“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…
P L A N S , P O L I C I E S , A N D O R G A N I Z A T I O N
terms, were in the nature of a general guide rather than of a specific
directive. All armed forces of both nations serving in the United
Kingdom and British home waters (including Iceland) were to be
under the strategic direction of the appropriate British commander in
chief; all U.S. forces were to be under the immediate control of the
commanding general of the U.S. Army Forces in Great Britain (or
British Isles-USAFBI) .74 What that would mean in actual practice,
no one knew; an American general could write somewhat perplexedly
in September I 94 I :
I find certain terms not susceptible of standard interpretation by our own
people, with the general result of a somewhat cloudy issue. I keep struggling
with “strategical direction,” “operational control,” and “administrative com-
mand”, . . . I am not trying to start an argument but I am trying to call
attention to the need for evolving a practical and efficient command system
under circumstances for which I know no p r e ~ e d e n t . ~ ~
RAINBOW No. 5 had vested the commanding general of USAFBI
with the duty of developing such a system, giving him “authority to
arrange with the Air Ministry and the War Office concerning the or-
ganization and location of our task forces and operational control.” ‘‘
Until war should invoke RAINBOW No. 5 , there would of course
be no USAFBI commander, but as an interim means of liaison, the
two nations had agreed to exchange military missions: the British
Joint Staff Mission a t Washington, the American Military Mission
at London.” The American mission was to consist of offices known
respectively as the Army Special Observer Group (SPOBS) and the
Naval Special Observer Group (SPENAVO) .
Ostensibly the establishment of SPOBS merely regularized a prac-
tice already in operation, for in 1940 the Air Corps had sent a number
of officers of various grades to watch the Battle of Britain.” Among
the senior officers was Maj. Gen. James E. Chaney, a man of wide
military experience; his tour was especially appropriate in view of an
earlier assignment as a military attach6 in Europe and of his current
dual command over the Air Defense Command and what was to be-
come the vital Northeast Air District.* After six weeks in England,
Chaney had returned in November 1940 to render an optimistic re-
port on Britain’s chance of surviving the air blitz.TvIn the following
April he was ordered back to London as commander of SPOBS, with
Brig. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney as his chief of staff.*’ The choice of
+ See above, pp. 152-53.
577