The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

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
from the several official sources are difficult to reconcile, but a fair
estimate might include about 7,800 trainers and 3,500 service planes,
largely DHq’s, built in U.S. factories by 11 November 1918, and
5,000 planes bought abroad.20At that date 499 DH-4’s were assigned
to squadrons a t the front. Of 2 , 9 2 5 planes reaching the AEF’s Zone of
Advance during the war, only 696 were of American make. Perhaps
about 30,000 service and training engines were produced. The rate of
production was rapidly accelerating a t the end of the war, standing
then a t 260 DH-4’s per week, or about 13,500 per year.’l Six months
more of war might have seen an Army air force such as had been
promised in June 1917; but actually the “regiments and brigades of
winged cavalry mounted on gas driven flying horses” never arrived to
“sweep the Germans from the sky.”
Air Service, AEF
The activities of the Air Service in the AEF were inevitably affected
by the poor showing made at home. When General Pershing arrived
in France in June 1917 he had only the most rudimentary elements of
an air staff. Nevertheless, an ambitious AEF Aviation Project was
formulated and dispatched homeward in a cable of 11 July. As
amended on 18 September, this plan called for the deployment in
France by 3 0 June 1919 of 260 tactical, 36 training, and 90 replace-
ment squadrons. With auxiliary services it would require about I 2 5,000
men.22Preparations were initiated to care for this large force. Pershing
as early as June 1917 had removed aviation from control of the Signal
Corps, setting it up as the Air Service, AEF, with a chief and with
separate divisions for the Zone of Advance and the Zone of the In-
terior. He arranged for the purchase from the French government of
some 5,000 aircraft, largely pursuits, and for the establishment of air-
fields, depots, and training schools.2s
The administration of the ambitious project was far from perfect.
Liaison with the Aviation Section in the States was poor, and air
commissions sent to Europe sometimes acted without co-ordinating
with the AEF. In November, Brig. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois, an
aviator who had been prominent in instigating the $640,000,000 pro-
gram at home, arrived to become Pershing’s Chief of Air Service.
Foulois brought a large staff which included more recently commis-
sioned civilians than Regular Army 0ffice1-s.~~Individual ability hardly
compensated for lack of experience in staff work. Internal jealousies
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