“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
Isle as soon as the other movement had cleared the field there. The
way was clear by 2 2 July, when twenty-eight P-38’s of the 14th
Group escorted by six B-17’s flew from Presque Isle to Goose Bay.
The other planes followed in a continuing movement that was dis-
tinguished chiefly by the pioneering effort of the 92d Group in
accomplishing between 1 5 and 2 7 August the nonstop flight of all
four of its squadrons from Gander in Newfoundland to Prestwick
without the loss of a plane.155
By the end of August, 386 aircraft-164 P-38’s, I 19 B-17’s, and 103
C-47’s-had crossed to England by the North Atlantic ferry route.
Additional groups and replacement aircraft for the Eighth and
Twelfth Air Forces would follow during the remainder of the year;
all told, 920 planes by I January 1943 had attempted the crossing ar?d
882 reached their destinations, of which approximately 700 belonged
to the Eighth. The anticipated accident ratio of 10 per cent did not
materialize-it actually amounted to 5.2 per cent. Of the 38 planes
failing to reach Prestwick, 29 were classified as “wrecked” and 9 as
“lost.” The AAF had been particularly anxious about the P-38’s, but
out of 186 dispatched during 1942 only 7 failed to reach their destina-
tion; in addition to the 6 wrecked in July, I was subsequently l 0 ~ t . l ~ ’
And before passing on, it should be noted that nearly all of the 700
planes delivered to the Eighth were flown by their own combat crews,
not by veteran and highly trained ferry or transport pilots.
As the movements developed, the principal concern of AAF leaders
in England was over the slowness of the initial movement and the
prospect that winter would cut off this line of reinforcement. They
hoped that improvement of communications and weather facilities
would permit not only bombers but fighters to make the flight, but
Headquarters, AAF felt the risks were too great. After December, the
North Atlantic route was closed to virtually all planes until spring.15‘
Establishment in United Kingdom
The period extending from the opening of General Spaatz’ head-
quarters in the United Kingdom on 18 June 15’ to the first heavy
bomber mission on 1 7 August saw the completion of the initial stage
in the development of the Eighth Air Force. Its headquarters-in
code WIDEWING-was located in the suburbs southwest of London
a t Bushy Park, Teddington. During the latter part of June and in
July, the newly established headquarters gathered into its hands the
645