The Washington herald., 1922-09-12
What Herald
Readers Think
Urges Development Of Ain
Service for Defense of
Nation.

To the Editor. The wsshinrton Herrld:
One Of your reporters who attended
th> meeting Of Stuart waIcott Post,
American Legion. requested the writer
to give him further information re-
garding his motion TO instruct dele
gates to the department convention
10 support Gen. MifcheIrs program r,.r
the defense Of our country.
The public n under the impression
that the Arms Conference affects the
air service. and that it is up 70 the
limit laid down by the DELEGATES OF
this conference. whereas, nothing Of
the kind transpired- Limitations were
placed upon the naval establishment,
and the army In general. but. the air
services OF the various nations do not
come under the scope Of limitation In
any manner whatsoever. Il IL the
one free fighting Institution left for
all countries to develop.
European countries are usinF every
enort TO develop this important arm
OF their service. Everyone realizes
that by the time another war n due,
land and sea methods of fighting will
be largely obsolete.
BY looking over the training pro-
gram Of the japanese government.
and the appropriations made for their
newest fighting arm. also at the prog
ress made by England. Germany.
France and Italy. IL will be seen that
development is going on at a fast rate.
Most important of all is the develop
ment Of reserve" flying forces. Eng
land. France. Germany have not
overlooked this. They have excellent
commercial flying forces operated by
rfa rry ~
able to keep a large force Of men un-
der training all the time. In most in
otances these civilian air services are
supported by the government.
In the time OF war they viii have
trained flying personnel available, be-
sides engineers. mechanics. and an air
craft industry.
All the things being done by foreign
nations, are the very things which
we are not doing Where can we
boast OF any organized effort 70 put
across a commercial air service. True
one company is operating-but on
their own resources. which at the best
can be but limited. We have at the
present time about 400 flying officers
IN the service on active duty fit to fly.
We have training camp ror reserve
flying oficers. We go 20 the trouble
ice cadets. then proceed TO train them
for the better part Of a year. Promptly
after they have been graduated, they
are commissioned in the reserve corps
and discharged After going through
all of this hard work. study and the
hazards in learning to ny, they find
themselves in the position Of having
a worthless education on their hands
They can use IL II they want to enlist
in the ranks. but an enlisted status
offers no Inducements That is the
folly OF our system. Let a man be out
Of the air three months. ana ne Is
worthless as a f1ier He must be trained
quate appropriations.
These men can be utilized IL the
government was TO support a COM
mercial air service program with ade-
Quate appropriations.
/ We have 5000 miles of coast. with
not SUFFICIENT personnel and organiza-
IL is easy to understand that YOU can
not produce an air service In a few
! months. No nation has a chance in
the air unless they are equal in
strength, and they being equal in
strength would not prevent them from
being driven out OF the air il the op-
posing nation has planes that are
faster.
These are the facts that the people
do not know. II is the reason why the
delegates OF Stuart Wa cot Post are
teing charged to support the AIR serv-
Ice program for a national fefense.
H. J. ODENTHAL>