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

T H E A R M Y A I R A R M B E T W E E N T W O W A R S
each side that ;he other side had been unreasonable.” T h e contro-
versy was characterized by much poor rhetoric, by extraneous political
issues, by Fabian tactics on the part of those in power, and at times by
a disconcerting lack of decorum and of candor. T o the public it be-
came a battle royal of “Billy Mitchell versus the Brass Hats,” with
the climax in his court-martial, a cause ce‘libre unique in American
military history. But, from a purely administrative viewpoint, the
struggle may be conceived as running through four phases, punctu-
ated by the Army Reorganization Act of 1920, the Air Corps Act of
1926, and the formation of the GHQ Air Force in 1935.
Legislative efforts to establish aviation as a combatant branch of the
Army and as a separate service had begun, respectively, in 1913 and
1916.Attracting little support, those efforts had failed, and, when the
United States entered World War I, its Army air arm consisted of
the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, as provided in an act of 1 8 July
1 9 1 4 . ’ ~It was the failure of that organization and its allied offices to
adjust to the demands of large-scale war which led to the establishment
in 19 I 8 of the Air Service as a quasi-autonomous body within the W a r
Department. More successful than its predecessor, the Air Service was
far from perfect as an administrative agency, and it existed only as an
emergency measure set up by executive order. After the Armistice, in
spite of further temporary expedients adopted by President Wilson,
the loss of key personnel through resignations threatened to leave
military aviation without leadership in the crucial period of demobili-
zation of the air force and collapse of the war-born aircraft industry.“
T h e demand for new policies to guide a peacetime program was not
peculiar to the Air Service. In 1919the W a r Department was pressing
for a drastic revision of the military establishment as prescribed in the
National Defense Act of 3 June 1916.Returning Air Service officers
were eager that any reorganization should provide for a separate air
force. Congressional support was stronger than in the prewar period,
but, of the eight bills introduced in 1919-20to provide for a Depart-
ment of Aeronautics, only one was favorably reported.” Expert
studies of the problems involved served merely to confirm opinions
previously held. Pershing’s Dickman Board at Chaumont and the W a r
Department’s Menoher Board at Washington opposed any change in
the control of aviation, the latter concluding that “the military air
force must remain under the complete control of the Army and form
an integral part thereof.” Yet the Crowell mission, appointed by
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