Few nations in modern times have been prepared for war. Even the aggressors who have initiated conflicts have not been fully ready, for they could never be certain how their victims would react or what the clash of arms would bring. Nor, since the industrial revolution of the 19th century accelerated the pace of technological change, could a nation predict the impact of new weapons on battle and decide upon new tactics and strategies necessary for victory. For most of its history, the United States did not trouble itself deeply with problems of preparing for war. With wide oceans separating it from the major powers of the world, and with a tradition isolating it from the balance of power system which governed international relations, this country could afford a military policy predicated on mobilizing after hostilities had begun. Its small peacetime military and naval establishment was designed for border security, for patrol of distant seas and a vast continental interior, for exploration, and after the dawn of the 20th century, for a cadre and training base which would absorb the manpower and materiel of the nation for wartime armed forces. Beginning late in the 19th century, however, technology began to render such a policy increasingly dangerous. The introduction of steel and steam in ship construction and improvements in naval weaponry pushed the nation into overhauling and expanding the peacetime Navy. While the oceans would still provide a barrier and afford an interval for mobilization, defeat at sea would transform the barrier into a highway for invasion. To surrender the command of the sea was perceived by the early 20th century to offer an enemy the opportunity to defeat the United States. Similarly, air power shrank the world and promised as much danger as opportunity to the country in defending itself. Proponents of air power realized that command of the air by an enemy could lay the nation open to bombardment and perhaps defeat. To prevent such a catastrophe required extensive preparation and much practice, thus prompting the expenditure of considerable resources in peacetime. And yet the nation, in the aftermath of World War I - the "war to end all wars"- saw little need for much spending on the implements of war. And in the 1930s, with the onset of the worst depression in American history, economic theory called for reduced government expenditure. For the pioneers of the American air forces, these were difficult years in a struggle as part of the army to forge the air weapons they believed so strongly would decide future warfare.
Historians generally agree that the birth of American air power occurred in the two decades between the world wars, when airmen in the U.S. Army and Navy forged the aircraft, the organization, the cadre of leadership, and the doctrines that formed a foundation for the country to win the air war in World War II. Nearly every scholarly study of this era focuses on these developments, or upon the aircraft of the period; very few works describe precisely what the flyers were doing and how they overcame the difficulties they faced in creating air forces. In this detailed, comprehensive volume, Dr. Maurer Maurer, retired senior historian of the United States Air Force Historical Research Center, fills this void for land-based aviation. As Dr. Maurer explains in his personal note, this book grew out of his previous editing of the documents of the American Air Service in World War I. He decided to write a descriptive rather than an analytical book, taking the vantage point of the Army flyers themselves. While policy, organization, and doctrine form the background, they are not addressed or explained explicitly. Instead, Dr. Maurer focuses on men and planes, describing in the process how the Army Air Corps came to possess a supporting structure and the nationwide network of airfields. He exposes the difficulties encountered in training and organizing tactical units. However, Dr. Maurer does not write solely about problems and setbacks. In his capable narrative hands, readers cross the country and the continents on the many dramatic record flights with the flyers of the Army Air Corps. The value of this book is twofold: the wealth of detail Dr. Maurer provides about the scope, structure, and activities of interwar Army aviation; and the comprehensive portrait that emerges of a military service struggling with limited resources to develop a new weapon of tremendous destructive potential. As such, the book fills a gap in the literature and contributes to knowledge about the history of the Army air arm.
In the 1930s the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Alabama, was the birthplace and nurturing ground for American air doctrine. The work undertaken at the school became manifest in the skies over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific in the Second World War. Those who studied and taught there were the same individuals who prepared America for war, and then led its airmen into combat. This band of men spawned and shaped the independent United States Air Force in the postwar era. Their influence is still felt today, for they developed the airpower doctrines and institutions that enabled the United States to prevail in the Cold War. Their strategic vision, evolved from the thoughts of Douhet, Mitchell, and Trenchard, is now embodied in the Air Force's notion of Global Reach-Global Power. The legacy of the Air Corps Tactical School continues on with the comprehensive programs of the Air University, the world's premier airpower training institution. From flight within the atmosphere to flight within space, American airmen fly their missions based on principles enunciated in the lecture halls of Maxwell Air Force Base.
THIS MONOGRAPH, written by Mrs. Juliette A. Hennessy of the USAF Historical Division, recounts the development of aviation in the United States Army from April 1861, when the Army first became interested in balloons as a means of observation, to April 1917, when America entered World War I. The origins and organizations of the Army's air arm are told in detail, with particular emphasis on early air force personnel, planes, and experiments. In the process the monograph traces the early development of what today is The United States Air Force. Of necessity, the monograph tends strongly toward the chronological variety. This is owing to several factors, the thinness of aviation activities for most of the long period covered and an equal thinness in records being the principal factors. Only a few books which deal with this early period of Army aviation have been written, and all of them together do not cover the period. This, then, is the first attempt to put the story into a single volume. Because the story of the air arm from April 1917 to the beginning of World War II also has not been fully covered it is expected that the present monograph will be the first of three, which, when completed, will become the basis for a published history of the Army Air Arm, 1861-1939. Like other Historical Division studies, this history is subject to revision, and additional information or suggested corrections will be welcomed.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.