“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
of the tactical units under a single head, the new arrangement was far
from ideal. Most of the specific administrative difficulties which arose
during the next few years stemmed from two basic inconsistencies:
divided authority between the Air Corps and the corps areas and
between the two elements within the Air Corps.6oAs to the first, the
Air Corps presented a unified front in attempting to secure an ex-
empted status' for all airfields; such status, minus the important
prerogative of court-martial jurisdiction, was granted in May I 936,
revoked in November 1 9 4 0 . ~ ~In respect to its internal organization,
Air Corps opinion, like the Air Corps itself, was divided. The ultimate
purpose of the air arm was effectiveness in combat. Command respon-
sibility for that mission within the Air Corps devolved upon the Com-
manding General, GHQ Air Force. But he had no voice in the
individual training and indoctrination of his crews or in the develop-
ment and procurement of equipment. Over those functions the Office
of the Chief of the Air Corps (OCAC) had control. The two agencies
were on the same command echelon, reporting separately to the Chief
of Staff. Essentially it was a revival of the functional dualism which
had proved so mischievous in 1917-18. Andrews and Westover, agree-
ing on the need of a single chain of command under the Chief of Staff,
differed as to which of the offices should take precedence. Year after
year, studies and conflicting recommendations were made without
result. Finally, under the stress of an incipient rearmament program,
the consolidation was effected on I March 1939. By a War Depart-
ment directive, both the GHQ Air Force and the OCAC were made
directly responsible to the Chief of the Air Corps.'j2
The new arrangement was to prove short-lived, but, since it coin-
cided with the inauguration of a vast expansion of the Air Corps t
under threats from abroad, it may serve here as a convenient terminus.
A quarter-century had passed since the first official recognition had
been accorded the air arm by the act of 18 July 1914.Air Corps of-
ficers, no longer militantly crusading in public f or independence, had
little cause for complacency with the fruits of their long struggle.
Read out of context, the story of that struggle can be made to appear,
as the Baker Board interpreted it, an attempt of ambitious officers to
further their own petty interests by escape from the salutary control
of a beneficent General Staff. Certainly air officers had a normal share
* Le., administrative independence from the corps areas.
-f See below, Chap. 4.
32