Evening star., 1940-06-06
Million Enlisted Men
Needed for Program
OF $4,000 Planes
Air Corps Confronting
Tremendous Job in
Training Specialists
BY JOSEPH S. EDGERTON.

Training of tens and possibly hun
dredS OF thousands of skilled avia-
ton mechanics as part of the Ma
tion's air defense program. may be
expected to have far-reaching and
permanent effects on many branches
of American industry after the
emergency period has passed.
The Army Air Corps adopts no
halfway measures in the training OF
its mechanics and specialists. They
are trained more thoroughly than
mechanics in many industries and
discharged Army or Navy aviation
mechanic or machinist has no diff
Guilty getting into the higher bracket
jobs in any one of a number of in
duStrieS.
The Air Corps and the Navy train
a number of varieties of specialists
for the complicated task of keeping
a modern air force in operation.
Among the specialists now being
graduated from the Air Corps Tech
nical School and the seven civilian
mechanics schools operating under
contract with the Air Corps are air.
plane mechanics, aircraft machinistS,
welders, metal workers, radiomen,
parachute men, armorers, photog-
raphers, enginemen and weather
men. In addition the Air Corps is
training supply clerks stenographers,
teletype operators and such military
specialists as bombers
1854 Enlisted in Year.
During the current fiscal year the
Army Air Corps has enlisted total
of 1854 additional enlisted men and
now is completing the training of
l7.149 of this number as specialists.
The total number of enlisted men in
the Air Corps reached 44,537 this
spring. as compared with a total of
1853 officers, Regular and Reserve.
These proportions are expected to
hold true through any expansion of
the Air Corps. There must be ap-
proximately 10 enlisted men to one
officer-pilot and approximately Of
10 of these enlisted men will be
specialists in one capacity or an
other, and highly trained specialists,
at that, before the Air Corps is
through with them. Maintenance
of the modern military airplane and
its equipment means life and death
to its personnel and success or fail
ure to its military mission. It cam
not be entrusted to tyros. The price
of air success is the thorough train
ing of air and ground personnel. No
phase of this training can be neg
lected or skimped No organization
knows this better than an aviation
outfit. especially a military outfit
facing the possibility of action
Should the United States build up
an air force of $4,000 airplanes. in
accordance with the strong recon-
mendations of President Roosevelt,
a minimum of 100000 pilots will be
required Bombardment airplanes,
expected to compose something like
half of the total combat air force,
carry two pilots. For efficiency it
is generally accepted that there
should be at least two full crews
per airplane, since modern aircraft
have stamina enough to keep in
continuous operation far longer than
their crews.
Personnel of 100000.
Reports from Europe indicate that
the pilots on both sides are flying
to the exhaustion point because
there are not sufficient relief crews
available, and that when they are
withdrawn of necessity, the planes
are temporarily idle.
On the basis of pilot force of
100000 or more. therefore. the en-
listed personnel of the Air Corps
alone would amount to at least
100000 men and of this number
about 100000 would have to be
trained as specialists. Nearly 40O,-
600 of these specialists would be
airplane mechanics and some 18O,-
900 would be trained as radiomen
for the operation of ground and air.
craft radio installations and for
repair and maintenance of radio
equipment. The other 10000 spe-
cialists would have to be trained
as welders, metal workers, parachute
men, rmorerS, photographers,
weathermen and enginemen.
The problem of training the neces-
sary specialists is one of the tre-
mendous jobs facing the Air Corps
under the emergency expansion pro-
gram. Fortunately, the problem al
ready is in process of solution, as is
the parallel problem of training