“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
had easily disposed of a surfaced U-boat, Mitchell’s First Provisional
Air Brigade, hastily assembled and trained at Langley Field, attacked
and sank three German ships-a destroyer, the cruiser Frankfurt, and
the heavily compartmented battleship Ostfrieslmd. Disputes arose as
to the manner in which the experiment-directed by the Navy-had
been conducted, and the Joint Board’s report tended to deprecate the
effectiveness of aerial b~mbing.’~But the fact of the sinkings was in-
disputable, and Mitchell went on to clinch the validity of his claims
by tests conducted with like results on obsolete U.S. battleships-the
Alabama in September 192I and the Virginia and New Jersey in Sep-
tember 1923.’~
Renewed congressional interest in the independent air force stimu-
lated by the Ostfriesland test was unproductive in the face of opposi-
tion in both houses and from President Harding.” The annual reports
of the Chief of the Air Service indicated, however, the need of some
immediate action to prevent the virtual extinction of the air arm.
Equipment, largely of wartime vintage, was obsolescent and unsafe,
with personnel far below authorized strength. On 3 0 June 1921 the
Air Service numbered but 975 officers and 1 7 5 flying cadets; a year
later the officer roster had shrunk to 952, enlisted strength to 8,936.28
With only one group each of pursuit, attack, and bombardment avia-
t i ~ n , ’ ~the Air Service as a combatant arm was practically demobilized.
Cautious in his policies, Patrick was then no public advocate of the
separate department for air; he did plead for more liberal support of
aeronautics and for recognition of the sharp functional distinction
between auxiliary units for the Army (“air service,” ideally 2 0 per
cent of the total air strength) and offensive aviation (“air force,”
ideally 80 per cent), which needed a different type of command struc-
In response to definite recommendations made by Patrick, the
General Staff in March 1923 appointed its own board to examine the
status of the Air Service. In spite of its constituency, the Lassiter Board
confirmed Patrick’s dismal appraisal. Stating that air operations were
“now recognized as being as important as the tactics of the ground
and sea forces,” the board recommended a ten-year expansion program
with increased and regular appropriations and the acceptance of
Patrick’s idea of massing the bulk of offensive aviation into a striking
force under GHQ.31The Lassiter report was approved by the Sec-
retary of War, but, when naval members of the Joint Board opposed
it, he made no attempt to secure the enabling legi~lation.~~
26