Page:Legislative History of the AAF and USAF.djvu/88

 �This Page Declassified lAW EO12958 USAF HrsogmA, STvms -- 81 making permanent the appointment of Gert. Henry H. Arnold, Commanchng Gen- eral of the AAF, to the grade of General of the Army. 4 In the spring of 1946 the War Depart- ment informed the AAF that legislation would be requested to implement two War Department plans. One would modify exist- mg law and procedure govermng the retire- ment of personnel for causes other than physical disability and effect the elnvAna- tion Of inefflcmnt officers of the Regular Army. The other plan would create a new promotion system by combining automatic seniority promotions, selective promotion, and forced attrltmn ,0 The AAF did not favor such legislation at this time, since xt felt that rowsions of personnel pohmes should be delayed until a separate Air Force was set up and the Axr Force could submit its own plans for legislation drawn up to meet needs peculiar to the Air Force. Several features of the War Department plans were not acceptable to the air arm.  The proposed legislation for the rehre- ment, promotion, and elimmation of Reg- ular Army officers was submxtted by the War Department in a draft drawn up on 20 January 1947, and was largely embodied in H. R. 2536, introduced m the House of Representatives on 13 lIarch 1947 by Wal- ter G. Andrews (Republican, New York). ,2 It was greatly modified by Congress and was combined wth stoailar legislation concern- ing the promotmn of naval officers in a bill, H. R. 3830, introduced in the House of Re- presentatxves by Dewey Short (Repubhcan, Missouri), on 13 June 1947. * This legasla- txon, as proposed by the War Department, was adopted after conferences in which some of the major points of disagreement between the Army and the AAF were ironed out. In AAF mrcles it was felt, however, that the commanding general of the AAF was not given sufficient administrative control in that part of the proposed legislation deal- ing with the air arm, and that too much discretionary power was left to the Sec- retary oœ War.  As finally enacted into law, tabis legisla- tion, the Officer Personnel Act of 194, Pubhc Law 381, 80 Cong., 1 Sess. (approved  August 1947), was a long and very de- tailed measure. Covenng nearly 118 pages in the United $taes Slatufos at Large, xt is dvded into 5 titles, 4 of wluch deal with officer personnel of the Navy. Title V, di- wded into 23 sections (sections 501-523), and covering only 30 pages out of the 118, deals wth the officer personneI of the Army and the Air Force. q This act provided a promotion system for the officer personnel ol the Army and the Air Force (reœerred to in the act as the Ar Corps) winch was entxrely new and dil- ferent in concept for these sermces; the new system involved a transihon from pro- motion by sonority to promotion by selec- tion. The first four titles of the act set up for the Navy ts own procedures for promo- tion, elimination, and retirement---a rather elaborate and detailed system which had evolved through the years and was em- bodied m this legislation wth Httle change no Title Y of the act made prowsion for the ehrnination and retirement of officer per- sonnel of the Regular Army and Regular Air Force as well as for their promotmn. It also made provimon for the procurement of officer personnel and set the stage Iora separate Air Force by providing for the Army Air Corps an xndependent basis of promotion to meet xts own reqmrements.* The Officer Personnel Act prowdeal that the promorton of Regular Army (and Reg- ular Air Force) officers for all grades above first lieutenant up to and including the grade of major general should be by selec- tion. The selectran of these officers for pro- motion was to be accomplished by selection boards consmtmg of not less than five senior officers appointed by the Secretary of War and convened from time to time in such numbers and under such directions as the Secretary might chreet. It was pro- wdeal that a majority of the total member- shp of any selectran board must agree on the promorton of each officer recommended for promotion by that board. The Presxdent was authorized to remove from the recom- mended lint the name of any officer whom THIS PAGE Declassified lAW EO12958