two shot
down, operational losses were high. On 4 April, of the forty-two
dive bombers assigned to the Allied Air Forces, only twenty-two were
in commission; two months later, only twelve out of twenty-six.17
Designed originally as a carrier-borne plane and seemingly unequal
to the rough wear of imperfect fields, of relatively short range and
slow speed, and highly vulnerable except when provided with better
escort than was possible at Port Moresby, the A-24 was written off
by AAF personnel as unsuited to the type of operations required in
New Guinea, perhaps mistakenly in view of its subsequent record in
Navy hands.
Not unnaturally, the AAF came to place greater confidence in the
more rugged B-25. The early “C” model of the Mitchell Army
bomber had approximately three times the range of an A-24, could
carry more than twice its bomb load, had two more .50-cal. machine
guns, and was faster. Ever popular with Army flyers and locally
dubbed a “luxury liner,” it proved well suited to the hazardous
flights across the Owen Stanley Mountains. The only trouble was
that there were not enough B-25’s. Only fourteen originally had
been available under the Dutch contract, and by August there were
still only seventeen on hand.I8
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