Although the airplane in World War I had been used mainly as an observation and a plane-to-plane combat weapon, wise American airmen, such as General “Billy” Mitchell, visualized the craft as a means of destroying the enemy’s ability to fight. These men saw his weapons destroyed as they were being built and his transport stopped before it reached the battlefield. As the result of this thinking, our doctrine of air power was established.

With this much accomplished, the need for various types of airplanes was clearly defined. It called for three distinct types of warplanes: the long-range bomber, the observation plane, and the pursuit plane. Air strategy was built around the long-range bomber. This was the weapon which would destroy the enemy’s war plants and military establishments on his home grounds. The observation plane was to be used to seek out the enemy’s movements and to locate his installations. As aËrial photography was perfected, the observation planes were to be equipped to bring back a record of their findings. These records would establish the targets for the long-range bombers. In the beginning, the pursuit plane was considered a weapon to protect our own military establishments, our cities, and our war plants. Its mission was to intercept any enemy planes attempting to attack us.

On the preceding pages we have seen the bomber develop from a single-engined DH-4 into the giant four-engined B-17. This development was the result of the careful study of aËrial strategy by our Army airmen. When the big bombers with a range of thousands of miles were built, our strategists saw them as weapons to be used only against an enemy’s most distant military establishments. The smaller two-engined bombers which had once been our long-range bombers

were delegated to the destruction of targets closer to the battlefronts.

In time, the use of the two-engine bomber led to the development of attack aviation. This was built around very fast, two-engined planes which could carry both bombs and guns. These medium bombers were to be used to attack targets of medium range with both bombs and guns. They were to be used to destroy enemy troops, transports, and gun emplacements. In the few years of World War II, attack bombers were developed from comparatively slow planes to ships with the speed of fighters. They are capable of carrying more than a ton of bombs, and of mounting cannon and as many as fifteen machine guns.

With the establishment of a definite policy of air strategy, plans were worked out for the training of personnel to man and service our fighting planes. The training plans set up in the early twenties are essentially the same as those in effect at the present. The system consisted of two training schools, Primary and Advanced. In the Primary School cadets received their preliminary flight training and studied construction of planes, radio, weather observation, and other technical problems concerning flight. The qualities shown by the cadets in the primary training helped to determine the branch of combat aviation for which they were best fitted.

At the Advanced School, cadets were trained in larger and more powerful airplanes and received instruction in gunnery, formation flying, cross-country flying, and night flying. Graduates of the Advanced School received their wings and, by joining tactical units, completed their training as members of regular service squadrons. In 1928 all Army air training activities were consolidated at one great training center at San Antonio, Texas. This great headquarters for the training of United States Army airmen was dedicated in June, 1930, as Randolph Field, in memory of Captain William M. Randolph. Captain Randolph, a native of Texas, had lost his life in an airplane crash a few years before. It was fitting that the first great Army aviation training program was under the direction of Brigadier General Frank P. Lahm, the Army’s pioneer aviator.