“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
struggle in Washington which was to result in the reorganization of
the War Department on 9 March.*
Eaker arrived in London on 20 February and on the next day met
with Chaney and his staff. That groLp of thirty-five included only
four air officers; of the ground officers, Eaker found some who were
“fair minded,” others “definitely antagonistic to air forces and Air
effort.” ‘14 One carried this hostility to the point of sending back to
an Air Corps officer “all his staff work which mentions Army Air
Forces, requiring them to be rewritten to eliminate the word
‘Air.7” ‘15 In such an atmosphere, Eaker could hope for little success.
Reporting on the conference he wrote apropos of air organization:
I found a complete inflexibility of mind on that subject in the Chaney staff.
They had made up their minds and no argument would change them in the
slightest. I presented the arguments as strongly as I could but without the
slightest effect. They are unalterably opposed to an Army Air Forces in
Britain. They say that they are perfectly able to handle this in addition to
their other duties and such an organization would make them merely rubber
stamps. They consider that function their primary mission here and are not
willing to surrender it.1le
The last consideration was perhaps the deciding one. Under RAIN-
BOW No. 5 the bomber command had been conceived as the most
important element in USAFBI-indeed as the only one with an of-
fensive mission-and it seems plausible to suppose that Chaney, an
airman who had seen more of World War I1 bombardment than any
of his colleagues, may have been unwilling to relinquish control of
operations. That, a t any rate, appears to have been Eaker’s interpre-
tation when he wrote:
I could not believe any man did not wish to be pushed up to a higher job,
but I found one. They [USAFBI] are the Air Force Headquarters as they see
it and they are reconciled and even believe in being subordinate to the British.
I could not make them see that General Chaney should sit in a t the Chiefs
of Staffs’ conferences and be coordinate with the highest military echelon,
the Air Force Commander being at the R.A.F. leve1.*17
Whatever the motivation, USAFBI firmly rejected Eaker’s sugges-
tions; when he asked for a headquarters for Spaatz, Eaker “was told
quite definitely and pointedly, that he [Spaatz] was not coming and
that there was not to be an Air Force Hq.” ‘18 The official reply to
Washington, if less pointed, was equally firm. In a cable addressed
See above, pp. 257-64.
5 8 5