Page:A Concise History of the U.S. Air Force.djvu/9

 vivid contrast to aerial achievements on the Western Front of the Great War in Europe that had begun two years earlier.

 Trial and Error in World War I

The potential of the airplane was proved in World War I when its use in critical reconnaissance halted the initial German offensive against Paris. It was not used to harass troops or drop bombs until two months into the war. On the basis of an aviator's report that the German army had a large gap in its lines and was attempting to swing wide and west around the British army, British commander Sir John French refused requests from the French to link up his army with their forces to the east. At the resulting battle of Mons southwest of Brussels on August 23, 1914, the British slowed the overall German advance, forcing it to swing east of Paris. The Allies, on the basis of a British aviator's report of the move, stopped the Germans at the battle of the Marne from September 6 to 9. The Germans, on the basis of one of their aviator's observation of the Allies' concentration, retreated behind the Aisne River. These actions, spurred by aerial observation, forced the combatants into fixed positions and initiated four years of trench warfare.

When American aircrews arrived in France three years later to join the conflict, they found mile after mile of fetid trenches protected by machine guns, barbed wire, and massed artillery. The airplane's primary roles remained reconnaissance and observation over the trenches of both sides, into which were poured men, supplies, and equipment in huge quantities easily seen from the air. Thousands of aviators fought and died for control of the skies above armies locked in death struggles below

In 1914 the U.S. Army's Aviation Section of the Signal Corps had five air squadrons and three being formed. By April 6, 1917, when the United States declared war on Germany, it had 56 pilots and fewer than 250 aircraft, all obsolete. Congress appropriated $54.25 million in May and June 1917 for "military aeronautics" to create a total of 13 American squadrons for the war effort. However, French Premier Alexandre Ribot's telegraphed message to President Woodrow Wilson in late May revealed that the United States did not yet comprehend the scale of the war. Ribot recommended that the Allies would need an American air force of 4,500 aircraft, 5,000 pilots, and 50,000 mechanics by 1918 to achieve victory. Trainer aircraft and spare parts would increase America's contribution to over 40,000 aircraft―this from a country that had produced only a few hundred, both civilian and military, from 1903 to 1916.  4