“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 F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
It is true that the twin-engine MB-2, a modification of the Martin
bomber of war years, had been followed by the Barling experimental
triplane NBL- I , which with six engines, a span of I 2 0 feet, and weight
of 27,703 pounds (empty) dwarfed all service models of earlier date
than the 1930’s.~T h e plane provided a significant indication of an
early interest in the big bomber, but it proved a disappointing experi-
ment.lB5O n the other hand, the twin-engine Curtiss NBS-4 of 1924
showed marked improvement over the MB-2. Had funds been more
liberally provided, there might have been further experimentation
with much larger bombers. A newly formed Bombardment Board in
the fall of 1926 favored the multi-engine bomber, partly because of its
greater safety in comparison with the single-engine plane.1G6That
same year, however, the Engineering Division at Dayton emphasized
in a study of its own the technical difficulties and the high cost that
would be involved in attempts to build and operate planes with more
than two engines.lB7Not until the 1930’s would anything comparable
in size to the NBL-I be attempted again.
Meanwhile, great progress was made with the two-engine bomber.
Between the MB-2 of the early twenties and the B-10 of the early
thirties the service ceiling was raised from 7,700 to 24,400 feet, the
maximum speed from 98 miles per hour to 2 I 3, and the normal bomb
load from 1,040 to 2,260 pounds. Fabric and wood had given way to
an all-metal construction; the biplane had been displaced by the
monoplane; and in the quest for cleaner lines the retractable landing
gear had been introduced.lG8If the advances made held for the airman
a promise of bigger and better planes to come, it was still true that
the B-10, with a range of 600 miles, raised no question of its practical
military value.
As early as 1928, however, sharp differences had developed between
Air Corps officers and the War Department over plans for bomber
construction. The airmen argued for the development of two distinct
types of bombing planes: ( I ) a plane of high speed, short range,
defensive power, and small bomb load for use in day operations, and
(2) a bomber of minimum defensive strength designed to carry heavy
bomb loads over longer distances in night operations.lG9A step toward
such a specialization of function had been taken when two years
earlier the LB-I became the first Army plane to bear the designation
* For purposes of comparison it may be noted that the MB-z had a span of 74 feet,
z inches, and weight of 7,069 pounds.
58