USSOCOM celebrates Air Force’s 68th birthday

Photo By Staff Sgt. Mark Shrewsbury | U.S. Army Gen. Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold, commander of U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, poses for a photograph. Arnold oversaw mobilization of the nation's aviation industry and deployment of the largest air armada of all time. (Courtesy Photo)  

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FL, UNITED STATES

09.16.2015

Story by Staff Sgt. Mark Shrewsbury 

U.S. Special Operations Command

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – United States Special Operations Command will celebrate the U.S. Air Force’s 68th birthday, Sept. 18, 2015, with a special cake-cutting ceremony at the headquarters in Tampa.

The U.S. Air Force won its independence as a full partner with the Army and the Navy Sept. 18, 1947, after distinguishing itself through wartime achievements during World War II.

Prior to the Air Force’s establishment as a separate and independent branch of service, aviation elements were created within the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps. This process began Aug. 1, 1907, with the formation of an aeronautical division. While this division’s primary interest was focused on balloons and aerostats instead of heavier-than-air flying machines at first, it would accept delivery of its first airplane from the Wright brothers in 1909. Four years later, a small band of Army Airmen under the leadership of Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois experimented with various aircraft and formed an operational unit, the 1st Aero Squadron, based at the time out of Texas City, Texas. The town came to be known by some as the birthplace of what became the United States Air Force.

As a result of congressional legislation, the Army established the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps to improve its fledgling flying capabilities, July 18, 1914.

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, its aircraft industries were far inferior to the other major combatants in the war. Responding to criticism of the American aircraft effort, President Woodrow Wilson created the Army-Air Service and placed it directly under the War Department in 1918.

While the air service grew to more than 19,000 officers and 178,000 enlisted men, and the American industry had turned out 11,754 aircraft by the time of the armistice in November 1918, the air service soon lost most of these people and planes in a rapid demobilization right after the war.

In 1920, the Army Reorganization Act made the Air Service a combat arm of the Army, and the Air Corps Act of 1926 changed its name to the Army-Air Corps on July 2 of that same year. On March 1, 1935, General Headquarters Air Force (GHQ AF), assumed command of U.S.-based Air Corps tactical units, which previously had been parceled out to regional Army Corps commands. Even after Germany, Japan, and Italy began to build up their armed forces, the U.S. Air Corps, as well as the rest of the Army, remained a small, peacetime establishment with only limited funds for growth or modernization.

The Department of War created the Army Air Forces (AAF) on June 20, 1941 as its aviation element and, shortly thereafter, made it co-equal to the Army Ground Forces. The Air Corps remained one of the Army's combat arms, similar to its infantry. Expansion of the AAF accelerated after the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Immediately after the United States declared war on Japan, and the remaining Axis powers declared war on the U.S., the Army Air Forces oversaw mobilization of the nation's aviation industry and deployment of the largest air armada of all time under the leadership of U.S. Army Gen. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold.

The AAF's inventory included a wide-range of training, transport, pursuit, attack, reconnaissance, and bomber aircraft. Drawing upon American industrial prowess and human resources, the AAF reached a peak strength of 80,000 aircraft and 2.4 million personnel by 1942.

“Gen. Arnold and Gen. Carl Spaatz saw the need to wait for the stars to align with Congress, the American public, and industry, before advancing the air force torch of independence,” said Dr. Kenneth H. Poole, director of the Center for Special Operations Studies and Research at the Joint Special Operations University.

Subsequently, the commander of the 1st Air Commando Group, U.S. Army Col. Phillip Cochran, and his deputy commander, U.S. Army Lt. Col. John Alison, brought the first helicopters to India in 1944, envisioning the vertical lift capabilities of the smaller aircraft as the answer to the most difficult evacuation situations, where the terrain prevented building any airstrip, no matter how crude.

“The contributions to the establishment of the U.S. Air Force by Gen. Arnold, Maj. Gen. "Johnny" Alison and Col. Phillip G. Cochran, exemplify the Air Force’s current mission of ‘Fly, Fight and Win!’” said Poole. “Alison and Cochran were both roommates and distinguished fighter pilots, one an ace pilot with the ‘Flying Tigers’ and the other having been awarded with a Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.”

The actions of these three men, and many visionary leaders like them through the final years of World War II, both reinforced the need for a separate and independent Air Force branch of service and paved the way for many technological advances in aviation in the years since.

On October 14, 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager flew the Bell XS-1 past the speed of sound, launching the new Air Force into the supersonic era. New advances in aircraft capable of surpassing the speed of sound, exiting the Earth’s atmosphere, and the U.S. Air Force’s demonstrated nuclear capabilities would lead to U.S. victory in the Cold War decades later.

Since its early years as the Army-Air Corps, the U.S. Air Force has progressed from being a combat arm of the Army to distinguishing itself as an independent branch of military service and one that has proven superior airpower is vital not only to our nation’s defense, but also to military operations all over the world.

Today, the pace of technological change moves faster than ever before, and America's role in protecting against aggression, while fostering world democracy, is more complex. With these challenges in mind, the Air Force looks eagerly to the future as it continues to improve what is now the world's premiere global air and space force.
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• Date Taken: 09.16.2015
• Date Posted: 09.16.2015 11:45
• Story ID: 176217
• Location: MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FL, US
• Hometown: MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FL, US
• Hometown: TAMPA, FL, US