U. S. Planes Are Good

While U.S. and British newsmen were roundly criticizing U.S. military aircraft in the first eight months after Pearl Harbor (on the basis of their spotty combat showing) most U.S. air soldiers had a stock and sour reply: "Wait and see." Only constitutionally cheerful "Hap" Arnold, chief of the Air Forces, had much good to say about U.S. warplanes in public. This week he had his inning.

Results from the only true test--battle--were in, and had been tabulated. Daily revised, the report lay every morning on General Arnold's desk. It was the first thing he picked up. With its facts behind him, he gave his summary of U.S. battleplane performance:

"In every theater of operation, American airmen and American planes have met the challenge of our enemies and outfought them by scores never worse than 2-t01 in our favor.

"Precision bombing by American planes has blasted vital targets in enemy-occupied Europe and in the Mediterranean area and has won clear-cut victories in the Pacific. . . . All types of American fighter planes have shot out of the skies the best interceptors both Germany and Japan have put against them.

"This sustained-combat record removes all doubt that either Germany or Japan can match the combat planes and air crews of the United States Army Air Forces. . . . We are well on our way to maintaining clear-cut aerial supremacy in all nine theaters of operation."

What General Arnold had said was indeed true, although in the European theater the R.A.F. was still vastly more potent than the U.S. Eighth Air Force, and in Africa the British were making a heavy (but not predominant) contribution to the showing of air power there.

Men and Machines. The reason for improvement was not primarily in the machines themselves. Within a few months after Pearl Harbor most of the aircraft now fighting were already in action. The reason was in the other part of the machine the enemy meets in battle--the crew that mans and services the aircraft, and the command which directs them.

General Arnold's box score was as much a proof of men as of material. Since Pearl Harbor U.S. airmen had learned more than how to fly their aircraft. They had also learned how to fight them.

Generals had learned, too. In the process, aircraft were sometimes badly used. Best example: the P-40, which was sent out in the early days, sometimes by necessity but sometimes with less excuse, to dogfight nimbler Zeros at high altitudes where the P-4O was second best. Another: Bell's P39 fighter, which the Russians proved was best used as a ground strafer.

Bombers learned the same hard way. Gunners in Liberators and Fortresses had to be better, are now being trained more closely. Bombardiers had to learn that a moving ship is hard to hit from high altitudes. New tactics had to be devised to fend off enemy fighters. Practice taught pilots and their generals what theory could not teach.

More than in peacetime flying, an old pilots' saw was still the gospel of the air: "There is no substitute for experience."

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