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
of personal ambition, but the most enduring factor in their long cam-
paign was the conviction that air power was being stultified by a
command structure lacking in understanding of the new weapon. As
one pilot put it when questioned by the Morrow Board on his attitude
toward his own rate of promotion, “They can call me Mr. George,
aviation pilot, for the rest of my life as far as that is concerned, just so
long as I might feel deep down in my heart that aviation is being given
a proper part in the system of national defense.” 6 3 A brief analysis of
Air Corps doctrines as they developed in the period before 1939, and
of Air Corps efforts to develop suitable equipment, should go far to
explain the persistence of the struggle for independence.
The Development of Air Doctrines
In April 1938 an Air Corps major attending the Army War College
prepared a paper entitled “Employment of Army Air Forces.” 6 4 The
study was an academic exercise done, as a civilian university would
have phrased it, “in partial fulfilment of the requirements” of his
course. The substance of his findings was probably familiar to most
serious students of national defense policies, but his paper did present
in brief form some striking anomalies. His analysis of the doctrines of
air power currently promulgated by the several responsible agencies
indicated a disturbing lack of uniformity. The Command and General
Staff School, the Army War College, and the Joint Board acknowl-
edged the importance of aviation but held that its principal function
was the immediate support of the ground forces and Navy in further-
awe of their respective missions. The Air Corps Tactical School
claimed for air power a more decisive role, primarily consisting of
long-range bombardment operations as an independent means of
furthering the “Army Strategic Plan” or the “national objective.”
War Department directives seemed to “straddle” on this important
issue, though inclining rather toward the former point of view. Thus
those officers who were being prepared for the highest command or
staff positions were subjected to conflicting opinions rather than to a
consistent indoctrination.
Had the major’s paper been even more academic, it might have gone
on to show that this conflict in attitudes had appeared in an incipient
form during World War I and had been sharpened by the organiza-
tional disputes of the postwar years, Indeed, it is impossible wholly
to divorce the problems of employment of air forces and control of
3 3