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
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.
[4]
A major step toward a separate air force came in March 1935, when 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 areas (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'état, but were not activated.
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.
[5] GHQ Air Force organized combat groups administratively into a strike force of three wings deployed to the
Atlantic, Pacific, and
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.
[n 1] Between March 1935 and September 1938, the commanders of GHQ Air Force and the Air Corps, Major Generals
Frank M. Andrews and
Oscar Westover respectively, clashed philosophically over the direction in which the air arm was moving, exacerbating the difficulties.
[6]
The expected activation of Army General Headquarters prompted
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.
[7]
The likelihood of U.S. participation in
World War II prompted the most radical reorganization of the
aviation branch in its history, developing a structure that both unified command of all air elements and gave it total autonomy and equality with the ground forces by March 1942.
In the spring of 1941, the success in Europe of air operations conducted under centralized control (as exemplified by the British
Royal Air Force and the German
Wehrmacht's military air arm, the
Luftwaffe) made clear that the splintering of authority in the American air forces, characterized as "
hydra-headed" by one congressman,
[n 2] had caused a disturbing lack of clear channels of command. Less than five months after the rejection of Arnold's reorganization proposal, a joint U.S.-British strategic planning agreement (
ABC-1) refuted the General Staff's argument that the Air Corps had no wartime mission except to support ground forces.
[8] A struggle with the General Staff over control of air defense of the United States had been won by airmen and vested in four command units called "numbered air forces", but the bureaucratic conflict threatened to renew the dormant struggle for an independent United States Air Force. Marshall had come to the view that the air forces needed a "simpler system" and a unified command. Working with Arnold and
Robert A. Lovett, recently appointed to the long-vacant position of Assistant Secretary of War for Air, he reached a consensus that quasi-autonomy for the air forces was preferable to immediate separation.
[9]