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
development of the air force which went to war in December 1941
that it is legitimate to confine the present discussion to them even at
the risk of overemphasis and oversimplification.
Organization of the Army Air Arm, 1919-39
Of the trends designated above, that of broadest implication was the
fight for independence of military aeronautics. Originating as a juris-
dictional problem within the Army, the struggle became a major
national issue and hence should be viewed in the broader context of
the whole American scene. T h e two decades after the Armistice saw
in the United States a revulsion from the enthusiasms of the great
crusade to save democracy, a widespread skepticism concerning the
real war aims, and a profound distaste for militarism and for war in
general. The slogans of the period are suggestive of its temper-
“return to normalcy,” “disarmament” and “limitation of armaments,”
“outlawry of war,” “Merchants of Death,” “neutrality legislation.”
Neither isolationism nor pacifism, the great depression nor the New
Deal, was conducive to heavy expenditures for the Army and Navy;
and, indeed, until the aggressor nations began to march in the mid-
thirties, the problem of national defense seemed to many Americans
but an academic exercise invented by the militarists.
In spite of the prevailing mood, defense appropriations for 1919-39
were heavier than for any similar peacetime period, but they were
inadequate by standards to which the armed forces had become accus-
tomed. In the inevitable competition for limited funds, the requests
of each service were guided by its peculiar philosophy of national
security. The Navy held out for a strong battle fleet built around the
capital ship. T h e War Department wished to increase the size of the
Regular Army-the 1919request for half-a-million men was scaled
down to z80,ooo-and to organize it as a nucleus for rapid and vast
expansion in an emergency rather than as an integral force. According
to this scheme existing air units would be spread thin as cadres among
the several armies.’ Aviation officers had to accept this concept, but
the most advanced thought in the Air Service favored a relatively small
body of highly trained professionals welded into a compact striking
force ready for instant service. This view found no support in the
General Staff, composed exclusively of ground officers only mildly
interested in air power. In 19 I 7 they had vainly opposed the $640,000,-
ooo appropriation for aeronautics; after the war they were able to
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