For the past eighty years the US military establishment has worked to integrate air power into its doctrine, strategy, force structure, and tactics in order to maximize the nation's security. This study by Dr. Richard Davis highlights one aspect of this process, that of providing the most potent mix of army and air forces to prosecute ground warfare. It also illustrates the impediments to joint action created by the services' separate organizations and distinctive doctrine. In addition, this monograph suggests that changes to improve interservice cooperation are often either forced by combat...

This is the fifth in a series of research studies-historical works that were not published for various reasons. Yet, the material contained therein was deemed to be of enduring value to Air Force members and scholars. These were minimally edited and printed in a limited edition to reach a small audience that may find them useful. We invite readers to provide feedback to the Air Force History and Museums Program. Beginning in 1946, the Army Air Forces (AAF) first sponsored a study on the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion (NEPA) project. The effort progressed over the next several years after...

This is the fourth in a series of research studies-historical works that were not published for various reasons. Yet, the material contained therein was deemed to be of enduring value to Air Force members and scholars. These were minimally edited and printed in a limited edition to reach a small audience that may find them useful. We invite readers to provide feedback to the Air Force History and Museums Program. The author, contract historian William S. Hanable, president of Research North, based in Westport, Washington, completed the final draft manuscript two years ago, in December 1996....

In March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget ordering each war agency to prepare "an accurate and objective account" of that agency's war experience. Soon after, the Army Air Forces began hiring professional historians so that its history could, in the words of Brigadier General Laurence Kuter, "be recorded while it is hot and that personnel be selected and an agency set up for a clear historian's job without axe to grind or defense to prepare."An Historical Division was established in Headquarters Army Air Forces under Air Intelligence, in...

The historical roots of air superiority date to the First World War, which marked the emergence of the fighter airplane, offensive and defensive fighter doctrine, and the trained fighter pilot. By the end of the war, the Imperial German Air Service had been decisively outfought, and though occasional bitter air combat still occurred, the Allied air arms were free to harass and attack German ground forces wherever and whenever they chose. After the war, there were defense commentators who injudiciously predicted-not for the last time-that the era of dogfighting was over; higher aircraft speeds...

The introduction of airplanes to warfare led almost from the first to their application in close support of ground forces. The earliest attempts at influencing the outcome of a ground battle from the air were limited by the fragility of the craft engaged and the lack of coherent ideas on the most effective use of what was still a novelty. What began as an expedient, however, has become over nearly ten decades an essential role for air power. Taken virtually for granted by troops and aviators today, the employment of air power in this way has been controversial from the first instance in which...

Following World War II, the onset of nuclear weapons, long-range jet bombers, and ballistic missiles radically changed American foreign policy and military strategy. The United States Air Force, led by men of far-sighted vision and uncommon dedication, accepted the challenge of organizing and leading a massive research and development effort to build ballistic missiles. In the quarter of a century since, these weapons have constituted one of the three legs of the strategic triad-the basis of America's strategy of deterring nuclear war-yet they have received less attention from the public and...

This monograph recounts the development of air doctrine in the Army air arm from 1917 to 1941. It includes concepts, both strategic and tactical, that emerged during World War I and the period following, up to the entry of the United States into World War II. The study is based primarily on official Air Force records and upon interviews with officers of the air arm who have been especially associated with air doctrine. It was prepared for the USAF Historical Division by Dr. Thomas H. Greer, formerly a member of the Division and presently associate professor of humanities, Michigan State...

The United States Army Air Forces became an independent service, the United States Air Force, in 1947-the second year, supposedly, of "peace." In reality there had just begun a long conflict between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and the satellite states subject to it. In 1949 the United States and most of the non-Communist countries of Europe signed the North Atlantic Treaty. The United States Air Force, which had been only a token presence on the continent since the end of World War II, once more crossed the Atlantic in strength. The commitment of that service to...

Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion-like William the Conqueror's before it or the Inchon landing afterwards-will long be studied as a classic in military planning, logistics, and operations. Overlord depended to a remarkable degree upon the use of air power in virtually all its forms. A half-century ago, aircraft were primitive vehicles of war compared to the modern attackers of the Gulf War era" with their precision weapons, advanced navigational, sensor systems, and communications. Yet, the airplane still had a profound impact upon the success of the invasion. Simply stated without...