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

Air Force (USAF) gained its independence on September 18,1947, under
the Department of the Air Force, headed by Secretary of the Air Force
Stuart Symington. General Carl Spaatz was named the first Air Force
Chief of Staff.
At a time of demobilization, the National Security Act only post-
poned a confrontation between the Navy and Air Force over roles and
missions in an era of declining defense dollars. For over a century, the
Navy had been America’s first line of defense and its offensive arm over-
seas until the era of the long-range bomber and the atomic bomb. Air
power appealed to an American love of technology, a desire to avoid
heavy casualties, and to austerity-minded presidents like Harry Truman
and especially Dwight Eisenhower. The atomic bomb made air power the
preeminent force in the postwar world. Giant six- and later ten-engine
B-36 Peacemakers seemed to eclipse the Navy’s expensive and vulnera-
ble aircraft carriers in the nuclear world. A group of naval officers, led by
Admirals Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Operations, and Arthur Radford,
protested when budget restraints forced a Navy cutback from eight to four
carriers and the cancellation of a planned supercarrier, the USS United
States, large enough to launch atom bomb-carrying aircraft. The outbreak
of war in Korea in June 1950 ensured higher defense budgets and limited
further interservice contention.
Among the changes wrought by World War I1 for the U.S. Air
Force was that affecting its basic composition. What had been a predom-
inantly white male force became over time more representative of Ame-
rican diversity. African Americans had served in many roles during
World War 11, most visibly as fighter pilots in the 332d Fighter Group in
Italy. Their combat record helped pave the way for the full racial integra-
tion of the armed forces under President Truman’s July 1948 Executive
Order 9981 which stated: “There shall be equality of treatment and oppor-
tunity for all persons in the Armed Services without regard to race.” The
Air Force achieved racial integration quickly and smoothly, eliminating
its last segregated unit (the 332d Wing) in June 1949. American airmen
first fought together without racial separation during the Korean War-
Captain Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr., an African-American recognized
and decorated for his performance as a reconnaissance pilot, came out of
that experience. Equal opportunities and promotions for African
Americans came more slowly, however, causing several riots at Air Force
installations in the 1970s; but the service’s commitment to a strong equal
opportunity program erased remaining racial barriers. The armed services
in general were ahead of the rest of American society on this issue.
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