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! ===Demobilization and independence=== [[File:Carl Spaatz, Air Force photo portrait, color.jpg|thumb|right|[[General officer|General]] [[Carl Spaatz|Carl A. Spaatz]]]] With the defeat of Japan, the entire United States military establishment immediately began a drastic [[demobilization]], as it had at the end of World War I. The AAF was hit as hard or harder as the older services by demobilization. Officers and enlisted were discharged, installations were closed, and aircraft were stored or sold. Between August 1945 and April 1946, its strength fell from 2.25 million men to just 485,000, and a year later to 304,000. The [[Air Transport Command]], which retained its mission to support the entire military establishment worldwide, was trimmed from nine to three divisions and by the end of 1946 its personnel reduced by 80%. Aircraft inventory dropped from 79,000 to less than 30,000, many of them in storage. Permanent installations were reduced from 783 to 177, just 21 more than pre-war.<ref>Nalty (1997), p. 378.</ref><ref name="Futrell p. 156"/><ref group=n>Installations closed because of demobilization included main bases, sub (satellite) bases, and auxiliary airfields.</ref> By July 1946, the Army Air Forces had only 2 combat-ready groups out of 52 that remained on the list of active units. A rebuilt air force of 70 groups, the authorized peacetime strength, was anticipated, with reserve and national guard forces to be available for active duty in an emergency. However considerable opposition to a large peacetime military establishment, and to the financial cost of such an establishment, resulted in planning cuts to 48 groups. In February 1946, ill health forced the retirement of Arnold before he could fulfill his goal of achieving independence of the Air Force as a service equal with the Army and Navy. Spaatz replaced Arnold as the only other commanding general of the USAAF, and he oversaw both the demobilization of the largest air force in military history and its rebirth as envisioned by Mitchell and Arnold. Arnold left the AAF with two important legacies, based on his experiences in World War II, which shaped the post-war USAAF and their independent successor. The first was a requirement that the command staff of the service must include [[Staff (military)|staff officers]] of varying expertise besides pilots. The second was the belief that despite the unqualified success of training methods that had expanded the Air Forces, the United States would never again have the time to mobilize and train the [[Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces|reserve components]] as they had in 1940, necessitating that reservists and National Guardsmen be immediately ready for service in case of national emergency.<ref>Nalty (1997), p. 374.</ref> For his part, Spaatz consulted closely with the new Army Chief of Staff, General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], and reorganized the AAF into ''major commands'' including three for combat operations ([[Strategic Air Command]], [[Tactical Air Command]], and [[Aerospace Defense Command|Air Defense Command]])<ref group=n>The remainder of the AAF was reorganized into the Air Materiel, Air Training, Air Transport, Air Proving Ground, and Air University Commands. (Craven and Cate, Vol. 7, p. 576)</ref> that would not require a second restructuring once the Air Force became independent.<ref>Nalty (1997), p. 375.</ref> He also re-structured the reserve components to conform with Arnold's concepts, including creation of the [[Air National Guard]] in April 1946.<ref>Nalty (1997), p. 377.</ref> {{quote box |width=32em |align=left |bgcolor=#B0C4DE |title= |quote=In such a manner for the first time in the history of American aviation the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces definitely took a stand in favor of an independent military air arm. Though far from providing the initial impulse, [[Harry S. Truman|the President]]'s message of 19 December 1945 contributed considerable impetus to a series of developments within the executive and legislative branches of the government which led directly, if belatedly, to the adoption of the National Security Act of 1947. βR. Earl McClendon, ''Autonomy of the Air Arm''<ref name="Mac108">McClendon (1996), p. 108</ref> }} On 11 April 1945, at the conclusion of a ten-month study that took them to every major theater to interview 80 "key military and naval personnel", the Joint Chiefs of Staff Special Committee for the Reorganization of National Defense recommended that the armed forces of United States be organized into a single cabinet department, and that "three coordinate combat branches, Army, Navy, and Air" comprise the operational services. The committee reported that the statutory creation of a United States Air Force would merely recognize a situation that had evolved during World War II with the Army Air Forces, acknowledging that naval/marine aviation and some aspects of army aviation would remain in place. The committee also reported that its recommendation was approved by "Generals of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Fleet Admirals Chester W. Nimitz and William F. Halsey and numerous other leading military and naval personnel".<ref name="mac104107"/> The Navy Department remained opposed to a single department of defense and, at the recommendation of the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, created a panel using naval personnel to study the feasibility of a coordinating agency without executive powers as an alternative. The "Eberstadt report" made such a recommendation, but also endorsed the concept of an Air Force as a separate service. The Navy Department did not acknowledge its own findings and continued to oppose creation of a separate Air Force during hearings for unification bills introduced in October 1945. When the hearings failed to submit a report, President [[Harry S. Truman]] on 19 December 1945 came out strongly in support of an air force on a parity with ground and naval forces, reminding Congress that prior to the war independent Army and Navy Departments had often failed to work collectively or in coordination to the best interest of the nation. He asserted that wartime expedients that had overcome these defects proved to be the difference between victory and defeat.<ref name="mac104107">McClendon (1996), pp. 104β108</ref> Congress, at the recommendation of Truman, created the [[United States Department of the Air Force|Department of the Air Force]] with enactment of the National Security Act of 1947 (61 ''Stat''. 495), 26 July 1947. The act established the '''[[United States Air Force]]''', a completely separate branch of the U.S. military, and abolished both the Army Air Forces and the Air Corps, effective 18 September 1947.<ref>[http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104613/the-us-air-force.aspx "The Air Force Fact Sheet"] (AF.mil) Retrieved 25 April 2016.</ref> The transfer of personnel and assets from the AAF to the USAF was effected by Transfer Order 1, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 26 September 1947.<ref name="natarc" /> The initial delineation of service roles, Executive Order 9877, was supplanted on 21 April 1948, by the approval by Truman of the [[Key West Agreement]], which outlined the air assets that each service would be permitted to maintain. The Air Force was assigned the bulk of strategic, tactical, and transport aircraft, but the issue remained divisive well into the 1950s.<ref>Nalty (1997), pp. 418β424.</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