“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…
C O M M I T M E N T S TO C H I N A
ignations occurred, and a lack of spare parts plagued early efforts.
In November, Chennault reported that only 43 of the original IOO
planes were serviceable and that only 84 pilots remained fit for combat
duty." Some of the most critically needed equipment was sent by air,
but interested parties in the United States met with little success in
an attempt to procure additional recruits. Chennault would have to
do with what he had. O n the eve of war, the Air Staff had under
consideration a proposal to reinforce the Chinese defenses of Kun-
ming with Philippine-based planes of the AAF in the event of an an-
ticipated attack on this terminal of the Burma Road.13
A cardinal feature of Chennault's plan was to avoid commitment
of his force until it had been thoroughly trained and never to com-
mit it piecemeal. General Magruder had been instructed to lend every
assistance against possible pressure for a premature commitment.l*
But after 7 December 1941,Rangoon, chief port of entry in Burma
for supplies reaching China over the Burma Road, came under the
threat of Japanese attack; and in response to a British appeal, one
squadron of the A V G was sent to Mingaladon on 1 2 December.
During the following week, the other two squadrons were moved east
to Kunming for protection of the cities of southwest China and for
patrol of the Burma Road, now subject to attack from near-by fields
in Thailand. There, the AVG pilots first entered combat when, on
2 0 December, they inflicted heavy loss on Japanese bombers attempt-
ing an attack on Kunming. Three days later, the P-4oB's at Min-
galadon inflicted comparable damage on a formation of enemy planes
attacking R a n g o ~ n . ' ~
As the battle for Burma became increasingly bitter, Chennault
adopted a policy of rotating assignments that would give each squad-
ron brief periods of comparative relaxation at Kunming, where com-
bat missions were somewhat less frequent and exhausting. H e resisted
pressure to commit the entire A V G to Burma and divided his planes
so that in addition to collaboration with a small RAF contingent in
defense of Rangoon, he provided patrol of the Burma Road and a
measure of support for Chinese ground forces along the Salween
River.le T h e policy followed actually represented the piecemeal com-
mitment he had planned to avoid; but it enabled him to assist in holding
the port of Rangoon until some of the supplies stockpiled there had
been moved out for shipment to China, to protect the Burma Road
489