U. S. Air Force

In its first fifty years as an independent armed service, the United States Air Force (USAF) has fostered science and technology and-in partnership with the private sector-developedand produced the complex tools of aerospace power that helped the Free World prevail in the Cold War. The foundation for these extraordinary achievements was laid in the forty yearsbefore the Air Force separated from the U. S. Army in 1947. This booklet tells the story of how the air components of the Army and then the USAF organized and managed the activities required to get aircraft and other weapon systems from thedrawing board to the flightline or the launch pad. Published as one of a series of booklets celebrating the 50th anniversary of the USAF in 1997, this study is the first overall historical synopsis of the service's acquisition structure. Thetext was originally prepared as a chapter in the Air Force Acquisition Factbook, a compendium of acquisition programs and policies published by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition). Hence the study is intended both toeducate personnel in today's acquisition community about their antecedents and to commemorate this aspect of the Air Force'sheritage to a wider audience.

Many documents, articles, and stories have been written about U. S. Air Force operations in Southeast Asia (SEA). However, given the critical in-depth coverage commensurate with our level of involvement. This volume, the first in a USAF Southeast Asia Monograph series, is an attempt to document the story of AIR-POWER -- and the people behind it -- in our nation's longest armed conflict. For eight years American airman fought with a multitude of missions, evolving weaponry, ever changing tactics and maybe most notable --constantly changing constraints. In this volume, authors from the Air War College and Air Command and Staff College who actually fought there have combined for two excellent monographs of the people and weapons in SEA. The authors' breadth of combat experience provides a penetrating account of airpower brought to bear --with all the emotion, frustrations, bravery and confusion of real life. For the general reader, these stories tell of airpower in human terms and should give some understanding of the spirit, courage, and professionalism of our U. S. airmen. To the student of airpower interested in improving the effectiveness of our Air Force, the monographs make an excellent case study of tactical air doctrine. The entire series is dedicated to ALL who served.

The Condensed Analysis contains a short history of the Ninth Air Force in World War II, from the build-up before the invasion of the European continent through subsequent combat operations in 1944 and 1945. More than a narrative history, the study examines the problems that Ninth experienced in conducting joint combat operationswith ground forces across the rapidly moving battlefront in France and Germany. Some of its recommendations were implemented after World War II, others involve issues we continue to struggle with today: The need for a theater level air headquarters, command and control of tactical air forces, the importance of air-ground cooperation (including the co-location of headquarters), and the absence of the capability to mount night and all-weather operations-the lackof a "real and effective 24-hour-a-day operation." In its comprehensiveness, the Condensed Analysis also touches aircrew training and rotation, air base defense organization, civil engineering support, intelligence- virtually every one of today's Air Force specialities. Since 1945 the Air Force has gone far in creating a modernizedforce structure with highly professional personnel. Yet many of the doctrinal problems identified during World War II are still with us today. A look back, therefore, can be a useful reminder of howsuch problems developed and how they might be solved.

In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War, the official history offices of the U. S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force and their respective historical associations collaborated to sponsor as comprehensive a symposium as possible, including as participants some of the coalition partners who contributed forces and weapons to the war. The intent of this symposium, titled Coalition Air Warfare during the Korean War, 1950 -1953, was to focus not only on the contributions made by thearmed forces of the United States, but also on those of America's allies. The diverse group of panelists and speakers included not only scholars with subject matter expertise, but also veteran soldiers, sailors, and airmen who had served inthat conflict. It was hoped that the melding of these diverse perspectives would provide interesting, if sometimes conflicting, views about the Korean War. The symposium organizers designated an agenda of six specific panels for investigation, including Planning and Operations; Air Superiority, Air Support of Ground Forces; Air Interdiction and Bombardment, Air Reconnaissance and Intelligence, and Logistical Support of Air Operations. Each session began with commentary by the panel chairman, which was followed by formal papers, and in some instances included a lively question and answer session. The papers and most of the proceedings found their way into print and are recorded here in an effort to permanently capture the activities, challenges, contributions, and heroics of the coalition air forces and the airmen who fought during the Korean conflict.

This volume is the second in a series on active Air Force bases and a continuation of a recent line of works prepared for the Center for Air Force History under the Reference Series. These reference books contain specific information about a number of topics of interest to the UnitedStates Air Force and other arms of the Department of Defense. They are designed to present fundamental data about such diverse subjects as Air Force aircraft, combat action, unit lineage and honors, campaign medals and streamers, and air bases, for those who will write more extensive narrative accounts about Air Force activities and operations. Volume II in the Air Force Bases series provides important background information about overseas installations that are less well known than domestic stations. The active installations included in this volume, to be sure, represent only a fraction of the overseas bases, fields, and stations operated by theUnited States Air Force and its predecessor organizations since the beginning of World War II. Nevertheless, many of the most significant andenduring air bases appear in these pages, some of which are essential to America's defense posture. This work represents a starting point for military students and staff officers involved in defense research or planning, and for scholars interested in serious research of air bases and the Air Force organizations that operated from them.

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 impedimentsto joint action created by the services' separateorganizations and distinctive doctrine. In addition, this monograph suggests that changes to improve interservice cooperation are often either forced by combat or imposed from the top down by the highest levels of the service or defense hierarchies. In World War II, Korea, and Vietnamthe services developed weapons and systems that brought air power to bear on the battlefield in a relatively quick and overwhelmingly powerful manner. Without the impetus of war, however, the services seem often to fall back on their broader agenda of preparation for future war. In the case of the 1980s, intervention by the Chiefs of the Air Force and Army Staffs forced increased cooperation for battlefield synchronization and integration. In this instance the two Chiefs recognized the needand acted. Generals Gabriel and Wickham, aided by their deputies for plans and operations, Lieutenant Generals John T. Chain, Jr., and Fred K. Mahaffey, set up a small ad hoc group, bypassing their own services' formal staffstructure, to fabricate a new method of mutual force development, including cross-service budgeting and programming procedures. The Chiefs adopted the group's recommendations as the foundation of a continuing joint force development process.

Though we are still within the first century of powered flight, air power has already become the dominant form of military power projection in the modern world. The doctrinal underpinnings of air power thought are, of course, traditionally ascribed to the three great theorists of air power application, Doubet, Trenchard, and Mitchell. Since the Second World War, the air power community has not often explored the doctrinal implications of air power development. LordTedder's Lee Knowles lectures at Cambridge, and the writings of Air Vice Marshal R. A. Mason, and Colonel John A. Warden III constitute notable-and noteworthy--exceptions. Now comes Colonel Phillip Meilinger, who has posited a group of provocative propositions that will instill an appreciation for air power for those who seek to understand it and challenge the assumptions ofthose who do not yet appreciate what it offers. This book has been deliberately designed in a small format so that it can be readily carried in the pocket of a flight suit or a BDU. Readers are encouraged to discuss these propositions and, if so moved, to communicate directly with Colonel Meilinger via the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, or through the Office of the Air Force Historian, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.

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 reviews by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From this emerged the joint USAF-AEC Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program. Ten more years of studies were undertaken by governmental laboratories and industrial firms until the Kennedy administration cancelled the effort in 1961. There was, however, some useful follow-on work on high temperature materials and high performance reactors under AEC direction. Also, some of the developmental work continued under space nuclear programs. Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion is a comprehensive, unclassified, annotated bibliography of the U. S. government program to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft. The contract author, Dr. Bernard J. Snyder, is president of Energy & Management Consultants Corporation, based in Potomac, Maryland. He is uniquely qualified for this task by virtue of nearly forty years' experience in the nuclear energy field, including government agencies and the private sector. Dr. Snyder earned BME and MME degrees from Cornell University and a Ph. D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. He completed the manuscript in May 1996.

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. Through a series of case studies, spanning a period of more than fifty years, he examines in detail the development and employment of land-based air power in maritime operations. Although the emphasis is on World War II, modern examples of land-based air power, through the end of the Cold War, are also examined. His conclusions are that historically land-based air forces seldom received priority in operations against maritime targets, nor-despite their demonstrated achievements in the crucible of battle-have the land-based forces been "optimally organized, equipped, andtrained for air-sea warfare when hostilities began." Nonetheless, over the period covered inthis volume, land-based air power has clearly transformed the nature of naval warfare. Theinfluence of that change in the years ahead remains to be seen.

This book describes the struggle to desegregate the post-World War II U. S. Army Air Forces and its successor, the U. S. Air Force, and the remarkable advances made during the next two decades to end racial segregation and move towards equality of treatment of Negro airmen. The author, Lt. Col. Alan L. Gropman, a former Instructor of History at the U. S. Air Force Academy, received his doctorate degree from Tufts University. His dissertation served as the basis for this volume. In it, the author describes the fight to end segregation within the Air Force following President Harry S. Truman's issuance of an executive order directing the integration of the armed forces. Despite resistance to this order, fueled by heated segregationist opposition, integration moved ahead somewhat slowly under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Progress increased during the administration of President John F. Kennedy, which saw major advances toward achieving equality for Negro servicemen. Colonel Gropman's study is a detailed, comprehensive, and, in many respects, a documentary account. The crucial events itdescribes more than justify the unusually extended treatment they receive. The volume thus provides a permanent record of this turbulent period in race relations and constitutes a significant contribution to the history of the Air Force

Like all chronologies, bibliographies, and encyclopedias, Air Force Combat Units of World War II serves a very special historical function. It traces the lineage of each Army Air Corps and U. S. Air Force combat group or higher organization active in World War II, from itsorigins to 1956. It is a concise official record of those units: their assignments, subordinate organizations, stations, commanders, campaigns, aircraft, and decorations. But it is more than that. As an important source of ready information, this volume not only serves as a reference tool for historians and researchers; but it also provides commanders with a corporate memory of vital statistics. With these facts, a unit documents its heritage, the basis for unit esprit de corps. Originally this volume had been printed in 1961. Its worth has been proven, and the demand for it has been great. With this reprint, it will continue to serve the United States Air Force in all quarters in years to come.

The United States Air Force Historical Research Center and its predecessor organizations have over the years received thousands of requests for brief histories of Air Force organizations. Wing commanders ask for historical data that can beused to introduce the unit to new personnel, build morale, and improve "esprit de corps". Headquarters USAF and the major commands require historical information to plan organizational changes. Officers throughout the Air Force need historical material for public affairs purposes. Former members of the Army AirForces and the Air Force are interested in the heritage and history of the organizationsin which they served. Government agencies and private individuals, for a variety of reasons, also want to know about Air Force establishments and units and their histories. Because of the interest in these lineage and honors histories, the USAF Historical Division in the late 1950s compiled a reference volume of Air Force combat organizations-groups, wings, divisions, commands, and air forces. Published in 1961, this volume focused exclusively on organizations active during World War II. Historians traced each organization from its origin to 1 January 1956. A companion volume followed, containing the histories of combat squadronsactive between 7 December 1941 and 2 September 1945. These squadron histories were carried through 5 March 1963 (the fiftieth anniversary of the 1st Aero Squadron, the first Army unit to be equipped with aircraft for tacticaloperations). This present volume, the third in the series, is devoted to the Air Force-controlled (AFCON) combat wings of the post-World War II United States Air Force. All of these wings feature numerical designations up to three digits (1through 706); only five possess history and honors from World War II. Each wing's history is traced from its origin through September 1977, when the Air Force celebrated its thirtieth anniversary as a separate service.

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 Forcesbegan 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 September 1942, and themodern Air Force historical program began. With the end of the war, Headquarters approved a plan for writing and publishing a seven-volume history. In December 1945, Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker, Deputy Commander of Army Air Forces, asked the Chancellor of the University of Chicago to "assume the responsibility for the publication" of the history, stressing that it must "meet the highest academic standards." Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Frank Craven of New York University and Major James Lea Cate of the University of Chicago, both of whom had been assigned to the historical program, were selectedto be editors of the volumes. Between 1948 and 1958 seven were published. With publication of the last, the editors wrote that the Air Force had "fulfilled in letter and spirit" the promise ofaccess to documents and complete freedom of historical interpretation. Like all history, The Army Air Forces in World War II reflects the era when it was conceived, researched, and written.

Charles E. "Pete" Adolph retired as Director of Test and Evaluation in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology) on 31January1994. This completed more than 30years of federal service-almost all of it within the challenging field of test and evaluation (T&E). Pete-as he was widely known throughout the Department of Defense testing community-enjoyeda remarkable career. It began in the late 1950s, as the heroic era of flight test in the first decade of the jet age was drawing to a close. Pete then played an increasingly prominent role in the transformation of flight testing into a systematic discipline using the latest in information technology to evaluate sophisticated weapon systems. His government career culminated as a senior director at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). There, in the Pentagon, hebrought his many years of engineering and management experience in the field to bear upon the formulation of policies for the acquisitionand testing of weapon systems in the post-cold-war era. The text that follows began as a series of five oral history interviews conductedin the Office of the Air Force Historian between 29 July 1993 and 15 April 1994. Ms. Pauline Tubbs of the United States Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base (AFB), Alabama, expertly transcribed these interviews from approximately eight hours of audio tape. Mr. Lawrence R. Benson. the Air Force Historian's Assistant for Field Programs (and previously theDirector of Research Services at the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center). organized, revised, and edited the transcript-adding explanatory material in brackets or footnotes as appropriate. Mr. Adolph was accompanied at most of the interviews by Mr. Douglas Nation of the 46th Test Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida, who was on a special assignment to the OSD T&E Directorate. Dr. James O. Young, Historian of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFITC), and his staff at Edwards AFB, California, helped with details on flight test and provided most of the photographs. Although Mr. Adolph'sresponsibilities within the OSD encompassed testing of all types of systems throughout the four armed services, our interview focuses most sharply on Air Force flight testing at Edwards. This is where Pete spent the majority of his career, and where I first met him in 1980 after becoming the AFITC Historian.

In our continuing desire to bring to the reader an in-depth look at the use of airpower in Southeast Asia, we present in this volume a truly monumental effort at recounting the myriad of widely separate but not unrelated events and operations that took place during the Spring Invasion of 1972. In this monograph, the authors from the Air War College present an illuminating story of the people and machines that fought so gallantly during this major enemy offensive. The authors' breadth of experience in and out of combat enables them to provide a penetrating account of how airpower was brought to bear upon the enemy. The "Vietnamization" program, begun in 1969, had by March of 1972 reduced U. S. manpower involvement in Vietnam from 500,000 to 95,000. U. S. airpower involvement, however, did not decrease proportionately. Although the South Vietnamese Air Force took up the "lion's share" of the effort, U. S. airmen were still very much involved. During the offensive, their skills, courage and professionalism were tested 24 hours a day, directly contributing to the eventual successful outcome. The reader should learn from this story that not only is airpower an essential element of any major operation, but that its employment is a team effort. More so, it involves men and women on the ground as well as in the air -- one cannot function without the other.