“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 A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S
local defense of strategic points-New Yorli, the Canal Zone, Alaska,
Hawaii, etc.-and other units should be attached to ground and sea
forces as auxiliaries.9*But, so long as other powers were developing
aviation for “striking their adversaries as far away from their own
countries as possible,” the United States should have as its first objec-
tive the “creation of an air force capable of the greatest radius of action
practicable under the conditions limited by personnel, material, and
armament.” 92 A n efficient air force organized according to these
principles “would be able to protect the country from invasion and
would insure its independence but would not be able to subject a
hostile country to invasion without leaving the country itself.” 93
Fortunately the string of northern islands led away from, as well as
toward, the United States. They could be seized, held by air units plus
a small ground force garrison, supplied if necessary by air transport,
and used as a means of striking directly at the industrial heart of a
European or Asiatic enemy.94W a r might become then first a struggle
for air bases, followed by a strategic bombardment campaign. In the
end ground forces must actually take over the enemy’s territory, but
through its long-range operations the “influence of air power on the
ability of one nation to impress its will on another in an armed conflict
will be decisive.” 9 5
Under the guise of Winged Defense Mitchell was pleading the cause
of an offensive weapon to be used in a fashion not yet sanctioned by
custom. Highly sensitive to public opinion, he was somewhat handi-
capped in drawing a realistic picture by his concern with his audience.
T h e wisdom of having entered World W a r I was widely questioned,
so Mitchell had to assume that we would go to war only if attacked
directly and that we would fight without allies who might provide
advanced bases. H e had come to consider that “the basis of air force
power is the bombardment airplane” and that strategic bombardment
was “the one outstanding development that occurred in the European
War.” O 6 Yet he was most specific in describing the effects of such
warfare if applied against the United States; civilians are shown
stampeding in N e w York under aerial attack but not in Berlin or
Tokyo. It was the same sort of disingenuousness which made him
speak of bombing the sources of an enemy’s productive power but
“not so much the people themselves” 97-as if some subtle distinction
would be made between factory and worker.
In his last book, a sort of primer for the layman called Skyways
4’