“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 A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S
“the only entirely dependable force” for operating a t sea, and the
Army, which “with its own air forces remains the ultimate decisive
factor in war.” T h e board was firmly opposed to either the unified de-
fense department or the independent air force. T h e history of the air
arm showed, it believed, that “the Air Corps has virtually been inde-
pendent since its inception”; that production failures of 19 I 7- I 8 had
occurred because of its practical exemption from General Staff con-
trol; and that independent air force operations had not been decisive in
the war. Hence the report concluded that “the time has arrived for the
Air Corps to become in all respects a homogeneous part of the Army,
under General Staff control, and be subject to military coordination,
study, influence and operation.” 5 6 Less, not more, autonomy was the
cure for Air Corps ills. T h e desired results could be obtained by
eliminating the now vacant post of Assistant Secretary of War; mak-
ing the Chief of the Air Corps responsible for individual training, pro-
curement, and supply under the Secretary; and following the Drum
Board’s recommendation for establishing a GHQ air force under the
Chief of Staff.
One civilian, James H. Doolittle, filed a minority report, advocating
separation of the Air Corps from the Army.57
T h e Howell commission was free from W a r Department domina-
tion, and many felt that its verdict might run counter to that of the
Baker Board. However, after the latter’s report it appeared wiser to
give the GHQ Air Forcq a trial than to press for more radical measures,
and Howell’s group made no recommendations on the organization
of military a~iation.~’T h e reorganization suggested by Baker went
into effect on I March 1935.59 Tactical units scattered through the
nine corps areas were assigned to the GHQ Air Force, with head-
quarters at Langley Field; its three wings were located at Langley
(Va.) , Barksdale (La.), and March (Calif.) fields. As Commanding
General, GHQ Air Force, Maj. Gen. Frank M. Andrews was respon-
sible for organization, training, and operation of the force, reporting
to the Chief of Staff in peace, the commander of the field forces in
war. The Chief of the Air Corps, Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover, retained
responsibility for individual training, procurement, and supply. Ad-
ministrative control of the air bases remained in the hands of the sev-
eral corps area commanders.
Thus, although the GHQ Air Force provided an improved com-
mand structure for operations by concentrating a considerable share
3 ’