Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939

666 Pages·2003·106.45 MB·English

by  Maurer Maurer

GENERAL HISTORIES
Aviation in the US. Army,
19 19- 1939
Maurer Maurer
United States Air Force Historical Research Center
OFFICE OF AIR FORCE HISTORY
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1987
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dan
Maurer, Maurer.
Aviation in the U. S. Army, 1919-1939.
(General histories)
Bibliography: p. 587.
Includes index.
1. Aeronautics, Military-United States-History. 2. Cnited S7ari.h. krnq -
Aviation-History. I. Title. 11. Title: Aviation in the U. S. Arm). 1919-1939.
111. Series.
UG633.M323 1987 35 8.4’0097 3 87-12257
ISBN 0-912799-38-2
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, US. Government Printing Ofice
Washington, D.C. 20402
United States Air Force
Historical Advisory Committee
(As of December 31, 1986)
Ms. Kathleen A. Buck Dr. Haskell M. Monroe, Jr.
The General Counsel, USAF (Chairman)
University of Texas at El Paso
Mr. DeWitt S. Copp Dr. John H. Morrow, Jr.
United States Information Agency University of Tennessee at
Knoxville
Dr. Norman A. Graebner Gen. Thomas M. Ryan, Jr.,
University of Virginia USAF, Retired
Dr. Warren W. Hassler, Jr. Lt. Gen. Winfield W. Scott, Jr.,
Pennsylvania State University USAF
Superintendent, USAF Academy
Brig. Gen. Harris B. Hull, Lt. Gen. Truman C. Spangrud,
USAF, Retired USAF
Commander, Air University
...
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The Author
MAURER MAURER received his B.S. from Miami University, Ohio, and
his M.A. and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. Before joining the U.S.
Air Force Historical Program in 1950, he taught in Ohio public schools and
served as a musician in the U.S. Navy. While employed in the historical office
of the Air Materiel Command from 1950 to 1955, he taught during his off-
duty hours at Wittenberg College in Ohio. From 1955 until his retirement in
1983, Dr. Maurer worked in the United States Air Force Historical Research
Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. There he produced numerous
monographs, special studies, and articles on military and aviation history.
Among his books are the four-volume The US. Air Service in World War I;
'4ir Force Combat Units of World War II; and Combat Squadrons of the Air
Force, World War II. Dr. Maurer's published works also include a number of
papers on music in eighteenth-century Colonial America.
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Foreword
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 11. 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.
The Office of Air Force History wishes to express its special appreciation
to General Bryce Poe 11, USAF (Ret.), Major General Haywood S. Hansell,
Jr., USAF (Ret.), Dr. Robert Coakley, retired Deputy Chief Historian of the
U.S. Army, and Dr. Edgar Raines, historian at the U.S. Army Center of
Military History, all of whom served, along with historians from this office,
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as members of the final panel on the manuscript. The panel met at Bolling
Air Force Base in November 1981, reviewed the volume, and recommended
its publication.
RICHARD H. KOHN
Chief, Office of Air Force History
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A Personal Note
This book, a product of the US. Air Force historical program, has
grown out of a long-time personal interest in the early history of the United
States Air Force. After editing four volumes of documents on The US.A ir
Service in World War I (Washington: Office of Air Force History,
1978-1979), I set out to learn more about Army aviation between World
Wars I and 11. Books provided broad treatment of the subject; monographs
and articles covered many topics. But they did not tell all I wanted to know
about organization, manning, equipment, training, and operations, and
especially about what the airmen were doing and what Army flying was like
in the twenties and thirties. Many writings, cast in the same mold as the
histories one finds of armies without soldiers, told of air forces that never got
off the ground. I resolved to keep an eye on the sky.
Historical records and published works in the USAF Historical Re-
search Center and the Air University Library at Maxwell Air Force Base,
Alabama, enabled me to relive the past and fly with the Army. Once more the
bark of a motor overhead sent me (and every other boy in town) running out
to see the flying machine. Begging some money, I paid to go up and fly once
around the cow pasture. I soloed at Carlstrom Field, flew to Alaska with
“Bill” Streett, crossed the continent with Kelly and Macready, went around
the world with Lowell Smith, rode with “Elmie” Elmendorf to test an 0-2,
and made the night mail run from Cleveland to Chicago. I saw “Billy”
Mitchell sink the Ostfriesland and heard him threaten coal miners with tear
gas. I followed the battle over organization, sat through “Benny” Foulois’
efforts to defend himself before a hostile subcommittee, took in all the
Pulitzer races, watched Three Men on a Flying Trapeze put on their act,
sailed through a thunderstorm in a balloon with “Bill” Kepner, went out on
the range with the 19th Bombardment Group, and froze on an arctic patrol
with the 1st Pursuit Group. I learned much about the state of military
aviation in the early 1920s by watching a pilot whittle his rain-chewed
propeller, and from seeing a sergeant slide out on the tail of a DH-4 to
weight it for a fast landing. To find out what mobility meant to a
bombardment group in the mid-l930s, I not only flew with the bombers to an
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advance base but made a trip with the trucks bearing the group’s impedimen-
ta-all without leaving Building 1405 at Maxwell Air Force Base.
Curious about everything, I wanted to know where the Air Service got
its pilots, and how “Jimmy” Doolittle flew “blind.” How did “Bert” Dargue
and company prepare for a flight through South America? What went wrong
with the five-year program? How did George Brett miscalculate requirements
for depot reserves? How did “Barney” Oldfield land a formation of B-10s
through clouds? What went into survival kits for flights over water or jungle?
Why did pilots of A-12s run out of gas and crash with a full tank? While
looking into all of these things and more, 1 took time to accept an invitation
to Billy Mitchell’s despedida for the USS Alabama, watch Clarence Irvine
crash a plane for the movie Wings, attend one of “Hap” Arnold’s wingdings,
drop in on one of Mrs. Lackland’s teas, play polo at Kelly Field, and dance to
the sounds of the Tantalizing Hounds of Syncopated Jazz at Langley. Along
the way, I met hundreds of enlisted men, but few with names.
I put this into the draft of a book, which I planned as a descriptive rather
than an analytical work, detailed and specific rather than generalized, telling
of events rather than interpreting them, and dealing more with flying than
with national policy and airpower doctrine. Review of the manuscript in the
Office of Air Force History led to substantial changes. Revision deleted much
detail, summarized some topics, dropped others, omitted many examples, and
added some explanation and interpretation. So the work became something
more and something less, and something much different, than originally
intended.
Maurer Maurer
...
Vlll
Acknowledgments
Maj. Gen. John W. Huston, former Chief of the Office of Air Force
History, approved the original project; his successor, Dr. Richard H. Kohn,
directed its completion. Lloyd H. Cornett, Jr., Director, USAF Historical
Research Center, provided strong support, good advice, and excellent
criticism. Dr. Stanley Falk and Mr. Max Rosenberg, both formerly of the
Office of Air Force History, reviewed the early chapters; Mr. Herman S.
Wolk of the Office of Air Force History, and Col. John F. Shiner, then
Acting Head of the Department of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy,
critiqued the entire manuscript. Dr. Kohn, Gen. Bryce Poe I1 (USAF Ret.),
Maj. Gen. Haywood S. Hansell, Jr. (USAF Ret.), Col. John Schlight, Dr.
Robert W. Coakley, Dr. Edgar F. Raines, Mr. Warren A. Trest, Mr. Cornett,
and Mr. Wolk took part in a very profitable seminar on the revised draft. Drs.
Coakley and Raines submitted written notes and comments of great value.
Lois Wagner of the Historical Research Center handled typing and
editorial work on the draft and its several revisions. The author is indebted
also to Robert Lane, Director, and the staff, of Air University Library for
their help over many years, and especially to Bill Mardis and the crew at the
Circulation Desk, Helen Hopewell in the Periodical Room, Ruth Griffin in
the Interlibrary Loan Office, and Gurvis Lawson of the Cartographic
Division. Special thanks are owed to Ray Del Villar, Publishing Division,
Directorate of Administration, USAF, for his excellent and painstaking work
on the maps and charts.
Illustrations chosen for use in this volume are from the large body of
Signal Corps and Air Corps photography collected over the years in official
U.S. Army, Army Air Corps, and U.S. Air Force repositories. This material,
dating from the first decade of this century to the year 1954, has now been
consolidated in the holdings of the National Air and Space Museum,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Special thanks are due to Mr.
Dana Bell, Assistant Chief of Records Management at the National Air and
Space Museum, for his assistance in providing copies of rare aviation
photographs and identifying obscure variants of early military aircraft.
Sources for those few photographs procured from collections outside official
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Air Force holdings are specified in captions to provide appropriate credit to
individuals or institutions authorizing their use.
In the Editorial Branch of the Office of Air Force History, a number of
people made important contributions to preparing the manuscript for
publication. Mr. Eugene P. Sagstetter performed the editing of this manu-
script with grace and dedication. Also deserving much credit are Sgt. Rosalyn
L. Culbertson for typing the entire manuscript, Ms. Ann Caudle for proofing
the work, Ms. Bobbi Levien for copyediting the appendices, and Mrs. Joyce
Truett for applying the final corrections. Ms. Laura Hutchinson selected the
illustrations and designed the book. Mr. Jacob Neufeld, Acting Chief of the
Editorial Branch, closely reviewed the entire manuscript for publication.
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