“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
with something of a time lag, the several organizational changes in
the air arm which have been noted above. T h e influence of the
General Staff over air doctrine is clearly shown in Training Regula-
tion 440- I 5, Fundamental Principles of Employment of the Air Serv-
ice (26 January 1926).
This manual states that the organization and training of air units is
to be “based on the fundamental doctrine that their mission is to aid
the ground forces to gain decisive success.”115 This principle is to
guide all operations, but the nature of the aid will vary with the type
of aviation units involved. Some units must operate as an organic part
of the ground command, and their aid will be direct; others may “CO-
operate by indirect support in the area of the ground battlefield or at
a distance therefrom.” Such indirect support is peculiarly the function
of the GHQ air force, which “is self-contained and is capable of
rapidly shifting its activities from one theater of operations to another,
transporting the equipment and personnel necessary for its efficient
operation and upkeep.” At outbreak of war it first gains control of
the air, then attempts to disrupt enemy communications and move-
ments. Thereafter it assists the army directly in battle or “indirectly,
wheq conditions are favorable, by carrying out special missions at
great distance from the ground forces” against critical areas of the
enemy country. And the GHQ air force is of special value in coast
defense, both in reconnaissance and in attacks on approaching fleets.l”
Compared with Mitchell’s bold claims this was pale stuff, and it was
a fitting coincidence that his resignation from the Army came on the
day after T R 440-15 was published. But its authors, following in all
respectability the recommendations of the Lassiter Board, had at least
ascribed to GHQ aviation something of the functions of a striking
force; further the Air Service was not then prepared to go. Even at
the Air Service Tactical School a t Langley Field the teaching was f a r
from radical. Textbooks published there in I 926 constitute perhaps
the most detailed analysis of employment of military aviation yet to
come from a W a r Department agency. That on Bombardment specifies
that the course is to deal primarily with “operations in support of, or
in conjunction with, large forces of ground troops” rather than with
bombardment “in what may be termed ‘independent air force opera-
tions.’ ” Hence the approach is always “from the standpoint of various
ground situations,” both in open warfare and on a stabilized front;
even strategic bombardment is so treated.”‘ T h e authors, unlike
45