Page 341 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

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u.s. air forCe doCtrine:. tHe searCH for deCisive effeCt

was far ahead of anything flying in Europe. In fact, the B-17 could cruise at a speed
faster than the best fighter planes of the day. Equipped with the precise gyroscopic
Norden bombsight and modern navigation aids, the Air Corps now had the airplane
with which it could realistically expect to carry out its theory of precision strategic
bombardment.
Through the 1930s and 1940s a key figure in this process of doctrine development
was General Henry ‘Hap” Arnold, one of the first American officers who had learned
to fly. Arnold had held a key position on the Air Service staff in Washington in World
War I and, although he did not win combat experience, his work with industrial
mobilization of resources for American aviation gave him a superb understanding of
aviation technology and its potential—an understanding that served him very well in
his career. He served with General Mitchell in the post World War I period as one of
Mitchell’s key assistants. After Mitchell’s resignation Arnold learned to temper his
outspoken advocacy for airpower and worked within the army staff system to further
the goal of an independent air force equal to the army and navy.
Partly under Arnold’s influence, American military aviation moved from being a
an Air Service, a specialist branch of the army with a status like infantry or cavalry,
to being the Air Corps, an organization with its own assistant secretary of the army,
a special headquarters, and considerable training infrastructure of its own. In 1934-
1935 the Air Corps was granted permission to set up a General Headquarters to serve
as a command headquarters of the Air Corps deployed in case of war. While much of
the air force would operate in direct support of army units, in wartime much of the
American aviation force would be concentrated under the command of an airman and
employed in mass as a decisive weapon. From 1918 to 1941, step by step, the Army
aviation force moved towards full independence as a separate service. This was the
goal of Arnold and a cadre of senior American airmen that included General Carl
Spaatz, who commanded the American strategic bomber forces in Europe in World
War II and later become the first chief of staff of an independent U.S. Air Force. 22

World War II and American Air Doctrine

In 1939 Arnold became chief of the Army Air Corps and prepared plans for
aviation expansion in case the Americans were drawn into the World War that had
begun in Europe. Arnold, and many of his colleagues such as Spaatz, believed that
airpower, if employed correctly and as a strategic weapon, could win the war on its
own. The goal was to avoid the kind of long and bloody ground campaign that had
resulted in years of stalemate and the loss of millions of men in World War I.
With the beginning of limited American rearmament in 1939, American airmen
began planning in earnest to create the type of air force they believed America would

22
On the key personalities who led the early U.S. Army Air Corps see John L. Frisbee, Makers of the
United States Air Force (Washington DC: Office of air Force History, 1987).