Part 8

The Army became very much interested in the Allison engine. Although a number of Army fighters were equipped with radials following the early successes of that type of engine, Air Corps men believed that, due to its narrow frontal area, the in-line engine could help to streamline fighters. Finally, in 1939, after many changes, the first Allison engines were installed in Curtiss P-40 Army fighters. The first Allison engine had developed 1,090 horsepower. By 1940 its horsepower was increased to 1,150 and the Army adopted it as standard. It was installed in all P-40’s and later in Lawrence Bell’s P-39 _Airacobra_. In the P-39 the engine was installed in the fuselage behind the pilot. A ten-foot shaft carried the power to the propeller in the nose of the ship. This installation permitted the housing of a 37-millimeter cannon and two machine guns in the nose of the _Airacobra_. The Lockheed P-38 _Lightning_ was powered with two Allison engines, making it the first fighter with more than two thousand horsepower.

BATTLESHIPS OF THE AIR LEAD THE WAY TO VICTORY

Regardless of the fact that this country was at peace and our military policy a defensive one, our farseeing Air Corps leaders continued to build American air power around the heavy, long-range bomber. As the heavy bomber was primarily an offensive weapon, many Americans believed the Army’s development of it to be contrary to our declared policy. As a result, we did not build great numbers of bombers. However, with the small number that we did have, our Army aviators made great progress in the technique of high-altitude bombing.

As in all branches of the United States Army, great stress was laid on good marksmanship. Army aviators were trained to hit the mark with their bombs just as the infantryman does with his rifle. Other countries developing heavy bombers were satisfied if their airmen dropped a great many bombs in a given target area. In this country the development of the bombsight enabled our aviators to hit a target with great accuracy from high altitudes. This is called precision bombing. It was also known as pin-pointing a target, because of the ability of our bombardiers to score direct hits on small targets. It was the B-17 _Flying Fortress_ that gave Army airmen the greatest help in perfecting high-altitude, precision bombing. The broad wings of the _Fortress_ furnished a steady platform from which to aim the bombs, and the great plane was able to fly smoothly in the higher altitudes. The bombardier riding in its transparent nose could carefully line up his target and drop his bombs with precision accuracy.

It was not until the outbreak of World War II that most Americans came to realize the value of the airplane in modern conflict. As the fighting grew to global proportions, Americans began in particular to appreciate the farsightedness of our Air Corps leaders in developing the long-range bomber.

By 1940 the original Boeing 299 or B-17 had grown from a sixteen-ton ship to a giant twenty-two-ton bomber. The new version, the B-17D, was powered with two 1,200-horsepower radial engines, giving it a speed of more than 300 miles per hour. Continual improvements were made on it and by the spring of 1942 a still more formidable member of the _Fortress_ family, the B-17F, was in production.

The B-17F was the most powerful bomber yet produced. It was armed with eleven .50-caliber machine guns and manned by a crew of ten. It could carry more than three tons of bombs to targets over seven hundred miles distant. Its oxygen system permitted its crew to fly the _Fortress_ at altitudes above 35,000 feet. With its eleven heavy machine guns in the hands of a perfectly trained crew, the _Fortress_ was capable of defending itself with deadly effectiveness.

The first _Flying Fortresses_ went into action with the United States Army on the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although this country had then only a limited number of _Fortresses_, they and their successors quickly began to distinguish themselves on the battlefronts of the world.

By the summer of 1942 _Flying Fortresses_ had begun what was to be the greatest sustained aërial invasion the world had ever known. Starting with a small group of _Fortresses_, the United States Army Air Forces went to work to wreck Adolf Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” and clear the path for an Allied invasion.

From small raids by a dozen _Fortresses_ the number of bombers grew until the raids became huge aërial invasions involving hundreds of bombers and thousands of airmen. That the path for invasion was cleared and victory brought nearer was due in no small measure to our big bombers and the farsighted American airmen who had brought them into being against almost insurmountable obstacles.

ARMY ATTACK AVIATION AND TRAINING

Although the airplane in World War I had been used mainly as an observation and a plane-to-plane combat weapon, wise American airmen, such as General “Billy” Mitchell, visualized the craft as a means of destroying the enemy’s ability to fight. These men saw his weapons destroyed as they were being built and his transport stopped before it reached the battlefield. As the result of this thinking, our doctrine of air power was established.

With this much accomplished, the need for various types of airplanes was clearly defined. It called for three distinct types of warplanes: the long-range bomber, the observation plane, and the pursuit plane. Air strategy was built around the long-range bomber. This was the weapon which would destroy the enemy’s war plants and military establishments on his home grounds. The observation plane was to be used to seek out the enemy’s movements and to locate his installations. As aërial photography was perfected, the observation planes were to be equipped to bring back a record of their findings. These records would establish the targets for the long-range bombers. In the beginning, the pursuit plane was considered a weapon to protect our own military establishments, our cities, and our war plants. Its mission was to intercept any enemy planes attempting to attack us.

On the preceding pages we have seen the bomber develop from a single-engined DH-4 into the giant four-engined B-17. This development was the result of the careful study of aërial strategy by our Army airmen. When the big bombers with a range of thousands of miles were built, our strategists saw them as weapons to be used only against an enemy’s most distant military establishments. The smaller two-engined bombers which had once been our long-range bombers

were delegated to the destruction of targets closer to the battlefronts.

In time, the use of the two-engine bomber led to the development of attack aviation. This was built around very fast, two-engined planes which could carry both bombs and guns. These medium bombers were to be used to attack targets of medium range with both bombs and guns. They were to be used to destroy enemy troops, transports, and gun emplacements. In the few years of World War II, attack bombers were developed from comparatively slow planes to ships with the speed of fighters. They are capable of carrying more than a ton of bombs, and of mounting cannon and as many as fifteen machine guns.

With the establishment of a definite policy of air strategy, plans were worked out for the training of personnel to man and service our fighting planes. The training plans set up in the early twenties are essentially the same as those in effect at the present. The system consisted of two training schools, Primary and Advanced. In the Primary School cadets received their preliminary flight training and studied construction of planes, radio, weather observation, and other technical problems concerning flight. The qualities shown by the cadets in the primary training helped to determine the branch of combat aviation for which they were best fitted.

At the Advanced School, cadets were trained in larger and more powerful airplanes and received instruction in gunnery, formation flying, cross-country flying, and night flying. Graduates of the Advanced School received their wings and, by joining tactical units, completed their training as members of regular service squadrons. In 1928 all Army air training activities were consolidated at one great training center at San Antonio, Texas. This great headquarters for the training of United States Army airmen was dedicated in June, 1930, as Randolph Field, in memory of Captain William M. Randolph. Captain Randolph, a native of Texas, had lost his life in an airplane crash a few years before. It was fitting that the first great Army aviation training program was under the direction of Brigadier General Frank P. Lahm, the Army’s pioneer aviator.

SUPER-FIGHTER

In the Pacific American fighters dropped down from 25,000 feet, screamed across an enemy airfield, guns blasting, and indicators showing a speed of over eight miles a minute. If the Japanese had not been “dug in,” they probably would have been sucked into the planes’ airscoops. Later one of the pilots expressed the sentiments of the entire raiding group when he said, “It’s a wonderful feeling to watch that air speed indicator climb. It makes you feel that nothing on this earth can catch you.”

That pilot was talking about the North American P-51 _Mustang_. He was not exaggerating when he made his remark, for there has been no fighter in action that could equal its speed. In the _Mustang_ we see streamlining at its best. Its in-line, liquid-cooled engine offers only a very small frontal area and allows the _Mustang_ to have the narrow fuselage of the fastest racing plane. This narrow fuselage and the high-speed wing practically eliminate all drag that reduces speed. The landing gear retracts completely into the fuselage and also eliminates drag. Even the airscoop is placed far back under the fuselage where it offers practically no resistance. The reduction of drag to a minimum eliminates vibration to such an extent that the pilot of a _Mustang_ flies at terrific speeds with no ill effects.

The _Mustang_ was designed and built as the result of a careful study of modern fighter tactics. It grew out of the need for high-speed, high-altitude fighters to serve as escorts for our heavy bombers. As our bomber attacks against Germany grew in strength, the Nazis in desperation threw in hundreds of their fighters to hinder us. The _Mustang_, with its tremendous speed and ability to fight at high altitudes, proved a sensation as an escort fighter. Two _Mustang_ groups alone have accounted for the destruction of almost two thousand Nazi fighters. With a speed of over 425 miles per hour and capable of great range, _Mustangs_ spelled doom to Nazi air power.

MAN-MADE _THUNDERBOLTS_ RIP WIDE A PATH TO VICTORY

The Republic P-4-7 _Thunderbolt_ was planned in 1940 as the result of the Air Corps’ desire to strengthen our fighter squadrons. A study of the Nazis’ use of crushing air power in their attacks on Western Europe hastened our plans to build heavier and more powerful fighters.

At one of the Air Corps meetings with aircraft manufacturers at Wright Field in 1940, Alexander Kartveli sketched on the back of an envelope an idea for a super-fighter. Eight months later his idea had grown into the fastest and most powerful fighter ever built in this country.

Alexander Kartveli was chief engineer for Republic Aviation Corporation. His sketches were developed by his firm to produce the six-and-one-half-ton, 400-mile-an-hour P-47 fighter. The P-47 was the answer to the Army’s demands for a big, powerfully armed fighter which could out-fly and out-fight any warplane put into the skies by an enemy. More than 10,000 _Thunderbolts_ have been built since 1940 and they have taken a terrific toll of Axis planes, both in Europe and in the Pacific. Pilots of one group of _Thunderbolts_ that operated in the Pacific shot down Jap planes at the rate of 52 to 1.

The Republic P-47 _Thunderbolt_ proved to be one of the most versatile airplanes developed in this war. It performs equally well at high or low altitudes. Armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, it is a hard-hitting escort fighter which can out-fight any plane sent up to hinder our big bombers. When used for ground strafing it has no superior. With two 1000-pound bombs tucked under its wings it becomes a deadly dive-bomber. Armed with rocket tubes and its eight big machine guns blazing, it can blast enemy tanks, transport, and gun emplacements effectively.

SUPERFORTRESS

The first giant _Flying Fortress_ had hardly taken off from the Boeing factory at Seattle, in 1935, before its engineers began to think about bigger and faster super-bombers. As the new _Fortresses_ shattered records for speed, pay load, distance, and altitude, farsighted Air Corps leaders also began to think about more powerful super-bombers.

By 1937 the brains and labor of Boeing engineers and production men created the first of the super-bombers. It was the giant Boeing XB-15 and it actually dwarfed the _Flying Fortress_. With a gross weight of 35 tons, 13 tons more than the _Fortress_, the XB-15 was 20 feet longer, 3 feet higher, and had a wingspan 45 feet greater. Its general appearance, however, was patterned after the _Fortress_. Only one XB-15 was built. It was used for experimental purposes by the Air Corps, and the Boeing Company went ahead to build the high-altitude _Stratoliner_ and the big _Clipper_ planes for civilian use.

Thus it was that even before the Nazis swept into Poland in 1939 the Air Corps had been thinking of an airplane that would dwarf the _Flying Fortress_. Size alone was not enough. General Arnold and his associates wanted an airplane which would carry a heavier bomb load farther, faster, and higher than ever before.

Few people aside from the Army knew of the XB-15, and the development of the super-bomber was one of the best kept secrets in history. One of the greatest surprises of the war was the War Department’s announcement on June 15, 1944: “B-29 _Superfortresses_ of the United States Army Air Forces’ 20th Bomber Command bombed Japan.”

Just one year after the announcement of the first _Superfortress_ attack on Japan, five hundred of these giant ships took part in a single raid against targets on the Japanese mainland. In groups of four and five hundred they blasted Japan almost daily. _Superfortresses_ bombed Japan to her knees in the spring and summer of 1945. Then in August of that year a lone _Superfortress_ dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima for the knockout blow that brought us victory.

Half again as large as the _Flying Fortress_, the _Superfortress_ carries twice the load of the _Fortress_. It has a wingspan of 141 feet and its highly streamlined fuselage is 98 feet long. Powered with the largest engines yet in service, it has a speed far in excess of 300 miles per hour. The pressurized cabin of the B-29 permits its crew to fly without the use of heated suits or oxygen masks at substratosphere altitudes. In military terms this means better physical condition, more skilful gunnery, more accurate bombing, and more comfort for the crews. In the _Superfortress_ we see great ideas, born years ago in the minds of our airmen, come into being with overwhelming and disastrous effects on our enemies throughout the Pacific.

NAVAL AVIATION IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF WORLD WAR II

Just as the United States was approaching the brink of war, the Navy air arm owned only about a thousand airplanes of all types. The young Navy airmen who had perfected dive-bombing had seen their invention adopted by the Nazis and used with deadly effect in their march across Western Europe. In the year before Pearl Harbor the Navy had acquired only a few hundred new airplanes. We did have, however, a group of young men who had been living and breathing aviation for the past fifteen years. They knew what was needed in the way of new fighting planes and they knew how to train thousands of new naval aviators when the time came. But it took the tremendous sweeps of the Nazis in Europe and the shadow of Japan across the Pacific to unloose the flood of fighting planes which was to give the United States Navy the greatest aërial fighting force ever launched.

At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor we had seven carriers, including our first big ones, the _Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_. The Grumman F4F _Wildcat_ was our standard carrier-based fighter. We had a small number of TBD _Devastator_ torpedo planes and SDB _Dauntless_ dive-bombers. Our battleships and cruisers were equipped with Vought OS2U _Kingfisher_ and Curtis SO3C _Seagull_ observation scout planes launched from the ships’ catapults. The Navy was fairly well equipped with PBY _Catalina_ long-range patrol bombers. But in the engineering offices of aircraft manufacturers, new and more powerful fighters, bombers, and patrol planes were being planned.

When Japan struck we had eleven aircraft carriers under construction, and two thousand new planes went into service for the Navy. Great training stations were being put into service to increase the Navy’s flying personnel to over 15,000 men.

A new patrol bomber, the long-range Martin PBM-1 _Mariner_, went into service for the Navy in 1941. It had a wingspan of 118 feet and a length of 77 feet 2 inches. It was powerfully armed and carried a heavy load of bombs. It was capable of long range and was able to carry out extensive over-ocean patrols without returning to its base. Ample living accommodations were provided for its eleven-man crew. In addition to its duties as an anti-submarine patrol and long-range bomber, the _Mariner_ was used as a Navy transport.