Page:Legislative History of the AAF and USAF.djvu/13

 �This Page Declassified lAW EO12958 Air Corps was still lagging far behind its lntrodion by the Air Corps before the budgets were authorized strength in airplanes and equip- mont. Finally, the Air Corps Act contained pro- visions for the procurement of aircraft by a system of advertising for competitive bids. Provisions were also made concerning the letting of contracts and establishing the necessary qualifications for contractors handling aircraft for the Army and Navy. A Patents and Designs Board was established to evaluate designs for aircraft, and for crait parts and accessories, which might be submitted to t by individual or corpora- tiens. Acting with the advice of the NACA, this board was to determine whether or not such items should be purchased (at a cost of not over $75,000) and used by the government. aT The Air Corps Act, did not actually repre- sent as great an advance in the status of the Army air arm as it seemed. It was not a move toward autonomy, for the Air Corps and its budget remained under the control of the War Department. Funds were not made available or the authorized five.year expansion program--although the War De- partment and the Bureau of the Budget, more than Congress, seem to have been re- sponsible for this reluctance to grant suffi- cient funds. Drected reforms were not carried out to .tle satrsfaction of the officers concerned, and the token representation ac- corded the Air Corps on the General Staff availed little. aS By 1933 the ofiSce of the Second Assistant Secretary of War [for Air] was vacant and its functions had been re- distributed.- , For several years after the passage of the Air Corps Act, Congress took little ac- tion in affairs relating to military aviation other than to make certain routine appro- priations. For seven years, beginning m 1927, Congre0s enacted no legislation con- corning the acninistration of military aviation. Although the Air Corps made considera- ble progress in these years, it did not carry out the five-year program authorized by Congress in 1926. Year after year the War Department and the Bureau of the Budget scaled down the appropriations requested submitted to Congress; the funds to imple- ment the 1926 program never were made available. As late as 30 June 1937, although more than a decade had elapsed since COn. gross had authorized a force of 1,800 serv- iceable airplanes for the Air. Corps, the art arm actually had only 842 such aircraft on hand.0 When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President m 1933 the advocates of air power received a powerful ally. S x But before the Air Corps was able to profit from a sym- pathetic hearing of its cause in the White House, it passed through an ordeal in the winter of 1933-34 which centered public attention on the Air Corps and its problems. The Postmaster General revoked the 1933 air mail contracts after investigations re- yealed that they were the result of raud and collusion and thereby illegal. The President then ordered the Air Corps to take up the unfamiliar task of carrying the air mail. The Air Corps was confronted with the problem of flying a scheduled transport service without proper equipment, with an inadequate ground organization, and in the face of extremely bad flying weather. Disaster was the result: accidents fol- lowed one another in rapid succession, and by the end of the first 3 weeks 10 mc had died while attempting to carry the matt in Air Corps planes. So In the spring of 1934 Congress passed an act, approved 27 March 1934, which gave the Ar Corps statutory authority to use Air Corps planes for car- tying the mail; the act included the proviso that the pilots carrying the mails were to be fully trained in the use of the special equipment necessary for night flyLug. This actior was somewhat like locking the barn door after the horse had been stolen. Mean- while, because of the accidents, the Air Corps was subjected to a barrage of criti- cism by the press. Air Corps personnel felt that they had been unjustly criticized. The winter of 1934, disastrous though it was to the Air Corps, was the turnLug point in ts struggle for more equipment, more personnel, greater recognition of ts basis mission, and more freedom of action. Maj. Gert. Hugh J. tr, nerr, who had been a lieu- THIS PAGE Declassified lAW EO12958