United States Army Air Forces

• 1. Origins And Reorganization

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  On the 20th of June 1941, the War Department issued a revision to Army Regulation 95-5 that created the United States Army Air Forces. This single document dissolved the dual status of the Air Corps and the General Headquarters Air Force. Henry H. Arnold assumed the title of Chief of the Army Air Forces for the first time in history. The new organization granted air units autonomy over their own installations and support personnel. Before this date, control of aviation units had resided with commanders of the corps areas since 1920. Major General Walter C. Short held the opinion that the Hawaiian Air Force was grossly overstaffed in July 1941. He mandated that non-flying AAF personnel complete infantry training for six to eight weeks. Efforts to complete gunnery training for B-17 gunners were stifled when aircrew were used by the Hawaiian Department to guard warehouses in Honolulu. Short insisted despite objections from his air commanders that aircraft be parked close together on open ramps as a security measure against sabotage rather than being dispersed in revetments for protection against air attack. These failures occurred in the six months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The likelihood of U.S. participation in World War II prompted the most radical reorganization of the aviation branch in its history. Less than five months after the rejection of Arnold's reorganization proposal, a joint U.S.-British strategic planning agreement refuted the General Staff's argument that the Air Corps had no wartime mission except to support ground forces. On the 28th of February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9082 based on Marshall's recommendation and the work of McNarney's committee. This order changed Arnold's title to Commanding General, Army Air Forces effective the 9th of March 1942. It made him co-equal with the commanding generals of the new Army Ground Forces and Services of Supply. The War Department issued Circular No. 59 on the 2nd of March that carried out the executive order. The three components replaced a multiplicity of branches and organizations, reduced the WDGS greatly in size, and proportionally increased the representation of the air forces members on it to 50%. In October 1944 Arnold proposed to eliminate the AC/AS, Training and move his office into OC&R, changing it to Operations, Training and Requirements. These mergers were never effected.

• 2. Global Expansion And Production

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  The German invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940 prompted Roosevelt to ask Congress for a supplemental appropriation of nearly a billion dollars. He requested a production program of 50,000 aircraft a year and a military air force of 50,000 aircraft. Less than two weeks later Congress passed a supplemental appropriation of more than a half billion dollars greater than requested. Accelerated programs followed in the Air Corps that repeatedly revised expansion goals. Plans called for 84 combat groups, 7,799 combat aircraft, and the annual addition to the force of 30,000 new pilots and 100,000 technical personnel. The accelerated expansion programs resulted in a force of 156 airfields and 152,125 personnel at the time of the creation of the Army Air Forces. Lovett initially believed that President Roosevelt's demand following the attack on Pearl Harbor for 60,000 airplanes in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943 was grossly ambitious. Working closely with General Arnold and engaging the capacity of the American automotive industry brought about an effort that produced almost 100,000 aircraft in 1944. In all, the United States produced nearly 300,000 aircraft in the years 1941-1945 inclusive. The AAF reached its wartime inventory peak of nearly 80,000 aircraft in July 1944. Forty-one percent of them were first line combat aircraft before trimming back to 73,000 at the end of the year following a large reduction in the number of trainers needed. First line combat aircraft in July 1944 totaled 492 very heavy bombers, 10,431 heavy bombers, 4,458 medium bombers, 1,733 light bombers, 14,828 fighters, and 1,192 reconnaissance aircraft. The most numerous individual types were the B-24 Liberator, P-47 Thunderbolt, B-17 Flying Fortress, and C-47 Skytrain. The logistical demands of this armada were met by the creation of the Air Service Command on the 17th of October 1941 to provide service units and maintain 250 depots in the United States. The operation of the stateside depots was done largely by more than 300,000 civilian maintenance employees, many of them women. In all facets of the service, more than 420,000 civilian personnel were employed by the AAF. The Air Transport Command made deliveries of almost 270,000 aircraft worldwide while losing only 1,013 in the process.

• 3. Personnel And Demographics

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  The huge increases in aircraft inventory resulted in a similar increase in personnel, expanding sixteen-fold in less than three years following its formation. No longer could pilots represent 90% of commissioned officers. The need for large numbers of specialists in administration and technical services resulted in the establishment of an Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, Florida. Even so, 193,000 new pilots entered the AAF during World War II, while 124,000 other candidates failed at some point during training or were killed in accidents. Pilot standards were changed to reduce the minimum age from 20 to 18, and eliminated the educational requirement of at least two years of college. Two fighter pilot beneficiaries of this change went on to become brigadier generals in the United States Air Force, James Robinson Risner and Charles E. Yeager. Crew needs resulted in the successful training of 43,000 bombardiers, 49,000 navigators, and 309,000 flexible gunners. Almost 1.4 million men received technical training as aircraft mechanics, electronics specialists, and other technicians. African-Americans comprised approximately six per cent of this force with 145,242 personnel in June 1944. In 1940, pressured by Eleanor Roosevelt and some Northern members of Congress, General Arnold agreed to accept blacks for pilot training, albeit on a segregated basis. A flight training center was set up at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Tuskegee training program produced 673 black fighter pilots, 253 B-26 Marauder pilots, and 132 navigators. The vast majority of African-American airmen did not fare as well. Mainly draftees, most did not fly or maintain aircraft. Their largely menial duties, indifferent or hostile leadership, and poor morale led to serious dissatisfaction and several violent incidents. Women served more successfully as part of the war-time Army Air Forces. Nearly 40,000 women served in the WAACs and WACs as AAF personnel. Approximately 1,100 were African-American women assigned to ten segregated AAF units. More than 1,000 served as Women Airforce Service Pilots, and 6,500 as nurses in the Army Air Forces including 500 flight nurses. Seven thousand six hundred one Air WACs served overseas in April 1945, and women performed in more than 200 job categories.

• 4. Command Structure Evolution

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  The War Department issued Circular No. 59 on the 2nd of March that carried out the executive order. The three components replaced a multiplicity of branches and organizations, reduced the WDGS greatly in size, and proportionally increased the representation of the air forces members on it to 50%. In addition to dissolving both Army General Headquarters and the chiefs of the combat arms, and assigning their training functions to the Army Ground Forces, War Department Circular 59 reorganized the Army Air Forces. It disbanded both Air Force Combat Command and the Office of Chief of the Air Corps, eliminating all its training and organizational functions. This removed an entire layer of authority. The Air Corps itself was a statutory entity and could not be legally discontinued except by act of Congress. Executive abolition of the OCAC under authority of the First War Powers Act gave the AAF legal standing. The chiefs of the other combat arms, including Infantry, were also abolished. Taking their former functions were eleven numbered air forces later raised to sixteen and six support commands which became eight in January 1943. The circular also restated the mission of the AAF, in theory removing from it responsibility for strategic planning and making it only a Zone of Interior training and supply agency. From the start AAF officers viewed this as a paper restriction negated by Arnold's place on both the Joint and Combined Chiefs. Field Service Regulations FM 100-20 issued by the War Department on the 21st of July 1943 was viewed by the senior leadership of the Army Ground Forces as the Army Air Forces Declaration of Independence. Four main directorates Military Requirements, Technical Services, Personnel, and Management Control were created each with multiple sub-directorates. Eventually more than thirty offices were authorized to issue orders in the name of the commanding general. When this adjustment failed to resolve the problems, the system was scrapped and all functions combined into a single restructured air staff. The hierarchical command principle in which a single commander has direct final accountability but delegates authority to staff was adopted AAF-wide in a major reorganization and consolidation on the 29th of March 1943. The four main directorates and seventeen subordinate directorates were abolished as an unnecessary level of authority. Execution of policies was removed from the staffs to be assigned solely to field organizations along functional lines.

• 5. Combat Units And Training

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  The primary combat unit of the Army Air Forces for both administrative and tactical purposes was the group. An organization of three or four flying squadrons and attached or organic ground support elements was the rough equivalent of a regiment of the Army Ground Forces. The Army Air Forces fielded a total of 318 combat groups at some point during World War II with an operational force of 243 combat groups in 1945. The Air Service and its successor the Air Corps had established 15 permanent combat groups between 1919 and 1937. With the buildup of the combat force beginning the 1st of February 1940, the Air Corps expanded from 15 to 30 groups by the end of the year. On the 7th of December 1941 the number of activated combat groups had reached 67 with 49 still within the Continental United States. Of the CONUS groups 21 were engaged in operational training or still being organized and were unsuitable for deployment. Since 1939 the overall level of experience among the combat groups had fallen to such an extent that when the demand for replacements in combat was factored in, the entire operational training system was threatened. To avoid this probable crisis, an Operational Training Unit OTU system was adopted as it had been by the RAF. Under the American OTU concept certain experienced groups were authorized as overstrength parent groups. A parent group provided approximately 20% of its seasoned personnel as cadre to a newly activated satellite group. New graduates of training schools fleshed out the satellite group and also restored the parent group to its overstrength size. The plan was first adopted in February 1942 by the AFCC's Second and Third Air Forces which had only training responsibilities during World War II. In May 1942 the plan was extended to all four continental air forces but not until early 1943 were most developmental problems resolved. Before the system matured each air force became predominant in one type of OTU training heavy bomber in the Second Air Force medium and light bomber in the Third and fighters in the First and Fourth. When the bulk of new groups and several parent groups had been sent overseas replacement training took precedence over OTU except for three B-29 groups.

• 6. Aircraft Inventory And Technology

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  The United States Army Air Forces used a large variety of aircraft in accomplishing its various missions including many obsolete aircraft left over from its pre-June 1941 time as the Air Corps with fifteen designations of types. The types included Attack Advanced Trainer Bomber Basic Trainer Cargo Cargo Glider Reconnaissance Liaison Observation Observation-Amphibian Pursuit Primary Trainer Rotary Wing. The AAF reached its wartime inventory peak of nearly 80,000 aircraft in July 1944 before trimming back to 73,000 at the end of the year following a large reduction in the number of trainers needed. First line combat aircraft in July 1944 totaled 492 very heavy bombers 10,431 heavy bombers 4,458 medium bombers 1,733 light bombers 14,828 fighters and 1,192 reconnaissance aircraft. The most numerous individual types were the B-24 Liberator 5,906 units P-47 Thunderbolt 5,483 units B-17 Flying Fortress 4,525 units and C-47 Skytrain 4,454 units. American fighter aircraft were inferior to the British Spitfire and Hurricane and German Messerschmitt Bf 110 and 109. Ralph Ingersoll wrote in late 1940 after visiting Britain that the best American fighter planes already delivered to the British are used by them either as advanced trainers or for fighting equally obsolete Italian planes in the Middle East. That is all they are good for. RAF crews he interviewed said that by spring 1941 a fighter engaging Germans had to have the capability to reach 400 mph in speed fight at 30,000-35,000 feet be simple to take off provide armor for the pilot and carry 12 machine guns or six cannons all attributes lacking in American aircraft. By the end of World War II the USAAF had created 16 numbered air forces distributed worldwide to prosecute the war plus a general air force within the continental United States to support the whole and provide air defense.