“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 E I G H T H A I R F O R C E
determination to establish a self-sufficient force. During World War
I, American military forces in Europe had achieved organizational
and operational independence, but they had remained (and this was
particularly true of the air service) dependent upon their allies for
much of the equipment and many of the services used. Leaders of the
AAF at the outset in World War I1 had been determined this time to
achieve as a general policy logistical as well as operational independ-
ence."' Circumstances, of course, were far more favorable to such
a policy than had been the case in the earlier war, for our allies now
depended heavily upon American production in their own efforts.
But the building of a service organization on the scale required for
support of so ambitious an undertaking as had been projected for the
Eighth Air Force required time, even with the advantage which cir-
cumstances fortunately had provided in the opportunity for a certain
amount of prewar planning. And so in June 1942, Langford Lodge
and Warton would not be ready for months; the Ministry of Aircraft
Production installation at Burtonwood would have to carry the main
burden until the following year, and only because of this assistance
and a variety of other aids provided by the British would it be pos-
sible for the Eighth to make its presence felt by the Germans in
advance of that time.
Overseas Movment
Meanwhile, the overseas movement of the Eighth, given an added
impetus by the decision in favor of ROUNDUP, had begun on 2 7
April, when advance echelons of the headquarters of the Eighth Air
Force and of the VIII Bomber, Fighter, and Base Commands, together
with a weather detachment, the I 5th Bombardment Squadron
(Separate), and the 2d Air Depot Group, comprising in all approxi-
mately 1,800 officers and men, sailed from Boston for Liverpool on
the transport Andes.123That same day the War Department directed
that the air force and all command headquarters, the 97th Bombard-
ment Group (H), the 1st and 3 1st Pursuit Groups, the 5th Photo
Squadron, and the 5th Air Depot Group be prepared for movement
overseas not later than I June 1942."~ Like most AAF overseas de-
ployments, this first movement of the Eighth Air Force was divided
into two echelons-ground and air. The bulk of the troops and equip-
ment would proceed by water transport, while the aircraft with
skeleton crews would fly by way of the North Atlantic
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