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
neither independent nor strategic as those terms were already under-
stood in 1918.By that time the British Air Ministry had evolved a
concept of the use of air power to enforce a decision, independent
from or supplementary to the action of armies, through long-range
bombardment of selected targets in Germany. Originally evoked by
German air raids on London, this policy had gone far beyond mere
retaliation. The mission of the Independent Force, as defined by its
leader, Trenchard, contemplated nothing less than “the breakdown of
the German Army in Germany, its Government, and the crippling of
its sources of supply.” With the forces available in 1918,Trenchard’s
efforts were perforce limited in scope. Sustained operations against
large industrial areas were out of the question. Target selection, in-
volving careful appraisal of intelligence, was based on the assumption
that scattered raids could slow down production by fostering un-
certainty among workers. Thus Trenchard could write that “at
present the moral effect of bombing stands undoubtedly to the material
effect in a proportion of 2 0 to I.” 73
In 1919Trenchard might have had in the Inter-Allied Independent
Air Force sufficient power to give a real test to the concept of air
power entertained by the Air Ministry, and in that test the Air Service
was to have participated. But because of the failure of the Anglo-
American Handley-Page production program the Air Service had
experienced flo actual practice in strategic bombardment. Thus, how-
ever conversant Mitchell may have been with the activities of
Trenchard’s force, his thinking in 1918 seems to have been geared
closely to the advance of the ground armies. His boldest plan, a project
for a huge airborne operation scheduled for 1919,was designed as a
means for reducing infantry casualties in the capture of Metz.‘* In
the light of subsequent controversy it is significant that, although
Mitchell’s operations had been confined to support of ground troops
on a stabilized front, his tactics had been too “independent” for the
generals. Of the Meuse-Argonne battle Pershing wrote: “The tend-
ency of our air force at first was to attach too much significance to
flights beyond the enemy’s lines in an endeavor to interrupt his com-
munications,” whereas in battle the proper function of aviation was
“to drive off hostile airplanes and procure for the infantry and artillery
information concerning the enemy’s movements.” 7 5
When Mitchell published in 192I his first book on air power-Our
Air Force: The Keystone of National Defense-he had begun to con-
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