An Independent Air Force

  • Published
  • By William M. Clifton
  • 80th Flying Training Wing Historian
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  On Sept. 18, 1947, the United States Air Force was born. The National Security Act of 1947 created the U.S. Air Force along with the Department of the Air Force, which was realigned under the newly formed Department of Defense.

While this fact may seem mundane, it was a truly remarkable achievement that heralded a new chapter in American military history. The establishment of an independent Air Force reflected the culmination of nearly half a century of extraordinary effort on the part of a few determined visionaries. They understood that for airpower to achieve its full potential, it must exist as a separate military service.

The lineage of the U.S. Air Force goes back 40 years prior to this event. In 1907, the U.S. Army Signal Corps established the Aeronautical Division. The Signal Corps tasked this fledgling organization with "all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines and kindred subjects." Yet from the very beginning, the military establishment struggled with how to integrate airpower. "Air machines" were relatively untested in military roles.

Burdened with this new and uncertain technology, early American military aviation progressed slowly. The Wright brothers demonstrated powered flight in 1903, but the Signal Corps did not acquire its first airplane, a Wright flyer designated "Airplane No. 1," until 1909. By October 1912, the Signal Corps possessed 11 aircraft, and it established the 1st Aero Squadron the following year--nearly a decade after the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.

The 1st Aero Squadron first saw action in Gen. Pershing's punitive expedition against Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1916-1917. This ended in embarrassment for the aviators, failing to make the case for airpower to the American military establishment. But on the other side of the globe, World War I set a stage that allowed the world to witness a glimmer of what military aircraft were able to achieve. Aerial bombing and reconnaissance made decisive contributions to operations on all sides, and combatants quickly competed for control of the air. With this new weapon, coherent doctrines of air warfare began to emerge.

Despite the proven success of aerial combat, U.S. Army leaders still tended to see the airplane primarily as support for infantry, like field artillery or engineers. Local commanders, none of them aviators, continued to relegate air assets to narrow roles throughout the 1920s. In reaction, proponents of air power--most famously Maj. Gen. Billy Mitchell--became increasingly vocal in their efforts to promote an independent air force.

In the interwar period, a series of boards and commissions studied the question of air organization, with no result other than the name change to Air Corps in 1926. Nevertheless, the Air Corps made great strides during the 1930s. Emerging airpower doctrines, such as strategic bombing, began to make the case for an independent service. The notion of strategic bombing stressed targeting industrial sites with heavily armed long-range aircraft. Proponents argued that only an independent air force would be able to accomplish such complicated air operations.

World War II removed any doubt about the dominant role of the airplane in modern war. Army air forces grew from 20,000 men and 2,400 planes in 1939 to almost 2.4 million personnel and 80,000 aircraft in 1945. To facilitate this enormous expansion, the War Department rapidly established new bases and air organizations. Meanwhile, air staff planners worked furiously to create an independent institutional structure within the U.S. Army. Before 1939 the Army's air arm was a fledgling organization. By the end of the war, the Army Air Force had become a major military organization, comprised of numbered air forces, commands, divisions, wings, groups, squadrons and other organizations.

Gen. George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, took a major step in establishing the Army Air Forces, which controlled both the Air Corps and the Air Force Combat Command, in 1941. Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold assumed the new role of Chief of Army Air Forces and answered directly to Gen. Marshall. General Arnold and General Marshall agreed that the Army Air Forces would enjoy autonomy within the War Department until the end of the war, when it would become a fully independent service.

Amid the turbulence of war, key military planners were already looking to the future and considering what types of organizations and force structure would be needed in peacetime. They envisioned a permanent military establishment capable of defending America's interests by deterring war. An independent air force, many believed, would allow the nation to fully develop the awesome potential of aviation. This perseverance and dedication to planning enabled the signing of the National Security Act of 1947 and the creation of the United States Air Force.