Jimmy Doolittle Quotes

In order to assure an adequate national defense, it is necessary - and sufficient - to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air.

Air superiority is the ultimate expression of military power.

The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the Air. The Fighters are our salvation . . . but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory. . . . In no other way at present visible can we hope to overcome the immense military power of Germany.

In the long run sea power will be no match for air power.

The colossus of World War II seemed to be like a pyramid turned upside down, and for the moment the whole burden of the war rested on the few hundred German fighter pilots on the Channel coast.

Victory, speedy and complete, awaits the side that employs air power as it should be employed.

The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.

Adolf Galland said that the day we took our fighters off the bombers and put them against the German fighters, that is, went from defensive to offsensive, Germany lost the air war. I made that decision and it was my most important decision during World War II. As you can imagine, the bomber crews were upset. The fighter pilots were ecstatic.

Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.

If we lose the war in the air we lose the war and we lose it quickly.

If you want to go anywhere in modern war, in the air, on the sea, on the land, you must have command of the air.

The day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centers on a vast scale may become the principle operation of the war, to which the older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate.

Military history shows air action only cannot achieve the goal of defeating an enemy.

[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.

Nothing is of greater importance in time of war than in knowing how to make the best use of a fair opportunity when it is offered.

First, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. This lesson we learned in World War II. I lived that lesson in Europe. Others lived it in the Pacific. Millions of American veterans learned it well.

Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his straitened resources far greater that what we need in the attack.

If I had one more division like this First Marine Division I could win this war.

Allied air power was the greatest single reason for the German defeat.

Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy... use the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it!

The secret of war lies in the communications.

The success of our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will prove to be the Waterloo of the war to follow. For this reason the Imperial Navy is massing the cream of its strength in ships and planes to assure success.

I have a mathematical certainty that the future will confirm my assertion that aerial warfare will be the most important element in future wars, and that in consequence not only will the importance of the Independent Air Force rapidly increase, but the importance of the army and navy will decrease in proportion.