Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-11-24

cent of the personnel and maintenance
facilities must be at bases protected by
ground troops. AS long rs air forces are
definitely tied to ground troops of other
arms, they argue, the unity of command
over all forces operating in any given
theater should extend to the air.
Their attitude can be expressed in the
words of the Morrow Board of 1925,
which held that the primary object of
the Army is to destroy the enemy armed
forces and that the principal mission of
the air service was to assist the ground
forces to gain strategical and tactical
success by destroying enemy aviation,
attacking enemy ground forces and other
enemy installations on land and sea in
connection with other agencies and to
protect ground forces from hostile aerial
observation and attack. Unity of COM
mapd, the board concluded, was essential
to success.
Among these conflicting views consid-
cradle overlap did then and still does
exist. Supporters of the separate air
force theory admit that the German air
might has not broken the British naval
blockade, nor, except with small groups
of parachute troops, occupied enemy ter
ritory. On the other hand, opponents of
the theory must agree with Gen Mitchell
that should any power be deprived of
its air forces, 1t could in no way cope
with an antagonist provided with an
adequate air force"
Control of Policy Is the Question.
The question of unity Of command,
moreover, is subject to more than one
Interpretation. When the British War
and Air General Staff in April, 1918. Sir
William Weir, the first Secretary of State
for the Royal Air Force, explained that
the decision was based on the convic-
ton that the possibilities of air warfare
and their influence on the war might be
more efficiently realized by establishment
of single authority than by mainte-
nance of independent forces attached to
the Army and Navy
The question, shorn of controversial
verbiage, resolves itself into one of con-
troll or policy, or perhaps more exactly
control over policy rather than mere
organization. The policy of the French,
with a separate air force, was to fight
defensively behind the Maginot Line;
that of the British, also with a separate
air service, to rely primarily on their
navy and long range blockade On the
Other, hand, Germany under the guidance
of Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, long
a Believer in air power, was able, with
the same setup, to bring about the ulti-
mate development of the nations air
forces and even to exploit the more re-
mote possibilities of parachute troop
operations. new conception of air
power that will insure its employment to
the fullest extent is the first. requisite.
Not Panacea.
A corollary would seem to be that such
a conception could best be formulated
by those convinced of the airs potentiali-
ties and familiar through training and
experience with its problems. Whether
this conception can be conveyed to the
Commander in Chief of the Army and
Navy better through the channels of
these department heads than directly
through third department of air is
problem for practical experience to solve.
But experience abroad has pretty well
demonstrated that mere establishment
of a separate department of air is not
a panacea.
American as well as British air policy
was completely transformed by the
Munich agreement and subsequent
events. The 2,3OO-plane program, not yet
reached before Munich was more than
doubled last year and after the conquest
of France the new objective of $500
planes was more than tripled, while now
a goal of $4,000 planes is hoped for.
In stating this vast new organization,
which within two years will equal in
size the entire Army of only few years
ago. the policy being followed Is to ad-
vance Air Corps officers to temporary
rank commensurate with their new re-
sponsibilities, instead of transferring
high ranking officers from other arms.
The Air Corps for many years, has
experienced scarcity of senior officers
available for general staff details. While