“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
Army (15 October 1935). Ostensibly a compromise, this manual in-
clined toward the General Staff’s point of view. In listing functions
of the GHQ Air Force “beyond the sphere of influence of the.Ground
Forces,” it included strikes at “military and civil objectives alike”-
air installations, shipping, munitions and aircraft factories, transporta-
tion, etc. There is no effort to establish absolute priorities, since the
relative importance of objectives varies with the situation, but the
judgment is made that as targets “air forces [are] generally of primary
importance.” 1 3 0 There were in T R 4 4 0 - 1 5 few statements to which
the Air Corps could take exception, but its very lack of emphasis made
it a weak instrument for indoctrination. T h e manual remained in force
until 1940, but a sampling of Air Corps opinion during that interval
u7ill indicate that its tenets were by no means universally accepted.
Within the Air Corps two fairly distinct points of view may be
discerned, but it is difficult to determine any principle of alignment
within the several air agencies. One attitude, which for convenience
may be called that of compromise, stressed on political grounds the
defense mission of aviation, but as an interim rather than a permanent
policy. This way of thinking may be seen in an Air Corps Tactical
School critique of General Kilbdurne’s proposed doctrines and in a
counterproposal of 3 I January 1935 called “Suggested Foundation for
GHQ Air Force Doctrine.” l S 1 T h e latter starts with the assumption
that “national policy, geographic location of bases and the present
range of planes which does not permit the air attack of the national
structure of any probable enemy, dictate the role of the GHQ Air
Force as one of air defense and fix its true objective.” 13’ In keeping
with this opinion, first priority is given to preventing an enemy from
setting up air bases within range of the United States, second priority
to defeat of enemy forces operating from such bases.
Similar conclusions may be found in a study, “The Functions of
the Army Air Forces,” presented by the Air Corps Board on 29 Oc-
tober 1936. Assuming that, with current performance of aircraft,
sustained attacks could not be carried out against the homeland of any
major foreign power from bases in U.S. territory, the board declared
that the Air Corps should be immediately and primarily concerned
with national defense and the preservation of internal order. Until an
adequate defense was assured, “the diversion of effort incident to
preparations for strategically offensive operations is not justified.” 133
T h e real intention of this study was to secure for the Air Corps a
49