Word: emden
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...development of U.S. combat aircraft, Emden had made history. There, for the first time U.S. four-motored bombers showed they were capable of something more than their deadly accurate high-altitude bombing. Without stop in production the big fellows had been made more versatile, could carry heavier bombloads at lower altitudes for the area-bombing for which British bombers are famed...
...soup" to their targets, unload bigger bombloads because they have achieved a quality which airmen call "interchangeability"-i.e., they can take light loads to high altitudes over long ranges, or they can cut down their fuel load and have bomb-rack room to load up with explosives. At Emden the Fortress load averaged around four tons each. Extra bomb racks had done the trick, without sacrifice of the Forts' defensive power...
Range for Escorts. There was more history at Emden. Never in the European theater had fighters traveled so far (350 miles) to meet German defenders. Never had bombers had such protection over a German homeland target. Even the superb Spitfire has a fighting radius less than a third as great...
Fighter cover is now recognized as indispensable to the landing of troops. Now that the Allies are on the offensive, Salerno and Emden meant that future amphibious operations could make longer leaps and, as Douglas MacArthur said, "Permit the application of offensive power in swift massive strokes...
...year capped by Salerno and Emden, the Army Air Forces, just finishing off a phenomenal growth of 3,500% in two years (and now bigger than the U.S. Navy), had written a book of tactics, proved new aircraft, broadened the functions of older types. So had the U.S. naval air arm, but on a scale proportionate to its smaller size, its more limited function as a supporting weapon of the fleet...