Evening star., 1947-08-01
Our Air Power

The United States Air Force-hitherto
known as the Army Air Forces-today
marks it's fortieth anniversary not only
with a new name but in an entirely new
status. Under the law now In effect to
reorganize and integrate our armed serv-
ices it is a separate department in itself,
coeoual with the Army and Navy under
the overall, co-ordinating direction OF the
Secretary of Defense. This fundamental
change in it's character is in keeping with
the towering significance 1t has come 10
assume as an instrument so vital to our
security that to neglect it would be to
firt with national catastrophe.
Forty years ago, when 1t came into being
as a special division of the Signal Corps
with a staff of one officer and two enlisted
men, this instrument was little more than
a novelty with doubtful future. Later,
with the advent of the First World War;
its potentialities-th though strictly limited
at the time-were significant enough to
warrant it's development into an organiza-
ton of 1876 900 officers and men. But its
real stature and meaning did not become
breath taking until America entered the
struggle against the Axis. At the height
of that struggle, equipped with scores OF
thousands of planes and with personnel
numbering more than 100000 officers and
men, the AAF grew to be the wonder OF
the world-the mightiest thing OF its kind
in history.
American production, imaginative lead
ership and multitudes OF brave young men
great numbers of whom died doing 1t
made all this possible. Victory in Europe
and Asia could not have been won without
them. Together with the Navys own bril-
liant and potent aerial arm-which will
continue as part of the Navy-the AAF
demonstrated beyond any question that the
deadly art of warfare had undergone
revolution, that the revolution had been
caused by air power, and that the lack OF
that power, or the failure to keep 1t up
to the minute in the international balance,
could be the undoing OF nations. In short,
our military aviation proved the decisive
ness of it's operations; it did not make
ground and surface or SubSurface naval
forces obsolete, of course, but 1t showed
that had it not been in the thick OF the
battle, or had it been numerically or quail
tatively inferior, the Axis could have won
the war, assuming Axis mastery of the
skies.
On this Air Force Day, therefore, nothing
could be more important than for the
American people to resolve to keep them
selves aerially supreme in the world. In
the age ahead, military aviation is certain
to become more decisive than ever With
the atom, jet propulsion supersonic rockets
and other actual and potential scientific
developments promising to speed up the
revolution in warfare we can afford to
neglect no part of our security establish
ment. Least of all can we afford to neglect
our place in the skies. If we are careless
of that place, If we do not carry on an
adequate program of research and expert
ment to give us supremacy, if we are mig
gardly in supporting the USAF and its
naval counterpart then we shall be gam
bling with our survival as free nation.
All this can be summed up in the theme
chosen by the Air Force to underscore its
fortieth anniversary. The theme Is simply
this: Air Power Is Peace Power" The
five words speak for themselves. If Amer
lea takes them to heart, if it remains first
in the Skies would-be aggressors will think
long and hard before daring to strike in
the future Here is one way, surely, that
our own security and the security of our
friends abroad can be we'll served in what
is now a dangerous world.