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Sat August 22, 2009 9:53am
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The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the predecessor of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) from 1926-41, which in turn was the forerunner of today's U.S. Air Force (USAF), established in 1947. Although abolished as an organization in 1941, it existed as a branch subordinate to the USAAF from 1941-47.
The Air Corps was created from the Air Service in 1926 largely as a compromise between advocates of a separate air arm and those of the command structure of the United States Army who viewed the aviation arm as an auxiliary branch to support the ground forces. Although its members worked to promote the concept of airpower and an autonomous air force between 1926 and 1941, as a branch of the Army similar to the Signal Corps or Quartermaster Corps, its primary purpose by Army policy remained support of ground forces rather than independent operations.
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webmaster
Registered: March 2006
Posts: 3166
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Sat August 22, 2009 9:53am
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The Lassiter Board, a group of General Staff officers, recommended to the Secretary of War in 1923 that the Air Service be replaced by a force of bombardment and pursuit units to carry out independent missions under the command of an Army general headquarters in time of war. The Lampert Committee of the House of Representatives went far beyond this modest proposal in its report to the House in December 1925. After eleven months of extensive hearings, the committee proposed a unified air force independent of the Army and Navy, plus a department of defense to coordinate the three armed services.
Another board, headed by Dwight Morrow, had already reached an opposite conclusion in only two and one-half months. Appointed in September 1925 by President Calvin Coolidge ostensibly to study the "best means of developing and applying aircraft in national defense" but in actuality to minimize the political impact of the pending court-martial of Billy Mitchell and to preempt the findings of the Lampert Committee, the Morrow Board issued its report two weeks before the Lampert Committee's. In accordance with the views of the President, it rejected the idea of a department of defense and a separate department of air, but it recommended several minor reforms including that the Air Service be renamed the Air Corps to allow it more prestige, that it be given special representation on the General Staff, and that an Assistant Secretary of War for Aviation be appointed. The Air Corps retained the "Prop and Wings" as its branch insignia through its disestablishment in 1947.
Congress accepted the Morrow Board proposal, and the Air Corps Act (44 Stat. 780) was enacted on 2 July 1926. The legislation changed the name of the Air Service to the Air Corps, "thereby strengthening the conception of military aviation as an offensive, striking arm rather than an auxiliary service." The act created an additional Assistant Secretary of War to help foster military aeronautics, and it established an air section in each division of the General Staff for a period of three years. Other provisions required that all flying units be commanded by rated personnel and that flight pay be continued. Two additional brigadier generals would serve as assistant chiefs of the Air Corps. The Chief of the Air Service, Maj. Gen. Mason Patrick, then became Chief of the Air Corps.
The position of the air arm within the Department of War remained essentially the same as before, that is, the flying units were under the operational control of the various ground forces corps commands and not the Air Corps, which remained responsible only for procurement of aircraft, maintenance of bases, supply, and training. Even the new position of Assistant Secretary of War for Air, held by F. Trubee Davison from 1926 to 1932, was of little help in promoting autonomy for the air arm.
The act for the Air Corps gave authorization to carry out a five-year expansion program. However, the lack of funding caused the beginning of the five-year expansion program to be delayed until 1 July 1927. The goal eventually adopted was 1,800 airplanes with 1,650 officers and 15,000 enlisted men, to be reached in regular increments over a five-year period. But even this modest increase never came about because adequate funds were never appropriated in the budget and the coming of the Great Depression forced reductions in pay and modernization. Organizationally the Air Corps did double from seven to fifteen groups.
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