United States Army Air Forces Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Unity of command problems in the Air Corps=== The roots of the Army Air Forces arose in the formulation of theories of [[strategic bombing]] at the [[Air Corps Tactical School]] that gave new impetus to arguments for an independent air force, beginning with those espoused by Brig. Gen. [[Billy Mitchell]] that led to his later [[court-martial]]. Despite a perception of resistance and even obstruction then by the bureaucracy in the War Department [[Staff (military)|General Staff]] (WDGS), much of which was attributable to lack of funds, the Air Corps later made great strides in the 1930s, both organizationally and in doctrine. A strategy stressing precision bombing of industrial targets by heavily armed, long-range bombers emerged, formulated by the men who would become its leaders.<ref>Nalty (1997), pp. 112β113.</ref> A major step toward a separate air force came in March 1935, when the command of all combat air units within the Continental United States (CONUS) was centralized under a single organization called the ''"General Headquarters Air Force"''. Since 1920, control of aviation units had resided with commanders of the [[corps area]]s (a peacetime ground forces administrative echelon), following the model established by commanding General [[John J. Pershing]] during World War I. In 1924, the General Staff planned for a wartime activation of an Army general headquarters (GHQ), similar to the [[American Expeditionary Forces]] model of [[World War I]], with a GHQ Air Force as a subordinate component. Both were created in 1933 when a small conflict with Cuba seemed possible following a ''coup d'Γ©tat'' but was not activated. The activation of GHQ Air Force represented a compromise between strategic airpower advocates and ground force commanders who demanded that the Air Corps mission remain tied to that of the land forces. Airpower advocates achieved a centralized control of air units under an air commander, while the WDGS divided authority within the air arm and assured a continuing policy of support of ground operations as its primary role.<ref>Nalty (1997), p. 130.</ref> GHQ Air Force organized combat groups administratively into a strike force of three wings deployed to the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]], Pacific, and [[Gulf of Mexico|Gulf coasts]] but was small in comparison to European air forces. Lines of authority were difficult, at best, since GHQ Air Force controlled only operations of its combat units while the Air Corps was still responsible for doctrine, acquisition of aircraft, and training. Corps area commanders continued to exercise control over airfields and administration of personnel, and in the overseas departments, operational control of units as well.<ref group=n>Three examples of the negative effects of this long-ingrained policy, even after creation of the AAF, occurred in Hawaii in the six months preceding the Japanese [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], where neither the Air Corps nor the AFCC had any command jurisdiction. First, Maj. Gen. [[Walter C. Short]], commanding general of the [[United States Army|U.S. Army's]] [[Hawaiian Department]], held the opinion that the [[Seventh Air Force|Hawaiian Air Force]] was grossly overstaffed and mandated in July 1941 that its non-flying AAF personnel complete infantry training, a program that took them from their primary jobs for a period of six to eight weeks. Second, efforts in October and November to complete gunnery training for B-17 gunners were stifled when aircrew were used by the Hawaiian Department to guard warehouses in [[Honolulu]]. Finally, after the War Department issued a war warning to Pacific commands on 27 November, 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. (Arakaki and Kuborn, pp. 5β6, 38)</ref> Between March 1935 and September 1938, the commanders of GHQ Air Force and the Air Corps, Major Generals [[Frank Maxwell Andrews|Frank M. Andrews]] and [[Oscar Westover]] respectively, clashed philosophically over the direction in which the air arm was moving, exacerbating the difficulties.<ref>Nalty (1997), pp. 131β133.</ref> The expected activation of Army General Headquarters prompted [[Chief of Staff of the United States Army|Army Chief of Staff]] [[George C. Marshall]] to request a reorganization study from Chief of the Air Corps Maj. Gen. [[Henry H. Arnold]] resulting on 5 October 1940 in a proposal for creation of an air staff, unification of the air arm under one commander, and equality with the ground and supply forces. Arnold's proposal was immediately opposed by the General Staff in all respects, rehashing its traditional doctrinal argument that, in the event of war, the Air Corps would have no mission independent of support of the ground forces. Marshall implemented a compromise that the Air Corps found entirely inadequate, naming Arnold as acting "Deputy Chief of Staff for Air" but rejecting all organizational points of his proposal. GHQ Air Force instead was assigned to the control of Army General Headquarters, although the latter was a training and not an operational component, when it was activated in November 1940. A division of the GHQ Air Force into four geographical air defense districts on 19 October 1940 was concurrent with the creation of air forces to defend [[Hawaii]] and the [[Panama Canal]]. The air districts were converted in March 1941 into numbered air forces with a subordinate organization of 54 groups.<ref name="goss3">Craven and Cate, Vol. 6, pp. 17β18.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page