A Concise History of the US Air Force - Air Force Historical Studies ...

No one in the Air Service was particularly keen on flying close
air support in trench warfare. Most airmen thought it unglamorous, mar-
ginally effective, and dangerous. What then could air power do, especial-
ly with advanced technology? The War Department General Staff already
knew what it wanted from its airmen-close air support, reconnaissance,
interdiction, and air superiority over the battlefield. The Dickman Board,
named for its chairman, Major General Joseph Dickman, appointed in
1919 by General Pershing to evaluate the lessons of the war, concluded:
“Nothing so far brought out in the war shows that aerial activities can be
carried on, independently of ground forces, to such an extent as to affect
materially the conduct of the war as a whole.”
‘She Air Service could hardly contradict this judgment. Its heavy
bomber at the time was the French-built Breguet. A veteran of the Great
War with a range of 300 miles and a top speed of 100 miles per hour, it
could only carry a 500-pound bomb load. In the postwar demobilization,
by 1920 the Air Service was reduced to fewer than 2,200 officers and
8,500 enlisted men. To formulate basic doctrine for the fledgling air force
and train officers, Air Service Chief Major General Charles Menoher
established the Air Service Tactical School at Langley Field in Virginia,
later to become the Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field in
Alabama. He made Brooks and Kelly Fields in Texas responsible for
flight training and the Engineering Division at McCook Field in Ohio,
later to become the Materiel Division at nearby Wright Field, responsible
for flight technology. Congress provided the Air Service a measure of
independence, changing it from an auxiliary force to an offensive force
equal to the artillery and infantry, by creating the U.S. Army Air Corps
on July 2, 1926.
Other aerial pioneers sought to test the versatility of aircraft
through aerial exploration and discovery in a succession of record-setting
flights. In 1921 Lieutenant John Macready climbed to 35,409 feet, high-
er than anyone before. In 1923 Macready and Lieutenant Oakley Kelly
flew a Fokker T-2 nonstop across the width of the United States. In 1924
several Air Service crews led by Major Frederick Martin took 175 days
to fly around the world. In 1925 Lieutenants Jimmy Doolittle and Cy
Bettis won the Pulitzer and Schneider Cup speed races for the Air
Service. Major Carl Spatz (later spelled Spaatz), Captain Ira Eaker,
Lieutenant Elwood Quesada, and Sergeant Roy Hooe flew the Fokker tri-
motor Question Mark to a record duration of 150 hours in 1929, display-
ing the great promise of inflight refueling. Doolittle and Lieutenant
Albert Hegenberger achieved what the New York Times called the “great-
est single step forward in [aerial] safety”-a series of blind flights from
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