FoiuLlut for Add Power
0,
"nly three news
papers carried accounts of
the incident. Later, a clipping
was shown to President The
odore Roosevelt. Teddy
grunted, then forwarded it to
the office of the Secretary of
War, where it lay undisturbed
for nearly four years.
Finally, almost reluctantly,
a communique was issued
from Washington on Aug. 1,
1907, ordering the Army's
Signal Corps to "study the
flying machine and the pos
sibility of adapting it to mili
tary purposes."
The original incident, of
course, was Orville Wright's
historic flight at Kitty Hawk,
N. C. The order that followed
so slowly was equally historic,
because it created 50 years
ago next Thursday the first
military air unit in the world.
But the lag in between is as
much a part of the Air Force
story as its many firsts.
The greatest air power in
the world grew sporadically
on a foundation laid by
visionary men who saw be
yond the range of their ships
and who fought not only the
unknown in the sky but the
lethargy on the ground.
The Early Days. Liaut.
Thomas E. Selfridgs was
killed in the first fatal air
crash in 198. The following
yar the Army bought the 0
fr wiliry pl.fir from the
Wright brothers and estab
lished the first military air
field at College Park, Md.
In 1910 Army fliers dropped
sandbags on targets and fired
guns from the air, the first
tests of the plane.as an offen
sive weapon. Airmen saw its
potential, but when they
asked for more planes, one
Congressman reportedly blus
tered, "Why? I thought we
already had one!"
Inertia prevailed. In our
first military air mission
into Mexico six of the eight
rickety planes sent across the
border were destroyed within
a month; the remaining two
were condemned.
World War I. By 1917, the
country that had pioneered
aviation was a weak 14th in
air power. Britain had about
300 planes, Germany 500, and
France 1,000. We had 55,
mostly obsolete.
But in the dogfights over
the trenches, we discovered
something more valuable: the
American pilot. In planes
grimly nicknamed "flying
coffins," the enthusiastic
young airmen piled up a 3-to-1
victory margin over
their experienced foes. Capt
Eddie Rickenbacker alone ac
counted for 26.
Between Wars. Lethargy
set in again. After the Armis
tice, U.S. Army planes were
stacked in piles and burned.
by Kevin V.
America's independent Air Force is actually only
10 years old. For 40 years it was a branch o the
Army. Started as the aeronautical division of the
Signal Corps on Aug. 1, 1907, it became the Aviation
Section in 1914, the Army Air Service in 1918, the
Army Air Corps in 1926, and the Army Air Forces in
1941. It became the U.S. Air Force in 1947.
The most strident protest
came from Brig. Gen. Billy
Mitchell, a prophet without
honor until too late. Among
his prophecies:
Airplanes would sink
battleships.
Airplanes would cross
oceans and circle the globe.
There would be nation
wide commercial air routes.
Invasions would be made
by parachute.
Japan would attack
Hawaii and the Philippines
from the air.
There would someday be
a separate Air Force.
Airplanes would fly faster
than sound.
All this, remember, was
immediately after World War
I, when the airplane was still
little more than a kite.
Mitchell was court-martialed,
not because he knew too
much too soon, but because
he was too loud in saying so.
The Air Service remained a
minor branch of service, but
Army pilots went on broad
ening the boundaries of
' Future of air power may ride with guided missiles. Most air
men believe they are still in their infancy, and someday one
will be built to take man on that first' flight into the unknown.
Ilrown
flight so that they would
never again be the same.
Lieut. J. A. Macready
climbed to 34,508 feet (1921),
radically lifting the ceiling of
the sky; Army airmen made
the first round-the-world
flight (1924), shrinking the
earth; an Army reserve pilot,
Charles Lindbergh, soloed
nonstop from New York to
Paris (1927), dramatizing
flight as no one has done, be
fore or since; and Lieut. Jim
my Doolittle made the first
"blind" flight (1929), opening
the air to all-weather flying.
But by Pearl Harbor, we
were again caught in the
propwash of nations who had
flown ahead. Gen. Hap Arn
old, World War II chief of
staff, summed up the airman's
agony: "Between the wars
we had the time, but no
money. Now we'll get the
money, but we don't have the
time." They found the time,
though, and used it.
World War II. Starting with
fewer than 3,000 combat air
craft, we built a force of
nearly 80,000, and the Ameri
can pilots a new generation
this time again outflew and
outfought the enemy on all
fronts in ratios up to 5 to 1.
(In Korea, in the first jet
warfare, the ratio shot up to
14 to 1.) Strategic bombing,
an American invention, also
was developed to a fine art.
More than tuo million tons
of explosives were pinpointed
on targets from altitudes up
to 35,000 feet. And a single
bomb the one dropped on
Hiroshima from an Army B
29 ushered in a new age.
The Independent Air Force.
In 1947, the last two of Mit
chell's predictions came true,
20 years after his death. Capt.
Charles Yeager, flying the
Bell X-l rocket ship, explod
ed through the sound barrier
for the first time, and the
United States Air Force was
created, taking its stand as an
equal alongside the Army and
the Navy.
Where next for this young
giant? Lieut. Col. Pete Ever
est, who flew the X-l's big
brother, the X-2, to a record
1,900 miles per hour last
Summer, gave one airman's
answer. Sneaking to a group
of scientists who were study
ing the possibilities of flight
to the moon, Everest said,
"Gentlemen, when you build
that ship, I want to make that
trip to the moon."
Family Weekly, July 21. 1057
15