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Published Airpower Journal - Winter 1997
IN MAY 1945, in a small San Francisco hotel room overlooking the bay, Maj Gen Muir S. Fairchild formally reviewed his 28-year career in the Army Air Forces (AAF).1 In his mind, it had been a memorable one—a virtual “rags to riches” story from the military point of view. He had entered the Washington National Guard as a private in 1916 and by the end of World War I, had received a commission, attended flight school, and flown in bomber combat missions with the French air forces over Germany. After the war, Fairchild won a regular commission, became a test pilot, and attended the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) at Maxwell Field, Alabama, the Army Industrial College, and the Army War College at Washington, D.C.2 One of his most momentous adventures was his trip with Capt Ira Eaker—the Pan-American Goodwill Flight to South America (1926–27)—as a result of which he became one of the first airmen to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross.
In 1937 Fairchild was assigned as an instructor at ACTS, and within two years he was promoted to permanent major and became director of the Department of Air Tactics and Strategy (a department that one historian called the most important at the school). As war became imminent, his reputation and connections with some of the most senior officers in the Air Corps paved the way to his assignments in the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps. He was appointed secretary of the newly formed Air Staff (1941) and then the assistant chief of the Air Corps and promoted to brigadier general. In March 1942, when Fairchild was named director of military requirements, he pinned on his second star. In November, Hap Arnold, commanding general of AAF, selected him to work closely with the three-member Joint Strategic Survey Committee of the Office of the Combined Chiefs of Staff.3 From that position and through living at Fort Myer, Virginia, he came to know some of the key senior military leaders of the midtwentieth century, including Arnold, George C. Marshall, and Ernest King. Fairchild worked closely with Stanley Embick and Russell Wilson, and renewed friendships with Eaker, Hoyt Vandenberg, Larry Kuter, Haywood Hansell, and Gordon Saville. Although Fairchild felt overlooked for a combat command, he made significant contributions to the formalization of Air War Plans Division, Plan 1 (AWPD-1) and AWPD-42 and became, as David MacIsaac asserts, “the intellectual father of the Strategic Bombing Survey.”4
Yet, as Fairchild reminisced in his hotel room, these events seemed irrelevant and part of a time that was rapidly coming to a close. Shortly, he would be attending the opening session of the United Nations (UN) Conference on International Organization at the request of Edward Stettinius, but thoughts turned toward his future.5 The war in Europe was over. Japan, he reasoned, would capitulate within a year, and people who had served in combat commands overseas would be coming home to claim the good jobs that they had earned as “heroes.” Rather than take some assignment overseas and be a burden to theater commanders, who neither needed nor wanted a two-star butting into their business, Fairchild hoped that the War Department might have some plans for him. He even liked the idea that John McCloy thought of him as an “elder statesman for the War Department.” Nevertheless, should his friend Ira Eaker, now deputy commander of AAF, suggest that he look for a job overseas, Fairchild would “thank him kindly” but say no and retire. Fairchild wanted to be needed by AAF. If his “services were no longer required,” he would not go “somewhere just for the job.”6 Indeed, he and his wife, Florence, had their eyes on a small ranch in Rancho Santa Fe, California, and hoped to be living there soon.7
Even as Fairchild thought about the future, several senior generals and their staffs were working on plans for the postwar AAF. One of their central concerns was the establishment of a series of schools and colleges for professional military education (PME). Generals such as Arnold, Eaker, Vandenberg, and Donald Wilson were convinced that wartime technological innovation and the success of the air campaign demanded a school system separate from that of the Army.8 As early as 1942, AAF leaders described the need for reopening ACTS and establishing the Air War College (AWC).9 By 1944 it became obvious that such a postwar system of officer education must be developed because of AAF’s need to train its officer corps and to establish an educational precedent for its separation from the Army—and because many AAF senior leaders had attended Army professional schools and found them wanting.
By mid-August 1945, senior AAF leaders argued vehemently that the war had squarely placed AAF in the vanguard of technological wars of the future and that it deserved the status of a separate service. Not all people agreed, however. As early as 1944, some members of the War Department questioned the decisiveness of the strategic campaign in Europe.10 When Fairchild, then a member of the Joint Strategic Survey, received word that the air campaign in Europe was being seriously questioned, he suggested to General Arnold that an independent committee be established to study the AAF’s effect on industrial centers in Germany. Impressed with the quality of civilian speakers he had listened to when attending the Army Industrial College in 1936, Fairchild believed that it would be both politically and intellectually worthwhile to obtain the most qualified academics and industrialists to assess the effect of the air campaign in Europe. As the plan evolved, the Committee of Operations Analysts received a course on strategic air warfare from Fairchild. After intensive efforts, the committee reported that the campaign had been essential to victory over the Germans. These well- respected civilians provided a credible deterrent to anti–air force arguments. With the end of the war, civilian and many military leaders and analysts alike agreed that, with the advent of nuclear technology and long-range delivery systems, the next war would be fast and atomic—and would occur on American soil.11 The strength of this argument, coupled with the AAF’s showing during the war, ensured the AAF a place next to the Army and Navy in the new National Military Establishment created in September 1947.12
Despite general agreement that AAF deserved a separate military role in the postwar world, the trend toward joint military education seemed to undercut the need for a separate educational system for air officers. In light of the lesson learned in the war and the emphasis on postwar defense unification, top Army generals such as Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower questioned the need for the services to maintain separate professional education systems.13 From 1944 to 1947, several attempts to define postwar PME ended in the decision either to continue the various services’ school systems or to establish a series of joint schools (which in essence would replace the other service schools).14 Although the Army chose to keep its war college closed, both the Navy and AAF pursued plans for the continuation of their separate school systems.15 Fairchild noted in The Army Times that recent developments in long-range supersonic aircraft and nuclear weapons, along with the possibility of guided missiles, broadened the scope of airpower and demanded an educational system that prepared leaders and planners for global war beyond the magnitude heretofore considered.16
Ultimately, each of the armed services would maintain a separate educational system, but a new series of joint schools, known as National Defense University, would be added; this university would provide capstone courses in an officer’s professional career. Nevertheless, during 1945 and 1946, AAF’s hopes for a separate school system seemed threatened by a push toward unification. Generals Eaker and Vandenberg reasoned that if AAF were to create an “Air University,” it would have to be “the best military school in the world.”17 Once so recognized, no person, agency, or department could cavalierly discard it. Moreover, the creation of a separate postwar education system for AAF would help demonstrate the uniqueness of air forces and help further the cause of separation.
Creating the “best military school in the world” would take much planning, as well as a respected leader who was part visionary, part taskmaster, and all air force. Records are sketchy on the reasons for Fairchild’s selection: he had no college degree but was well known for his even temper and integrity, superior knowledge of air strategy and doctrine, and—most of all—his keen mind.18 Many high-ranking officers had referred to him as the “brains of the Air Force” because of his penetrating insights as well as his ability to synthesize disparate views into what many people referred to as the “big picture.”19 Certainly, he was highly respected by civilians in the War Department as well as by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), especially Marshall and Arnold.20 His record on the Joint Strategic Survey, along with his work on the air war plans and Strategic Bombing Survey, gave him a reputation as a global thinker who understood the interface between war, society, and industry.
For such a position as commander of the new postwar schools, he was perhaps academically unparalleled in AAF because of his attendance at the Army Industrial College and the Army War College, his training at the AAF Engineering School at Dayton, Ohio (later named the Air Force Institute of Technology), and his work as a test pilot and later as an instructor and chief of air tactics and strategy at ACTS. He also had good friends such as Vandenberg, who as A-3 (Operations) was in charge of outlining the postwar school system. Eaker knew Fairchild’s intellectual abilities, his meticulous work habits, and his dedication to duty. Arnold saw Fairchild as an intellect, a doer, an eloquent spokesman, and a firm believer in airpower.21 When Fairchild’s name was brought up to head the AAF school and future Air University (AU) system, undoubtedly Arnold and Eaker (given most of the other air leaders’ penchants for education) were relieved that Fairchild was available and willing to take on the project.
Eaker offered the job to General Fairchild in late August or early September of 1945, recognizing that Fairchild was still committed to the UN conference and to his job with the JCS. The first war college course was scheduled to begin in early September of 1946. Because Fairchild was unable to take the job of commandant until relieved from JCS in December of 1945, an acting commandant would be appointed until then. Eaker and Vandenberg agreed that Fairchild should have the choice of the best people available for administrators and instructors—of course, other commands also wanted them.22 Fairchild asked that David Schlatter, his former director of air support at the Department of Military Requirements, be his vice commandant and acting commandant until Fairchild could take full-time command.23 Gen Joe Cannon, Schlatter’s boss, initially said “no” to the reassignment because he thought it was something for the “boys in the backroom [in Washington, D.C.] to do.”24 Arnold convinced him otherwise. In September Schlatter was reassigned, assuming command of the AAF School on 8 November 1945.25
Further discussions among Eaker, Fairchild, and Vandenberg resulted in an agreement about the broad philosophy that should govern the AAF School. The crucial aspect of the policy focused on what some people had suggested as early as 1940—that a school should consist of a tactical course, a command and staff course, and an air war course.26 They further agreed that the schools should be geographically colocated at Maxwell, Gunter, and Craig Fields and placed under Headquarters AAF.27 Eventually, these schools would become the Air Tactical School and the Air Command and Staff School (ACSS); the advanced course would become AWC. These schools, according to Arnold’s directive, would then be placed under the centralized control and direction of AU.28 Fairchild, who recognized the importance of initial directives in setting precedents, ensured that the directive included a clause that stressed the schools’ focus on innovation (not traditionalism) because students must be prepared “for future wars and not for past wars.”29 In addition to officer professional education, the directive assigned the AAF School with broad supervision over the AAF Engineering School.
Eaker, Vandenberg, and Fairchild also agreed that AWC was the most important course at the AAF School. It would set the tone and establish the reputation for AAF’s system of educating its officers generally. Schlatter, as acting commandant, was assigned to help construct the curriculum for the Command and Staff school (which was to open in September 1946), as well as recruit the necessary instructors and staff personnel to run the entire AAF program.30 Fairchild, when not busy with his duties as a delegate to the UN convention or at JCS, was to conceptualize the overall mission of the AAF School/AU, recruit the commandant for AWC, and help devise the curriculum for the air war course that was to begin in September 1946.
With the exception of a few trips to the West Coast, from mid-November through December 1945, Fairchild stayed in Washington to discuss the proposed university with other senior officers and to work out the larger plan for putting it into service.31 By 26 November, Fairchild had envisioned an AU system that consisted of “several schools and at least one college” which would embrace a new philosophy of PME.32 In a letter to Isaiah Bowman, president of Johns Hopkins University, Fairchild noted that
this system of schools must take into account an entire new world of war fighting. Considering this new world that lies ahead with its atomic bombs, guided missiles, bacteriological warfare and the prospective startling developments of scientific warfare in general, it is mandatory that the Army Air Forces school system be brought up to the highest standards of modern education, not only in the tactical field but in the technical and strategic fields as well.33
Fairchild postulated that future air officers would face situations unknown to those living in 1946. He believed that they must be educated in all facets of air warfare and the administration of its forces. Air officers must have technological breadth in order to be open to emerging scientific technologies; the ability to understand tactical doctrines and employment; and the ability to think in global strategic terms.34 These officers could not be parochial or believe that airpower alone would solve the nation’s military problems. Finally, there should be something of the statesman in all senior officers; that is, they should be well read, educated broadly, and willing to consider the creation and implementation of military policy from a number of different perspectives. In order to do this, Fairchild believed that AAF’s educational system must take officers from their initial assignments, teach them a technical specialty, send the most technologically proficient to advanced civilian schools, and then train them in the professional aspects of their jobs, from squadron leader through wing commander and beyond.35
The first professional school would resemble the old ACTS.36 Now called the Air Tactical School, its mission was to offer instruction in the tactical employment of fighter and bomber aircraft; it would later cover guided missiles as well.37 All tactical officers (not technical officers) would attend this school at some point during the first four years of service. Much of the instruction would focus on preparing officers for “general squadron duties, including squadron command, and would stimulate their thinking and encourage individual study.”38 The course would also include an introduction to military geography and, in time, air intelligence and public relations. According to Fairchild, geography and intelligence were “of cardinal importance to the air officer of the future,” because they related directly to targeting. Public relations was the key to making Americans aware of AAF’s roles and budgetary needs.39 Finally, after reading hundreds of after-action reports of officers during the war, he wanted to make sure that the course offered remedial training in reading and writing—“especially in the preparation of clear, logical, and concise staff memoranda and reports.”40
The second phase—ACSS—would admit the best qualified officers at the 10th year of service. It would prepare them for group and wing command as well as staff duty at all echelons, from the squadron through the Air Staff. Fairchild wanted the course to provide intensive coverage of all aspects of air warfare through the operations of air forces.41 In-depth courses on geopolitics, geography, and intelligence collection rounded out the curriculum.42 ACSS would offer courses in logic, clear thinking, and the formulation of sound conclusions. Instructors would teach remedial English, both written and spoken.43
AWC, according to Fairchild’s conceptualization, would select only the best senior officers with at least 12 and no more than 20 years in the service. This advanced course would stress the “broad aspects of war from the national viewpoint.” In other words, the course would teach students how to relate large air forces to grand strategy and then how to make air, ground, and naval power work together to meet those objectives. The type of instruction to create such global thinkers would vary from preassigned problems completed in seminars (or by committees) to lectures by outstanding civilian and military personnel.44 A course on world politics would be added later.45
After reading Fairchild’s extensive discourse on the underpinnings of this new AU concept, Bowman agreed to serve on a Board of Visitors that would advise the commanding general on the “proper way” to introduce such “modern education” into AAF’s curriculum. Fairchild also wrote educators at Harvard and MIT, as well as some in the University of California system, relating the same details about the purpose of AU and seeking their advice.46 Based on their response, Fairchild began concentrating on AWC. First, he sought the “right” person for the commandant’s position. Then he worked toward Eaker’s admonition to create the most outstanding senior service school “in the world.”
Fairchild knew whom he wanted as the War College’s commandant. He had known Orvil Arson Anderson since his days at ACTS. Anderson was blunt, bombastic, and overly exuberant at times, but he knew air theory and strategy as it related to World War II better than anyone, including Fairchild himself.47 An air pioneer, like Fairchild, he had made the Explorer I balloon flight into the stratosphere in 1933; was later a test pilot at Wright Field, Ohio; and had attended ACTS, Chemical Warfare School, and Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In June 1943, he had gone to Europe as the chairman of the Combined Operational Planning Committee, which planned operations for the strategic bombing offensive. In 1944 he became the deputy commander of operations for Eighth Air Force. As the European war moved toward a close, Fairchild was instrumental in getting him selected as senior military advisor to the Strategic Bombing Survey. Experience and background made Anderson conversant in all aspects of airpower, especially those that related to the application of Allied air offenses to industrial targets. Fairchild was positive that he needed Anderson now. The significant problem was getting him assigned to the AAF School system.48 The Strategic Bombing Survey would not release him until the late summer of 1946, too late to be of much help in designing AWC’s initial organization and curriculum.
Lacking a commandant for AWC, Fairchild became heavily involved in organizing and staffing the college, and in determining the correct model of instruction for senior officers. Unlike some AAF officers, Fairchild had attended the Army War College and had actually liked the instruction he received there. He wrote to Anderson, “I am convinced that the [Air War College] should be run on the model of the old Army War College [because their only problem] was the material, not the methods of presentation. The scope of the Army War College course was very narrow and not all that imaginative, but . . . the method of presentation and instruction was truly excellent.”49 Fairchild later promised AU students that they would never see a map of Gettysburg (not the first, second, or third day) during their stay at Maxwell.50
What Fairchild wanted was a seminar/committee system in which senior officers considered a specific problem and then listened to a lecture on the subject by a variety of industrial and military experts. He wanted discussion, problem solving, and creative thinking to highlight each seminar. Much like graduate school, the college would force senior officers to think, share ideas, and receive critical feedback. Fairchild and Anderson agreed that the war had demonstrated how quickly new technology had made many prewar tactics and doctrines obsolete. Instruction at AWC must “forego doctrine and resort to logic.” Officers in this new age of war must attend a school whose focus was not on historical examples or models but on projections and possibilities. AWC, like AU in general, was to be a “prewar,” not a postwar, school.51 This format had practical justifications. Given the incoming class’s experience in World War II, most of the senior officers attending the course would know as much as their instructors, if not more. From a staffing perspective, the number of course instructors could be kept to a minimum.52
Anderson did not take command of the college until August, so Fairchild and the growing AWC staff continued to flesh out the first year’s curriculum. Ultimately, the nine-month course would include three phases.53 First, the academic phase stressed overcoming service-oriented parochialism through the study of the “psychology of thinking and problem solving.” Civilian educators taught a course in basic logic and the scientific method in order to understand bias, prejudice, doctrine, and dogma—and to eliminate them. Another significant part of the course introduced the student to management principles “in order that senior officers might more effectively and economically manage” large installations, research facilities, and huge armadas of aircraft. Again, civilian educators and industrialists were brought in to lecture on how to adapt these principles to military situations.
The second part of the course, the evaluation phase, built on these methods and management principles. Because there was to be no school solution, the curriculum presented the students with background factors that affected a problem. Distinguished military officers and civilians presented lectures bearing on the problem. Instructors then issued a bibliography for the students’ reading and research. The seminar group of five to seven students discussed the problem and then came up with its own solution. The group presented its findings to the entire student body for critique and possible synthesis into a composite student solution. During the first year of classes, students developed a model for evaluating battle scenarios and applied it to the strategy and conduct of World War II.
The final part of the course, known as the projection phase, aimed at helping students understand how air strategy is only one component of military strategy, just as military strategy is only one component of national strategy. The faculty introduced current military problems such as the air defense of the United States, postwar military posturing, joint-service strategy, and ways of extending the range of weapons. Students analyzed these problems from various political, economic, social, and military perspectives and worked out a potential solution. The outcome of these seminars was often sent to the Air Staff for consideration and possible implementation.54
Although Fairchild spent a great deal of time working on AWC’s curriculum, other problems also called for immediate solutions. He had to find good instructors, establish a working relationship with the major commands, schedule renowned lecturers, and help devise curricula for the other professional schools. One of his biggest concerns was the division of subject areas. What he did not want was a school that was divided into “old” categories such as bombing, pursuit, tactical matters, and reconnaissance. AU, like AAF, must stress airpower as an integral whole. Neither AAF nor AU should be divided into a series of fiefdoms.55 Moreover, he was concerned that the major commands would send him their worst personnel rather than their best.56 He wanted A-1 (Personnel) and A-3 of the Air Staff to personally take charge of assignment to the schools.57 Finally, Fairchild wanted AU to have major-command status in order to have the bureaucratic power to go head-to-head with certain major-command commanders, namely Joe Cannon, George Kenney, and Pete Quesada.
Fairchild officially took command of the AAF School on 20 December 1945, with a mandate to create the “best school in the world.”58 The institution’s name would change to Air University on 12 March 1946 (it was made a separate command on 4 January 1946).59 Doors would open to students on 3 September of that year. Fairchild’s inaugural address spoke of the future of war as well as the role that AU would take in “educating and producing” future planners and leaders who would design an air force that hopefully would “never be used.” But should it fail as a deterrent force, it must also be an air force that could restore peace on “terms acceptable to us.” Peace, to paraphrase General Fairchild, was indeed the AAF’s profession.60
In 1954 Lieutenant General Kuter told graduating students of ACSS about Muir Fairchild’s contributions to AU. Kuter, like many of his contemporaries, found Fairchild a visionary and an intellect who was able to marry his profound understanding of airpower to officer education. “The success that has been attained by the AU—using the organization, methods, and aims, which [Fairchild] conceived and set in motion—is a tribute to his wisdom and judgment,” Kuter reflected.61 Fairchild, prior to his death on active duty in 1950, became the vice chief of the Air Force, but his time in that office was by far eclipsed by his tenure as AU’s first commander.
When Fairchild contemplated his future in the AAF in May 1945, he hoped to receive an assignment that demonstrated that AAF still needed him. Hoping that some people might even come to see him as an elder statesman in the War Department, he had no idea how much influence he would have on AAF and the future Air Force. His ultimate contribution was not from the cockpit; or as a leader of bombing groups in World War II; or as a leader at ACTS and JCS; or as a delegate to the UN conference; or as the “intellectual father of the Strategic Bombing Survey.” His greatest contribution was not even the school system that he inaugurated. Rather, it was his role as a professional Air Force officer and the inculcation of that role into the curriculum of the Air University system. Part visionary, part philosopher, part technical specialist, part warrior, part statesman—and all Air Force—Fairchild set the model of Air Force officership for the rest of the twentieth century and beyond. That was his ultimate contribution, and that is why even today his influence is felt, as Kuter eloquently put it, “in ever widening circles.”62
Notes
1. Muir Fairchild to Florence Fairchild, letter, 9 May 1945, Fairchild Personal Papers, in possession of Mrs. Betty Calvert (Fairchild’s daughter), Newport News, Va. One correspondent characterized Fairchild as the “unknown general” who was the “general manager of the Air Force”; indeed, little has been written about his life and Air Force career. Two articles that provide a good overview of Fairchild’s career are Maj Gen Haywood S. Hansell Jr., “Gen. Muir S. Fairchild: Strategist, Statesman, Educator,” Air Force Magazine, January 1979, 72–74; and Kenneth Schaffel, “Muir S. Fairchild: Philosopher of Air Power,” Aerospace Historian, September 1986, 165–71. See also Peter Edson, “Death of ‘Unknown General’ Was Hard Blow to Air Force,” c. May 1950, Fairchild Personal Papers, Newport News, Va. An interesting but incomplete assessment of Fairchild’s effect on AU is Maj Charles H. Mitchell, “Impact of General Muir S. Fairchild on the Air University and the USAF,” ACSS Report, 86-1770, Air University Library, Maxwell AFB, Ala.
2. Fairchild was born on 2 September 1894. One can find a good biographical sketch, dated 2 September 1942, in his papers at the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), Maxwell AFB, Ala.
3. One can find a description of his work on this committee in a briefing paper attached to a short biographical sketch of Fairchild. See Fairchild Papers, 1942, AFHRA. See also Mark Stoler, “From Continentalism to Globalism: General Stanley Embick, the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, and the Military View of National Policy during the Second World War,” Diplomatic History, Summer 1982, 303–21.
4. David MacIsaac, Strategic Bombing in World War II: The Story of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1976), 24.
5. Muir Fairchild to Edward R. Stettinius, secretary of state, letter, 2 April 1945, Fairchild Papers, 1945, AFHRA. See also program, closing plenary session, United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, Calif., 26 June 1945, Fairchild Personal Papers, Newport News, Va.
6. Fairchild letter to Florence Fairchild.
7. R. M. Clotfelter to A. S. Barrows, letter, 28 July 1949, Fairchild Personal Papers, Newport News, Va.
8. Maj Gen Donald Wilson, commander of the AAF Center, Orlando, Fla., and former instructor at ACTS, formulated his own plan for the Postwar School System and argued for an AAF University with centralized control. See Maj Gen F. L. Anderson, memorandum to General Vandenberg, subject: Wilson’s Proposal, 17 August 1945, National Archives. Wilson was also a member of the Gerow Board (see note 14).
9. One can find discussion about the need for a separate staff college in Col Harvey Holland, chief, Training Literature Section, memorandum to director of individual training, 14 September 1942, National Archives.
10. Hansell, 73–74.
11. Muir S. Fairchild, “Thinking and Planning for the Future,” The Pegasus, June 1948, 1–3. See also Fairchild, “The Air University,” draft copy for article in Army Times, December 1946, Fairchild Papers, Library of Congress.
12. Lt Col Donald Wilkins, Office of Information Services, to chief, Combined Chiefs of Staff (Fairchild), letter, 18 October 1945, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
13. “General George C. Marshall and the Question of Postwar Advanced Military Education,” copy in the Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.
14. The best known of the attempts was the Gerow Board. See Report of War Department Military Education Board on Educational Systems for Officers of the Army, 1945, copy in the Air University Library.
15. [Author unknown—probably General Fairchild], memorandum to General Vandenberg, subject: Comments on AAF Board Project 47-75, 1945, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
16. Muir Fairchild to Army Times, draft letter, December 1946, Fairchild Papers, Library of Congress. See also Maj Gen David M. Schlatter, “Conditioning Minds to Meet a Changing Military World,” The Pegasus, June 1948, 5–7, 16.
17. Ira Eaker to Muir Fairchild, letter, 20 December 1945, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
18. Georgetown University conferred an honorary doctor of military science on Fairchild on 28 September 1947 for his contributions during the war and at Air University. See “Honorary Degree Citation,” 28 September 1947, Fairchild Personal Papers, Newport News, Va.
19. Gen William F. McKee, transcript of oral history interview by Maj Alan Gropman, May 1973, 4, AFHRA.
20. In fact, two respected Air Force generals, when asked about the greatest generals they had known, quickly cited George C. Marshall and Muir S. Fairchild. See Maj Gen Gordon Saville, transcript of oral history interview by Thomas A. Sturm, March 1973, AFHRA; and Maj Gen Haywood S. Hansell Jr., transcript of oral history interview, 19 April 1967, AFHRA.
21. Saville interview, 344–45.
22. General Fairchild, memorandum to Major General Partridge, AC/AS-3, subject: Instructor and Student Personnel, 1946, 2–3, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
23. One can find Fairchild’s sanguine opinion of Schlatter in General Fairchild, memorandum to General Arnold, subject: Promotion of Col David M. Schlatter to Brigadier General, 20 November 1942, Fairchild Personal Papers, Newport News, Va.
24. Lt Gen David M. Schlatter, transcript of interview, 6 May 1970, 8, Murray Green Collection, United States Air Force Academy Library.
25. Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey, deputy chief of Air Staff, memorandum to Maj Gen David Schlatter, subject: Directive Re Army Air Forces School, 8 November 1945, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
26. James C. Shelburne, “Factors Leading to the Establishment of the Air University” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1953), 191–92. See also Billy J. Tolson, “A History of Air University” (PhD diss., University of Oklahoma, 1983).
27. Lt Gen Hoyt Vandenberg, memorandum to Gen Ira Eaker, subject: Establishment of the Army Air Forces School, 1 November 1945, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
28. A good description of this can be found in Fairchild’s comments to a conference of AAF major commands. See “AAF Educational Program,” Army and Navy Journal, 2 March 1946.
29. Chauncey memorandum. See also “Address of Maj. General Muir S. Fairchild before Meeting of Military Order of the World Wars,” Atlanta, Ga., 5 April 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
30. Lt Gen John W. Carpenter III, transcript of oral history interview by Lt Col Arthur W. McCants Jr. and Maj Scottie S. Thompson, January 1970, 106–8, AFHRA.
31. Muir S. Fairchild to Lt Gen Barton K. Yount, letter, 23 November 1945, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
32. Muir S. Fairchild to Isaiah Bowman, PhD, letter, 26 November 1945, 1, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA; and Maj Gen Matthew K. Deichelman, transcript of oral history interview by Lt Col John N. Dick, 3 February 1976, 129, AFHRA.
33. Fairchild letter to Bowman.
34. Guido R. Perera to Maj Gen Muir S. Fairchild, letter, 27 November 1946, 3–4, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
35. Maj Gen Hugh Knerr, memorandum to commanding general, AAF, 20 February 1946, subject: Air University, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA. Fairchild agreed with the first four points of the Knerr memo. See General Fairchild, memorandum to General Spaatz, commanding general, AAF, 8 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA. He also made the plea that Maxwell (not Washington, D.C.) was the correct place for Headquarters AU as well as AWC. Evidently Spaatz agreed.
36. The best work on ACTS is Robert T. Finney’s History of the Air Corps Tactical School, 1920–1940 (reprint, Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993).
37. Muir Fairchild to Hugh Knerr, letter, subject: Reactions to the Air Board, 4 March 1946, National Archives.
38. Fairchild letter to Bowman.
39. Eaker letter to Fairchild.
40. Fairchild letter to Bowman.
41. General Fairchild, memorandum to Gen E. W. Barnes, subject: Certain Aspects of the Air Force Courses, 6 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
42. General Fairchild, memorandum to Gen E. W. Barnes, subject: Intelligence Instruction, 6 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA; and Gen E. W. Barnes to Bruce Hopper, Headquarters AAF, letter, 16 July 1946, Spaatz Collection, Library of Congress.
43. Barnes letter, 2.
44. Ibid., 2–3.
45. Bruce Hopper, memorandum to General Spaatz, subject: Report on Fairchild’s Briefing, 25 April 1946, Spaatz Collection, Library of Congress.
46. Carl Spaatz to Clarence A. Dykstra, provost, University of California at Los Angeles, letter, 27 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
47. Gen David A. Burchinal, transcript of interview, 1975, 80–81, David A. Burchinal Papers, Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.
48. General Fairchild, notes on trip to Washington, 15 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA. See also idem, notes on trip to Washington, 29 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
49. Muir Fairchild to Orvil A. Anderson, letter, 13 February 1946, 1–2, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA. For an example of Fairchild’s committee work while attending the Army War College, see Fairchild (committee no. 4, chairman), subject: High Command, 18 February 1937, Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pa.
50. Maj Gen Muir S. Fairchild, commanding general, Air University, address of welcome to students of AWC and ACSS, 3 September 1946, 8, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
51. Ibid.
52. Fairchild estimated that AWC would need four to six officer instructors. Hopper memorandum.
53. Maj Gen Orvil A. Anderson, “Teaching the Dynamics of Decisive Air Power,” The Pegasus, June 1948, 8–10, 16.
54. Presentation of AWC study on organization to AAF Air Board, subject: Problem, Organization of AAF upon Unification, 4 December 1946, Air War College Reports, National Archives.
55. Eaker was equally opposed to a return to the Army’s “old pre-war system” of separate corps. See Eaker letter to Fairchild. For Fairchild’s perspective, see “Report of AAF Educational Conference, 20–22 August 1946,” Maxwell AFB, Ala., 7, Gen E. W. Barnes Papers, AFHRA; and Saville interview, 350–51.
56. Muir Fairchild to Bruce Hopper, PhD, letter, 17 August 1946, Spaatz Collection, Library of Congress.
57. Fairchild memorandum to Partridge; and Hugh Knerr to C. C. Chauncey, deputy chief of the Air Staff, letter, subject: The Air Board, A-3, and Air University, 1 April 1946, National Archives.
58. Eaker letter to Fairchild.
59. A. W. Johnson, War Department Adjutant General’s Office, to Muir Fairchild, letter, subject: Redesignation of the Army Air Forces School, 12 March 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
60. Fairchild address of welcome; see also “Extract from Army - Navy Journal,” 7 September 1946, Fairchild Papers, AFHRA.
61. Lt Gen Laurence S. Kuter, dedication of the graduation exercises, squadron officer of ACSS, Air University, 19 March 1954, Kuter Collection, USAFA Library.
62. Ibid.
Contributor
Dr. Mark R. Grandstaff (BS, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; MA, Brigham Young University; PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor of American history at Brigham Young University and a Reserve major assigned as a historian to the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. While on active duty, he served as a missile combat crew commander in the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom AFB, Montana; as a member of the Air Force historian’s staff in Washington, D.C.; and as the AFROTC commandant of cadets at the University of California, Berkeley. He is an expert on the confluence between the military and society and has published extensively in that field. His most recent book, Foundation of the Force: Air Force Enlisted Policy, 1907–1956, is a pathbreaking look into the Air Force’s enlisted experience as well as a guide for future personnel-policy actions. He is currently working on a monograph that examines the origins of Air University and Air Force officer professionalism.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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