“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…
R O U E N - S O T T E V I L L E N O . I
failed to recognize their objectives in time to attack or else ran into
such stiff opposition that they could not bomb. T w o planes were shot
down by flak and one was badly damaged. The British lost one plane,
evidently as a result of flak damage plus the attentions of the only
enemy fighter to make effective interception that day. But the Ameri-
can losses did not stem entirely from the inexperience of freshmen
crews, although one of the pilots shot down was reported to have
taken insufficient evasive action in the flak area. T h e fact was that for
some reason the mission ran into very heavy opposition from antiair-
craft batteries, especially at the two northern airdromes of De Kooy
and Haamstede. It even seemed to the surviving crews that the enemy
gunners must have been warned in advance by ships in the Channel
which had sighted the Bostons on their trip toward the Dutch coast.
The RAF leader of the element attacking De Kooy reported the
worst flak in his experience, and over-all losses in this one mission were
declared to have been equal to the total losses of No. 2 2 6 Squadron
in similar operations for the preceding five and one-half months.ll
During the mission, however, one incident occurred which proved
heartening to the American force and which did much to offset the
otherwise discouraging results. Capt. Charles C. Kegelman, flying
with the element detailed to bomb De Kooy airdrome, had his right
propeller shot away by flak while in the vicinity of the target. The
ground fire also damaged his right wing and started a fire in his right
engine. Kegelman's plane lost altitude and actually struck the ground,
but he was able to keep it in the air after it bounced back up. Then,
as he was preparing to leave the scene as fast as his one good engine
would take him, he saw the gunners of a flak tower swinging their
guns on him. Turning slightly, he flew directly a t the tower and
opened fire with the nose guns at close range. Fire from the tower
ceased. H e then proceeded to fly home at water level. For this ex-
ploit, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.'
The mission of 4 July had not been an ideal operation with which
to inaugurate the American air offensive from the United Kingdom.
Not only was it a small raid and one flown in borrowed planes, but
it was tactically of little significance since the future of the bomber
campaign depended on the development of high-altitude heavy bom-
bardment techniques rather than those of low-level attack by fast,
light planes. Nevertheless, the mission marked a beginning of a sort
and did much to stimulate morale among the American flyers. At
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