Air University Review, November-December 1982

Seeds of Separation: The General Staff Corps
and Military Aviation Before World War

The early history of American military aviation is dominated by the perplexing conflict that long persisted between U.S. Army flying officers and their contemporaries who served on the War Department General Staff. Yet the precise nature of their differences has yet to be explored. When that inquiry is undertaken, we may discover new light concerning military and air power history in the opening decades of the twentieth century. Contemporaries and historians have usually concluded that the conservatism of the "Army brass" generated opposition to the interests of the Aeronautical Division. Although the simplicity of such an explanation is appealing, it immediately arouses skepticism.

If the General Staff Corps was composed of the brightest and most promising officers of the Army, why was it blind to the widespread use of the dirigible and airplane in European armies? Even conservative men alter their perspectives over the course of three decades; yet the General Staff/aviator tension continued unabated over the extended period from 1907 to 1941. Once the animosity is considered as a symptom of deeper conflict, it becomes clear that there were fundamental differences between the two camps that were accentuated by influences both within and outside the organization of the United States Army.

Basic to the struggle with the General Staff was the aviators’ concept of air power. By 1915, the General Staff Corps was willing to accept aerial reconnaissance and airborne artillery fire direction, but the Aviation Section was well on its way to asserting the offensive uses of air power: bombardment and strafing. Even more disruptive was the question, "Who should do conceptual and doctrinal thinking concerning military aeronautics?" As the principal organization for conceptual development in the Army, the General Staff Corps claimed the field; yet this involved not only a new group of weapon systems but also the conduct of warfare in a new dimension. The aviators felt that they, as the Army officers best acquainted with aerial technology and applications, were the ones best qualified to develop concepts and doctrine for aerial weapons. Ultimately, the debate over air power concepts was closely fused to the question of autonomy for aviation in the armed forces. The evolution of the goals was gradual—from 1907 through 1918 for "independence" from the Signal Corps, and after 1918 for an "independent air force"—but the driving force was always the airmen’s belief in the offensive use of air power and their unalterable conviction that control by ground commanders would cripple the use of the new airborne weapons.

Politics combined with air power concepts to shape the evolving tension between Army aviators and the General Staff. The political factors were two in number: the close relationship between flying officers and the aeronaut constituency and the close contact between Army aviators and the National Guard and naval militia establishments. Both connections contributed to a particular orientation of the Aeronautical Division and Aviation Section that favored ties with the civilian community and the citizen-militia component of military thought in the United States. Because of these relationships, the airmen were not unwilling to make direct approaches to their congressional flying associates when they sought support for flying activities. In this respect, they evidenced tendencies characteristic of the "Old Army," in which powerful bureau chiefs lobbied in the halls of Congress for their own interests, oblivious to the wishes of the Army’s commanding general. While the General Staff Corps and the Office of the Chief of Staff were established in 1903 to counter this centrifugal force in Army administration, the old tradition lingered on until the First World War. Successive chiefs of staff constantly struggled for their primacy over well-ensconced bureau chiefs. Army aviators were plunged into this organizational tempest more by the force of circumstances than from any discoverable personal convictions. Yet once having engaged in congressional lobbying, once having established ties with those upholding the militia tradition, the Aeronautical Division became a threat to the "New Army" and its professionalism, typified by the General Staff.¹ At an early date it became obvious that the self-interest of the General Staff—indeed the survival of the "New Army" itself—involved limiting the influence and challenging the credibility of officers assigned to the Aeronautical Division. With war far removed from American minds, the General Staff in a peacetime environment could not be faulted for blanket condemnation of an aerial organization whose existence threatened what it deemed the best interests of the United States Army. When war did come, deep-rooted suspicion between the two groups made cooperation difficult, and after the Armistice, the peacetime power struggle continued unabated.

The General Staff and Army Politics

A fortuitous confluence of events resulted in military aviation’s appearance in the Army at a time when the General Staff Corps and the Chief of Staff were both on the defensive. Major General Leonard Wood, the military surgeon who rose in rank and responsibilities to become military governor of Cuba, was appointed Chief of Staff in December 1909, presumably as a courtesy to former President Theodore Roosevelt, Wood’s close friend.² While there had been congressional opposition to the concept of an effective general staff before that date, Wood’s reorganization of the General Staff Corps placed him on a collision course with Major General Frederick Ainsworth, adjutant general of the Army and "the congressman’s best friend."³ In the past, Ainsworth’s opposition, in concert with that of other bureau chiefs, had driven one of Wood’s predecessors to the indignity of an open break with the adjutant general and another to the hospital to recover his equilibrium and health.⁴

William Harding Carter, a major general who served with the General Staff from its establishment until the eve of World War I, observed that the effectiveness of the Chief of Staff depended on his ability to work with the incumbent Secretary of War.⁵ At the outset, General Wood had to deal with Secretary Jacob Dickinson, who distrusted Wood and felt impelled for political reasons to oppose several of General Wood’s reforms and reorganizations.⁶ President William Howard Taft felt that his new Chief of Staff was too vigorous in his plans for changing the Army and urged him to work with the resources at hand rather than to attempt too radical a change.⁷ Moving in that direction, Wood attempted to close or consolidate several Army posts and activities, only to meet with a storm of congressional protest.⁸ Congress retaliated with abortive proposals to prevent any officer with Wood’s background from becoming Chief of Staff and to reestablish the primacy of the adjutant general’s office in Army management.⁹

Fortunately for General Wood, General Ainsworth wrote an insubordinate memorandum resulting in his resignation in lieu of a court-martial. Shortly thereafter Henry L. Stimson replaced Jacob M. Dickinson as Secretary of War, and Wood and Stimson established a harmonious working relationship. Given Leonard Wood’s expressions of interest and support for military aviation,¹⁰ it would seem that his accession to full power after February 1912 would be a positive step toward an expanded flying program. Yet as we have seen, funding remained modest, and General Staff Corps officers continued to raise opposition to the proposals of the Aeronautical Division. Perhaps the explanation may be found in the fact that Wood had alienated substantial segments of the Republican Party in Congress through his proposal to consolidate Army posts, and his quasi-political elevation to Chief of Staff by a Republican president rendered him vulnerable if the 1912 election should be won by a Democratic candidate. As events transpired, President Woodrow Wilson retained Wood to serve as Army Chief of Staff until the end of his four-year term in December 1913.¹¹ However, such a bipartisan action could not have been anticipated in 1912, and there was much that impelled Wood’s staff to challenge the claims for military aeronautics.

The Militia Tradition
and the General Staff

There was something fundamental in congressional opposition to Wood, who brought to the Army leadership a commitment to professionalism and vigorously trained citizen-soldiers. When in 1909 he directed military maneuvers in southern New England, Wood pressed the non-Regulars so strongly that the War Department complained that militia troops were subjected to privation and promised that such training would not be repeated.¹² Wood himself was more of a citizen-soldier than a military professional of the West Point stamp, and his difficulty with militia advocates may well have been a product of expecting too much, rather than too little, from non-Regular troops. Publicly General Wood was strong in his support for National Guard and militia training. In 1909 he urged Congress to consider the needs of the National Guard and advocated cooperation between Regular troops and their militia counterparts. In regard to the Army’s flying activities, the 1912 and 1913 reports of the Chief Signal Officer submitted under Wood’s

authority were strong in arguing for the extension of flying training to officers of the National Guard and alternative possibilities for the creation of a reserve flying corps.¹³ Under Wood’s direction, President Taft’s creation of the Army Reserve was carried forth, and it was with General Wood’s approval that Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Winder of the Ohio National Guard received flying training at the Army’s Augusta, Georgia, aviation field.¹⁴

There is enough evidence of Leonard Wood’s support for trained National Guard and reserve forces.¹⁵ Why, then, was there animosity between Congressman James Hay, who supported the National Guard, and the Chief of Staff, who appears to have had the same goals in mind? The explanation would appear to be in the means each advocated to secure those ends. While Congress wished to see a National Guard directed by the States with a modicum of responsibility to federal officers, the General Staff Corps looked toward a National Guard trained to high federal standards and subordinate to federal policies. Ultimately, the General Staff Corps lost this fight, for the National Defense Act of 1916, prepared by Congressman Hay in consultation with retired Major General Ainsworth, provided for a stronger National Guard along traditional state lines.¹⁶

Beyond these training and command issues, the contestants recognized the National Guard as a separate and powerful force in American politics and military circles. The Guard was a reserve force subject to direction by Army Regulars in time of war, but it was also a state-oriented organization that had a life of its own, quite independent of the Army. In many ways the National Guard played the same role in national politics as volunteer fire companies did in local politics. A meeting place for men from all walks of life, the Guard was a valuable place to garner votes and recruit new political allies. Appealing to civilians with military interests, the Guard nurtured the ideal of the citizen-soldier among men who were sincerely interested in preparing themselves for service in the event of war. As a communication center for such men, the Guard also had the potential for launching creditable and damaging criticism of the Regular Army for national defense purposes. It is not difficult to understand the ambiguities that existed in the relationship between the General Staff Corps and the leading proponents of the militia tradition.

The Aeronautical Division had an initial infusion of interest from the National Guard because of its connections to the aeronaut constituency. Before 1914, Guard interest in Army aviation tended to be spotty, but even this occasional attention alerted the General Staff Corps to the possibility that National Guard influence might be mustered in favor of the insubordinate aviators in the Signal Corps. The independence of the Guard, by virtue of its state orientation and its civilian membership, rendered it chancy whether the Guard’s support for military flying would manifest itself within the Regular Army organization (thereby supporting Army requests for congressional appropriations) or outside the command channels of the Regular Army (through direct appeals to Congress to build military aviation by direct support of air units in the Guard). On balance the historical evidence seems to indicate that the General Staff was correct in prophesying the future development of Guard/Aeronautical Division relationships; they would be outside official command channels, and the Guard would become a counterweight to the General Staff in appropriation hearings before Congress. During the preparedness movement of 1916, National Guard aviation was the focal point of cooperation between national defense advocates, the aeronaut constituency, and Army aviation officers; in this it paralleled a similar emphasis in favor of aviation in the naval militia of the various states.

The Aero Club of America and its affiliated clubs played an important role in introducing the National Guard to military aviation. The Missouri Guard relied on the Aero Club of Saint Louis for its equipment and training. Captain Homer W. Hedge of the New York National Guard, and also an officer of the Aero Club of America, took an active interest in promoting Guard participation in military flying. After Hedge’s death in 1909, Augustus Post, the secretary of the Aero Club, handled lecture assignments before the would-be military aviators. Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm, although assigned to flying duties in the Aeronautical Division, found time to instruct his New York National Guard friends in ballooning.¹⁷ When Lieutenant Benjamin Foulois was assigned to the Division of Militia Affairs in 1912, he made good use of his official assignment to advance aeronautics in the state National Guards.¹⁸ These and other similar ties between Guard aeronautical units, the Aeronautical Division, and the local affiliates of the Aero Club of America were essential to the construction of a strong alliance of military officers, militia reservists, and civilian aeronauts, all dedicated to expanded use of the airplane and balloon in the United States Army and the National Guard.

The most formidable civilian organization to emerge from this period of militia interest in aviation was the United States Aeronautical Reserve Corps, established on 8 September 1910. With offices not far from those of the Aero Club of America in New York City, the U.S. Aeronautical Reserve by November 1910 claimed no less than 3200 members, including President Taft.¹⁹ The group had not neglected the need to cultivate War and Navy Department cooperation. Even before the organization of the Aeronautical Reserve, General Leonard Wood, as Army Chief of Staff, has been consulted and his cooperation secured.²⁰ When Aeronautical Reserve member Harry S. Harkness began experimenting with wireless transmission from airplanes, the Navy’s wireless station in Point Loma, California, was directed to cooperate with him.²¹ The spring of 1912 found the Aeronautical Reserve erecting hangars and conducting their flight experiments at the Army’s flying field at College Park, Maryland.²² When the Wilson administration became involved with Mexican problems in April 1914, the Aeronautical Reserve promptly offered the services of 44 aviators to the Navy. Included in the offer was the loan of 20 airplanes owned by the volunteering aviators.²³ The offer was declined, but the fact that it could be made at all would indicate the strength and capability of the organization. The United States Aeronautical Reserve was destined to play a significant role in the preparedness controversy of 1916, particularly in regard to the revival of naval aviation, which had been sorely neglected since 1914.

Concepts of Air Power
and Conflicts of Interest

Few periods of conceptual thinking on the role of air power in war have been as productive as the years from 1907 through 1914.²⁴ For the most part, that theorizing was highly speculative and tentative, given the technological development of American airplanes and ancillary flying equipment. To the extent that American conceptual thought ignored the value of the dirigible, it was also narrow in its scope. Nevertheless, it can be argued that virtually all of the basic principles of aerial warfare (with the exception of current missile employment theory) had been enunciated in an embryonic form by July 1914. It was but a matter of time before technology could catch up with the military aviator’s evolving doctrines of aerial reconnaissance and the more controversial applications of airplanes in a combat role.

Although military aeronautics first received organizational coherence with the establishment of the Aeronautical Division in 1907, there was already a long, colorful history of aerial activity in the Army. Experience with balloon observation, predating the American Civil War but most extensively used by Union forces in that conflict, shaped conceptual thought concerning the newly acquired airplane. Most specifically, the Army was inclined to view the new mechanical flying device as an alternative vehicle for reconnaissance purposes. Such a device had long been needed, for stationary observation balloons had limitations of height that created dangers from ground fire and the more recently developed balloon guns.²⁵ While the speed and maneuverability of the airplane and its smaller target area made it preferable to balloons or dirigibles for reconnaissance work, its inability to hover over a given point made greater demands for accuracy of observation and intelligence assessment. It is not surprising that the Army as a whole and the Aeronautical Division in particular continued to assess the airplane in terms of its intelligence-gathering potential. In the Hay Committee hearings in August 1913 and in Reports of the Chief Signal Officer issued in 1914 and 1915, the high command continued to emphasize the airplane’s reconnaissance value.²⁶

Although Army aviators were not inclined to accept their superiors’ narrow approach to military aeronautics, they nevertheless made excellent progress in demonstrating the value of their new machine for reconnaissance. In August 1912 they flew aerial observation sorties in conjunction with maneuvers of the New York National Guard in the vicinity of New York City and Bridgeport, Connecticut. These activities were found to be of definite advantage to the ground troops they supported.²⁷ Somewhat later in 1912, there were additional aerial observation tests at Fort Riley, Kansas. During field maneuvers near Texas City in early 1913, an eighteen-foot strip map was sketched by an officer riding in an airplane.²⁸ Between January 1911 and the summer of 1915, the Aeronautical Division worked on aerial photography as an aid to airplane reconnaissance, and in the summer of 1915 the first aerial mosaic photograph was prepared for military use.²⁹ By November 1915, the accomplishments of the flyers were such that official Army doctrine was amended to replace cavalry with airplanes as the approved method of strategic reconnaissance.³⁰

These tactical and technical advances in aerial reconnaissance were made in conjunction with remarkable success in the use of airplanes for artillery fire direction. There was a historical foundation on which to build, for Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe had directed Union artillery fire from a stationary balloon during the Civil War, successfully aiming a cannon by means of messages transmitted to the ground by telegraphy.³¹ Speaking to the International Aeronautical Congress in 1907, Lieutenant Colonel William A. Glassford stressed the fact that the development of long-range field artillery increased the need for balloon assistance in locating targets. In 1910 Lieutenant Colonel George P. Scriven (the future Chief Signal Officer) prepared a study of the vulnerability of Corregidor to balloon-directed artillery fire from the Luzon mainland. Reports from American military attachés in Europe, written in 1912 and 1913, demonstrated the value that the French Army placed on artillery fire direction from the air.³²

Aeronautical Division airplanes participated in field artillery maneuvers at Fort Riley in November 1912, and extensive tests were made concerning various observation and fire-direction techniques. Radio communication with the ground, developed in Signal Corps laboratories in conjunction with the aviator’s recommendations, greatly facilitated communications with rapidly moving aircraft. After these trials, Lieutenant Thomas deW. Milling claimed that the tests "proved conclusively that airplanes could be used most effectively . . ."
in field artillery direction.³³ The ease with which communication problems were solved is a tribute to the wisdom of locating aviation functions within the Army Signal Corps. By the time hostilities broke out in Europe, the Army and its aviators had made major progress in this important area of combat operations.

Aerial reconnaissance and artillery fire direction were conceptual areas where historical precedent smoothed the way for cooperation between the aviation officers and their Signal Corps superiors. The ready coordination of Aeronautical Division technical requirements with ongoing Signal Corps basic research into photography and radio signaling seemed a positive proof of the wisdom in linking the two organizations. This partnership of the Signal Corps and its aviators was already bearing a rich harvest of technical progress and conceptual development. As such, it enjoyed the encouragement and blessing of successive Chief Signal Officers and the 1915 General Staff endorsement of aerial reconnaissance and artillery fire direction from the air.

By way of contrast, there was little room for agreement between military aviators and their Signal Corps superiors in regard to offensive uses of air power. The aviators tended to view combat operations as a necessary development from the need for aerial superiority. With an enemy equipped with his own aircraft, adequate reconnaissance or artillery fire direction would be impossible. Thus, one of the first priorities would be gaining and maintaining dominance in the airspace over the battlefront, which could only be accomplished through the use of the airplane as a combat weapon.³⁴

In the Aeronautical Division, the evolution of concepts for offensive application of air power was closely tied to ongoing experimentation. While a portion of conceptual thought was well in advance of technological capabilities, a respectable segment of newly developed doctrine was firmly based on tests conducted under field conditions by Army aviators. The achievements of Army aviation in regard to offensive air power were, as frequently as not, tested at public flying exhibitions or at contests arranged by the various aero clubs or other aeronautical organizations. While the progress in regard to offensive uses of air power was much more modest than the achievements of the Aeronautical Division in reconnaissance and artillery fire direction, it was far more prominent in the public mind by virtue of communication media attention.

Because of the threat of Zeppelin bombardment of England, most aeronautical thought centered on the use of dirigibles and airplanes for offensive aerial attack on cities, troop concentrations, factories, and rail and sea transportation facilities. As American Army aviators approached the question of aerial bombardment, there were three inhibitions on their conceptual thought and operational planning. First and foremost, the planes owned by the Army and constructed in the United States from 1907 through 1914 lacked lift capacity to accommodate a load of bombs, fuel, the pilot, and a bombardier. Second, the United States had become a signatory of the Second Hague Convention against aerial bombardment of unfortified towns and villages. While it might be argued that since the United States was the only major power to ratify, she would be exonerated from compliance should she engage in war with a nonsignatory power, military and political authorities were reluctant to engage in the development of bombardment aircraft while the treaty remained in effect. Third, there were sharp differences of opinion, even within the Aeronautical Division, concerning the effectiveness of bombardment from the air.³⁵

Some intimation of European progress in aerial bombardment had reached the United States by 1913. The Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12 for possession of Libya provided ample demonstration of the effectiveness of aerial bombing of Turkish and allied trenches and encampments. Additional information was available concerning the aerial bombardment of Adrianople and Yannina during the First Balkan War of l9l2-13.³⁶ More definite were ominous reports of German bomb-dropping contests held under the auspices of the War Ministry in November 1913.

Yet a brief review of Aeronautical Division activities since 1910 indicates that the Army aviators were indeed quite interested in aerial bombardment as an offensive application of air power. They had spent considerable time and effort in an attempt to develop an accurate bombsight that would facilitate bomb-dropping from an airplane in flight. Those experiments continued through 1913, interrupted only by Riley Scott’s trip to France where in January 1912 his bombsight was awarded the Michelin prize of $5000.³⁷

American emphasis on accurate placement of bombs deserves some consideration, for it was a departure from what had been the practice in North Africa and in the Balkans. There the aerial bombs had been dropped indiscriminately, the principal object being the demoralization of enemy troops and civilians. Even at this early date, American conceptual thought dealt with bombardment not as area saturation attack but rather as precise utilization of bombs to destroy very specific targets.³⁸ While continuous work on the bombsight was adequate evidence of this tendency, it is also implicit in Brigadier General James Allen’s May 1910 comment concerning defense against foreign aerial attack:

…it is entirely practicable today, with a single dirigible balloon or a few aeroplanes, to destroy by means of explosives, and particularly with incendiary mixtures, the shipping of any of our large cities, as well as property of enormous value. . . .³⁹

Here is the mustard seed which would grow the shrub of daylight strategic bombardment— that targets should be selected with care and attacked with a concentration of accurate firepower continuously applied.

Two official studies also evidence the interest of Army aviation in aerial bombardment well before its application in European wars. Major George O. Squier, at the request of General Allen, prepared a report on the use of dirigibles in wartime. He suggested that small dirigibles be used for attacking bridges, supply depots, or troop concentrations near the front lines; larger dirigibles should be targeted against dry docks, arsenals, and rail centers.⁴° Although prepared with the dirigible in mind, the Squier report serves as the original distinction between interdictional and strategic bombardment. Shortly afterward, while serving as Chief Signal Officer of the Philippines, Lieutenant Colonel George P. Scriven analyzed the vulnerability of the island fortress of Corregidor to aerial surveillance and attack. This report ranks as one of the most farsighted staff studies of its day. Scriven pointed out that enemy airplanes and dirigibles could locate exposed supplies and destroy them, either by directing field artillery fire or by aerial bombardment. Again, emphasis on the precise location of the target is most likely to hamper the enemy and its destruction either by ground artillery or the application of precision bombing.⁴¹

Squier’s report of 1909 appears to have been one basis for Captain William Mitchell’s testimony before the Hay Committee in August 1913. Mitchell informed the congressmen that aerial bombardment of dockyards, bridges, and storage facilities was more effective than such attacks on front-line troop concentrations.⁴² By 1913, that conclusion had been buttressed by the actual experience of Italian Army and Navy aviators in the Libyan desert. Although only a small amount of information had reached the United States by 1913, the French high command had analyzed their intelligence reports and come to these conclusions concerning the effectiveness of aerial bombardment. French military theory concerning aerial bombardment, coupled with their known interest in bombsight development, convinced the American military airmen of the wisdom of their emphasis on precision bombardment of critical targets. These developments in air power conceptual thinking found their way into the Hay Committee transcripts despite general agreement among the aviators that separation from the Signal Corps would be premature in l9l3.⁴³

The concept of aerial supremacy also played a vital role in the evolution of air power doctrine. Since aerial reconnaissance and artillery fire direction required protection from enemy attack, the Aeronautical Division turned its attention to the armament of aircraft for offensive and defensive purposes. Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois’s 1907 thesis at Fort Leavenworth pointed out the need to arm dirigibles and airplanes which would precede the ground troops into battle and secure aerial supremacy, thereby facilitating aerial reconnaissance against a blind enemy.⁴⁴ As early as 1910, the Army aviators had begun experiments with firing rifles and machine guns from airplanes in flight. In June 1912 they conducted extensive tests with a new machine gun developed by retired Army Colonel Isaac N. Lewis, achieving moderate accuracy but confirming once more that the discharge of the weapon would not disturb the stability of a flying airplane.⁴⁵

There were two incentives to develop combat capabilities of airplanes: one was the need for weapons that could be used defensively against enemy dirigibles and aircraft; the other was the need to acquire and retain control of the airspace over the front lines, thereby assuring safe reconnaissance. Both of these applications tied into the reconnaissance and artillery spotting activities, which the General Staff considered the most important contributions of Army aviation. Not surprisingly, the same November 1915 publication of the General Staff that adopted aerial reconnaissance and airborne artillery fire direction also enunciated the principle of aerial supremacy and the need to maintain control of the air.⁴⁶

Reduced to the minimum, the differences between the General Staff and the aviators involved the concept of aerial bombardment. This was the segment of conceptual thought most removed from the capabilities of current airplanes. Their lift capacity was inadequate to carry modest bomb payloads in addition to the weight of the pilot and bombardier. There were also severe limitations in altitude and range of Army airplanes. The prohibitions of the Second Hague Convention, even if they might be abrogated by going to war with a nonsignatory, were until then binding on the United States. Of course, it was true that the Convention outlawed the aerial bombardment of unfortified cities, thereby permitting other targeting against military activities and cities of military significance. However, the American people viewed the Convention as a national commitment against the use of all aerial bombardment, and this coincided with national inclinations toward arms limitation and pacifism. Realistic assessment of the limitations of Army airplanes coupled with an astute understanding of public opinion and presidential and congressional apathy led the General Staff to disapprove of aerial bombardment as a legitimate field for Aeronautical Division development.

As pragmatic planners, the General Staff may well have recognized the threat of aerial bombardment as the latest panacea for painless and clean victory in future wars. While Army aviators advanced no excessive claims for the concept of aerial bombardment, the Wright brothers had suggested that it would be an instrument to ensure world peace. Like the Alfred Thayer Mahan view of the application of naval power, aerial bombardment promised to substitute technology for the commitment of troops to ground combat. This quest for a virtually bloodless waging of war was in consonance with American public preferences.⁴⁷ As professional soldiers, the General Staff knew that victory was won on the ground, whether they were correct in their assessment or wrong in their judgment of sea and air power, the weaknesses of aerial bombardment concepts would have to be demonstrated immediately or the American people might bring pressure to bear that would unbalance Army appropriations in favor of an untried and inadequate weapon.⁴⁸ Such enthusiasm for aviation had produced the Langley fiasco, what might it do now that the Wrights had demonstrated the practicality of heavier-than-air flight?

The position of the General Staff in regard to military aviation was not static. From 1907 to 1915, the makers of official Army policy had moved from "reconnaissance and artillery fire direction only" to accept a limited combat role to facilitate those observation tasks. On the other hand, the consideration of aerial bombardment, particularly military, industrial, and political targets well behind the enemy’s front lines, projected an advanced view of air power they were unable to accept. Wars were to be won not on the home front of the enemy by barbaric aerial attack on civilian populations but rather on the battlefield where airplanes, dirigibles, and observation balloons should be used to maximum effect. The combat role of the American Army air service was thus to be sharply restricted to the environs of the battle-front, and for most purposes it was to be subordinate to reconnaissance and artillery spotting and defensive in nature.

Brigadier General George P. Scriven, Chief Signal Officer from 1913 through 1916, freely admitted the observation role of Army airplanes in December 1914. However, like the General Staff, he questioned the offensive value of the airplane.⁴⁹ In this he reconfirmed the positions taken by the War Department and the Signal Corps when they testified before the Hay Committee in the summer of 1913. Yet, as we have noted in regard to those hearings, separation of the aviation work in the Army from the Signal Corps was a matter of considerable concern during those years. To the extent that Signal Corps officers moved from a position of "reconnaissance and artillery spotting only," they gave credence to the Aviation Section’s contentions for separate status as a combat arm of the Army.⁵⁰

It was one of the misfortunes of history that military aviation came to the United States Army at a time when the service itself was undergoing organizational transition. The establishment of the General Staff, although begun in 1903, had not been carried to fruition when military aviators began to seek their place in the Army structure. A stronger General Staff might well have taken a more benign view of the rambunctious, young aviators, but an agency fighting for its life against the bureau chiefs, the National Guard, and the Guard’s congressional supporters could not afford complacency. Time was consumed in intraservice feuding that might well have been expended for more imaginative examination of the future role of aerial observation and combat in the air.

On the other hand, the military aviators were perhaps ill-advised to hitch their hopes to the aeronaut constituency, its National Guard connections, and proaviation allies in Congress. In doing so they identified military aviation with the Old Army and its bureau chief satrapies. The organizational trend of the future was clearly in the direction of professionalism, with well-defined chains of command through the Army Chief of Staff. Despite those influences, the airmen always had another constituency— another commander to hear their appeal—at the initial level the aeronaut constituency, the National Guard, and friendly congressmen but ultimately the American people who were accessible through the publications media. It was a situation of being in the Army but not entirely of the Army, and that feeling was accentuated by conceptual differences with the General Staff.

Separation and the dream of an independent air force at this early date, and perhaps throughout the history of the Air Force, were closely linked to the concept of offensive aerial bombardment, particularly strategic bombardment directed at enemy industrial, political, and military targets. Indeed, the service’s claim to independence rested on the competence of air power to make an unaided contribution to victory through the use of aerial bombardment.

The advancement of strategic bombardment thus assumed paramount importance in the thinking of Army aviators, despite the fact that their most valuable accomplishments, both up to American entry into World War I and thereafter, were in the fields of reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and aerial combat over the front lines. Neither Billy Mitchell, Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard, nor Giulio Douhet can claim full credit for American Army aviation’s commitment to strategic bombardment. The inclination toward this concept and its advocacy as doctrine were closely tied to the flying officers’ experience with the General Staff before 1914. Drawing on conceptual and organizational disagreements, they sought separation as a license to prove their theories of the overwhelming influence of air power in future conflicts.

1. Note for example, Congressman Sharp’s statement in debate that Captain Paul Beck of the Aeronautical Division had discussed a proposal to increase hazard pay with Sharp, and the officer had approved the proposal. Congressional Record, XLIX, Part III, January 16, 1913, p. 1637.

2. Archibald W. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, 2 volumes (Garden City, New York, 1930), I, p. 236; Hermann Hagedorn, Leonard Wood: A Biography, II (New York, 1931), p. 96.

3. Daniel R. Beaver, Newton D. Baker and the American War Effort, 1917-1919 (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1966), p. 10; Paolo E. Coletta, The Presidency of William Howard Taft (Lawrence, Kansas, 1973), p. 204; Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, II, pp. 96, 106-7. Presidential aide Major Archie Butt deftly avoided being drawn into the struggle between Wood and Ainsworth, feeling that Ainsworth had kept the Army going during the incompetent administration of General Bell and other chiefs of staff who preceded him. Butt commented, ‘There is no concealing the fact that Ainsworth has more personal influence in Congress than any man in the government, including the President of the United States." Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, II, pp.780-81.

4. Lawrence F. Abbott, editor, The Letters of Archie Butt: Personal Aide to President Roosevelt (Garden City, New York, 1924), p. 41; William Harding Carter, Creation of the American General Staff: Personal Narrative of the General Staff System of the American Army, Senate Document 119,68th Congress, 1st Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1924), p. 61; Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, II, pp. 96-97.

5. Carter, pp. 55-56. The net result was that when there was disagreement, little but supply matters was referred to the Chief of Staff.

6. Butt, Taft and Roosevelt, II, p. 464.

7. Ibid., I, p. 236.

8. Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, II, p. 115. The closing of posts resulted in congressional efforts to establish a commission on military posts. Ibid., p. 123.

9. Ibid., p. 123.

10. The newspapers quoted General Wood as a supporter of an adequate Army air service. "It may be one year, it may be more, but sooner or later the aeroplane will be the greatest factor of the century in the world’s affairs." Quoted from the New York World for August 2, 1910, in Ibid., II, p. 100.

11. Ibid., p. 129. Wilson’s Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, tended to avoid controversy and let the bureau chiefs have their way despite the efforts of the Chief of Staff to serve as senior officer of the Army. James E. Hewes, Jr., From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975), p. 25. Wilson tended to support the ideal of a "citizenry trained and accustomed to arms," and a National Guard organization rather than a Reserve or standing Regular Army Edward H. Buehrig, Woodrow Wilson and the Balance of Power (Bloomington, Indiana, 1955), p. 110. Within Wilson’s cabinet strange forces were at work; for example, William Jennings Bryan’s attack on Secretary of War Lindley Garrison. Bryan felt that the advice of military and naval officers should never be solicited unless the United States had declared war! Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, IV (Garden City, New York, 1931), p. 82.

12. Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, II, pp. 87-88.

13. Ibid., p. 87; Report of the Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army, to the Secretary of War, 1912 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1912), p.29; Report of the Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army, to the Secretary of War, 1913 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913), p. 69.

14. Donald F. Anderson, William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency (Ithaca, New York, 1973), p. 19; Charles deF. Chandler and Frank P. Lahm, How Our Army Grew Wings: Airmen and Aircraft before 1914 (New York, 1943), p. 215; Juliette A. Hennessy, The United States Army Air Arm, April 1861 to April 1917, USAF Historical Studies: No. 98 (Maxwell AFB, Alabama, USAF Historical Division, Research Studies Institute, 1958), p. 57.

15. Significantly, Secretary of War Elihu Root, in conjunction with the establishment of the General Staff Corps in 1902-03, also worked for the "Dick Bill," designed to revitalize the National Guard. Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root, 2 volumes (New York, 1937), I, pp. 267-68.

16. Hewes, p. 21.

17. Chandler and Lahm, p. 54; E. L. Jones Collection, Vol. 5 (unpublished), April 1908 (Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center).

18. Aeronautics, X (1912), p. 43.

19. Aeronautics, VII (1910), p. 186.

20. Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, II, p. 112. Wood had promised that the Army would cooperate with the Aeronautical Reserve.

21. Clarke Van Cleet, L. M. Pearson, and Adrian O. Van Wyen, United States Naval Aviation, 1910-1970, second edition (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 10.

22. Hennessy, p. 54.

23. Van Cleet, p. 10; Aeronautics, XIV (1914), p. 120.

24. Undue emphasis on the conceptual thinking at the Air Corps Tactical School after World War I has tended to obscure the work done before 1914. However, Walter Raleigh, writing of Britain in this period, points out that "almost all the uses of aircraft which later became commonplaces of the war were exemplified in the French maneuvers of 1911." The War in the Air, I (Oxford, 1922), p. 178.

25. John H. Scrivner, "The Military Use of Balloons and Dirigibles in the United States, 1793-1963," (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Oklahoma, 1963), pp. 8-10; Russell J. Parkinson, "Politics, Patents and Planes: Military Aeronautics in the United States, 1863-1907," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1963), pp. 6-16; for European developments, see Alfred Hildebrandt, Airships Past and Present, W. H. Story, translator (London, 1908).

26. Aeronautics in the Army: Hearings before the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, 63rd Congress, First Session, in Connection with HR. 5304 (Washington, 1913), pp. 24, 63; Report of the Chief/Signal Officer, U.S. Army, to the Secretary of War, 1914 (Washington, 1914), p. 4; Report of the Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army, to the Secretary of War, 1915 (Washington, 1915), p. 6.

27. Chandler and Lahm, p. 229; Hennessy, pp. 62-63.

28. Ibid., p. 92; Report of the Chief Signal Officer,. . . 1913, pp. 49, 54; Chandler and Lahm, pp. 254-55.

29. Hennessy, pp. 45, 53; Thomas deW. Milling, "A Short History of the United States Army Air Service, 1861-1917" (manuscript report, USAF Historical Archives, A. F. Simpson Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama), pp. 21-22, 36; Clayton Bissell, Brief History of the Air Corps and Its Late Development (Fort Monroe, Virginia, 1928), p. 14. Foulois had mentioned aerial photography in his 1907 thesis. Benjamin D. Foulois, "The Tactical and Strategical Value of Dirigible Balloons and Dynamical Flying Machines" (unpublished thesis, 1907, on file at U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania), p. 5.

30. Military Aviation: Prepared by the War College Division, General Staff Corps, as a Supplement to the Statement of a Proper Military Policy for the United States (Washington, 1916), pp. 12-13. Hereafter referred to as Military Aviation.

31. Hennessy, p. 5; Parkinson, "Politics, Patents and Planes," pp. 11-12. For use of artillery fire-direction balloons at Ladysmith in the Boer War, see Hildebrandt, pp. 164-65.

32. "Our Army and Aerial Warfare," Aeronautics, II (1908), p. 20; George P. Scriven, "Some Considerations Affecting the Defense of Corregidor against Aerial Attack," October 4, 1910 (typescript report, A. F. Simpson Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama), p. 8; Report of the Chief Signal Officer, U.S. Army, to the Secretary of War, 1911 (Washington, 1911), pp. 24, 25; Military Aviation, House Document 718, 62d Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1912), pp. 6, 20, 25-27.

33. Chandler and Lahm, pp. 237-38; Sam Hager Frank, "American Air Service Observation in World War I" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1961), p. 79; Hennessy, p. 72; Report of the Chief Signal Officer, . . . 1913, p. 45; Aeronautics in the Army: Hearings . . . , p. 127; Milling, "Short History," p. 26; Paul W. Clark, "Major General George Owen Squier, Military Scientist" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 1974), pp. 345-46. The French maneuvers of March 1912 had demonstrated the value of aerial artillery registry. Von Keler, "Military Supremacy of the Air," Scientific American, CVII (1912), p. 550, CVIII (1913), p. 6. As early as June 1912 American military and naval circles were aware of the French maneuvers and the air power uses demonstrated there. United States Naval Institute Proceedings, XXXVIII (1912), p. 804.

34. Lawrence Paszek observed that little was done before World War I to develop combat airplanes in the American Army. Lawrence J. Paszek, "Wright Pushers to Stratojets," Airpower Historian, X (1963), p. 115. In light of what follows, that judgment may be subject to reconsideration; both at the experimental and the theoretical level, American aviators were quite active in the field. The problem was discussed before the Aero Club of America in February 1909 and discussed pro and con in aviation books: New York Times, February 14, 1909; Alphonse Berget, The Conquest of the Air (New York, 1909), p. 260; Claude Grahame-White and Harry Harper, The Aeroplane in War (Philadelphia, 1912), p. 213. French thought was reported to Congress in January 1912: Military Aviation, House Document No. 718, 62d Congress, 2d Session (Washington, 1912), p. 24. A British report submitted to the Technical Sub-committee on Imperial Defense seemingly parroted Foulois’s 1907 thesis—that the battle for control of the air would precede the advance of ground forces—and concluded that there was a need for armed airplanes: Raleigh, War in the Air, I, pp. 175-76; see also H. Bannerman-Phillips, ‘‘Grenadiers of the Air: Exploits in Bomb-dropping from Flying Machines, Scientific American, CVII (1912), p. 230; Von Keler, Scientific American, CVII (1912), p. 550; CVIII (1913), p. 6.

35. Milling, p. 3. Lieutenant Colonel William A. Glassford claimed that aerial bombing would have no more than a temporarily frightening effect: ‘‘The Future of Military Aeronautics,’’ Aeronautics V (1911), p. 84. On the carrying capacity of airplanes and need for a bombardier, see R. P. Hearne, Airships in Peace and War (London, 1910), p. 104, and Glenn H. Curtiss’s comment in Aeronautics, VII (1913), p. 49. Cuneo claims that Germany did not create an adequate defense against rear area bombardment from the air because she felt enemy forces would use dirigibles and airplanes solely for reconnaissance and observation; she did not place any deterrent value on the Hague Convention: John R. Cuneo, Winged Mars (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1942), p. 37.

36. William H. Beeler, The History of the Italian-Turkish War (Annapolis, 1913), pp. 54, 62-63; The Origin of Air Warfare: I Primo Voli Di Guerra Nel Mondo, second edition, Renato d’Orlandi, translator (Rome, 1961), pp. 169-71, 192-93; Military Aviation, House Document No. 718, 62d Congress, 2d Session, pp. 64-65. The Balkan War activities are less well documented. See Aeronautics, XIII (1913), p. 206; and Aeronautics in the Army: Hearings . . . , p. 89. For comments on German activity, see Aeronautics, XIII (1913), p. 206.

37. Chandler and Lahm, pp. 87-89, 206, 276; Hennessy, pp. 45, 53-54, 105; Aeronautics in the Army: Hearings. . ., p. 102; Milling, p. 22; Military Aviation, House Document No. 718, 62d Congress, 2d Session, pp.70-71; Alfred Goldberg, editor, A History of tile United States Air Force, 1907-1957 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1957), p. 6; Aeronautics, VIII (1911), p. 96; Ibid., IX (1911), pp. 39-40, 54; Ibid., XI (1912), p. 84; Ibid., XIII (1913), pp 24, 72.

38. For a similar French emphasis on precision aerial bombardment see Von Keler, p. 6.

39. James Allen, ‘‘Military Aeronautics,’’ Aeronautics, VI (1910), p. 156. Emphasis added. A similar sentiment was expressed in James M. Spaight, Aircraft in War (London, 1914), pp. 8-9. General Allen’s views may have been shaped by H. G. Wells’s The War in the Air (1908), and also by Lieutenant Colonel George P. Scriven’s report on the defenses of Corregidor. Scriven stated that tinder continuous dirigible attack the fortress would be "pounded to rubbish and the members of the harassed garrison reduced to fiddle strings." George P. Scriven, "Some Considerations Alfecting the Defense of Corregidor against Aerial Attack" (typescript report. 4 October 1910), pp. 11-16.

40. Clark, "Major General George Owen Squier, Military Scientist,’’ p. 150. A similar emphasis on strategic bombing of industrial and transportation targets was expressed by Sir Hiram Maxim to the Aeronautical Society of America in March 1909, New York Times, March 21, 1909, Part 4, p. 2.

41. Scriven, op. cit.

42. Aeronautics in the Army: Hearings . . . , pp. 77-85.

43. Ibid., pp. 89, 102.

44. Foulois, pp. 7-8; on July 23, 1910, while leaving command of the Department of the Lakes, Major General Frederick Dent Grant commented, ‘‘Airplanes can now be used for reconnaissance. It will not be long, I imagine, before they may be used in offensive operations." New York Times, July 24, 1910, Part 2, p. 1; in March 1912 the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, pp. 377-79, observed that since historically no commander would permit the enemy a free view of his positions, it was inevitable that there should be aerial combat and in ". . . a very short time would see one side in possession of complete command of the air, and therefore able to get all the information it required without allowing the enemy to get any."

45. Chandler and Lahm, pp. 89-90, 222-23; Aeronautics, X (1912), p. 26; Ibid., p. XI (1912), p. 115; Aeronautics in the Army: Hearings, p. 85. Goldberg, p. 7; Report of the Chief Signal Officer, . . . 1912, p. 24.

46. Military Aviation, p. 13.

47. Russel F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United Slates Military Strategy and Policy (New York, 1973), p. 192.

48. Undoubtedly, some segments of the public may also have doubted whether long-range strategic bombardment was in keeping with a "defense only" preparedness posture. This inhibited the development of the long-range bomber in the l930s. Mark S. Watson, Chief of Staff: Pre-war Plans and Preparation, Vol. VI, United Stales Army in World War II (Washington, 1950), pp. 35-36.

49. Irving B. Holley, Jr., Ideas and Weapons: Exploitation of the Aerial Weapon by the United States during World War I (New Haven, Connecticut, 1953), p. 31.

50. That the separation was not a dead issue after 1914 is obvious from the fact that in 1915 the aeronautical editor of the New York Tribune and Aerial Age Weekly, Gordon Bruce, endorsed separation of the Aviation Section from the Signal Corps. R. Earl McClendon, "The Question of Autonomy for the United States Air Arm, 1907-1945," (mimeographed study, Air University Documentary Research Study, 1950), p. 41.

Herbert A. Johnson (A.B., Columbia University, LL.B., New York Law School; M.A., Ph.D., Columbia University) is Professor of History and Law at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and a mobilization assistant to the Deputy Chief of Air Force History, Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C. Dr. Johnson was editor of The Papers of John Marshall, 1967-77.

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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