Air Corps Tactical School The Air Corps Tactical School , also known as ACTS and " the Tactical School " , was a military professional development school for officers of the United States Army Air Service and United States Army Air Corps , the first such school in the world . Created in 1920 at Langley Field , Virginia , it relocated to Maxwell Field , Alabama , in July 1931 . Instruction at the school was suspended in 1940 , anticipating the entry of the United States into World War II , and the school was dissolved shortly after . ACTS was replaced in November 1942 by the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics . In addition to the training of officers in more than 20 areas of military education , the school became the doctrine development center of the Air Corps , and a preparatory school for Air Corps officers aspiring to attendance at the U . S . Army ' s Command and General Staff College . The motto of the Air Corps Tactical School was " Proficimus More Irretenti " — " We Make Progress Unhindered by Custom . " The Air Corps Tactical School was notable as the birthplace of the Army Air Forces doctrine of daylight precision bombing . This doctrine held that a campaign of daylight air attacks against critical targets of a potential enemy ' s industrial infrastructure , using long range bombers heavily armed for self - defense , could defeat an enemy nation even though its army and navy remained intact . The Tactical School , in formulating the doctrine , rejected the idea of attacking civilians . Four former instructors of the school , the core of a group known as the " Bomber Mafia " , were grouped together in the Air War Plans Division to produce the two war - winning plans — AWPD - 1 and AWPD - 42 — based on the doctrine of precision daylight bombing that guided the wartime expansion and deployment of the Army Air Forces . In a broader sense , the strategic bombing doctrine , adapted by factors encountered during combat , was also the foundation for the final separation of the Air Force from the Army as a military service independent of and equal to the other services . In 1946 the AAF created the Air University to carry on the work and traditions of the ACTS . Background . At the end of World War I , observation remained the main role of the Air Service . However , air combat and limited bombardment operations indicated to veterans of the Air Service , including Brig . Gen . Billy Mitchell , that while ideally the service should be separate from the Army , it at the least should be centralized under an Air Service commander with some missions independent of direct support of troops . In reorganizing the post - war Army , the Armed Forces Reorganization Act of 1920 ( 41 Stat . 759 ) rebuked these ideas but did establish the Air Service as a statutory entity ( previously it had existed by executive order only ) and assigned it status as a " combatant arm of the line . " The Air Service followed the precedent of the other combat arms and began planning for its own service schools . An " Air Service School of Application " for technical training in aeronautical engineering , similar to the Ordnance School of Application at Sandy Hook , New Jersey , was set up at McCook Field , and began its first class 10 November 1919 . Maj . Gen . Charles Menoher , Director of Air Service , wrote the War Department in October 1919 for permission to establish a tactical school at Langley Field , Virginia , to train field grade officers in the operation and tactics of the Air Service as a requirement for higher command or staff work . On 25 February 1920 , the War Department authorized the Air Service to establish its service schools . In addition to six pilot and advanced pilot training schools , and two technical training schools , an Air Service School was planned . It proposed to host courses for enlisted personnel as balloon observers , balloon mechanics , and aerial photography , but its main course was to be the Field Officers Course . Langley Field , 1920 – 1931 . Air Service Field Officers School . Major Thomas DeWitt Milling was assigned as officer - in - charge of the Field Officers Course at the new school and sent to Langley in July 1920 to set it up . War Department General Order No . 18 authorized the school on 14 August 1920 . The balloon courses were split off into a separate school in a different area of Langley and the Air Service School was renamed the Air Service Field Officers School on 10 February 1921 , after its primary function . The Air Service ordered 17 officers to Langley , eight as students and nine as instructors , although several officers swapped roles and some instructors were students as well . The 1920 – 1921 class opened on 1 November 1920 , and although scheduled to last nine months , was concluded in May when both students and instructors were assigned to the 1st Provisional Air Brigade , as part of by the Air Service and the United States Navy . 11 officers , including four instructors , graduated the first course . The second class , beginning in October 1921 , was devoted to the further training of instructors , the creation of a sound administrative system , and development of a well - rounded course curriculum . In the first two classes , despite the school ’ s title and function , only six of the first 23 graduates were field grade officers . A board reviewing all service schools of the United States Army observed that the Field Officers School had a course load that in other branches of the Army was distributed among several schools . Because all other Air Service schools were technical training in nature , the board recommended that the school be opened to all air service officers regardless of rank . Accordingly , Army regulations changed the name of the school to that of Air Service Tactical School on 8 November 1922 . With the passage of the Air Corps Act of 1926 , the school also changed its name , becoming the Air Corps Tactical School on 2 July 1926 . While at Langley , the ACTS was hampered by a chronic shortage of instructors , caused by a lack of policy within the Army for filling vacancies despite a rapid turnover in staff in the first three years . School administrators were forced to double as instructors . The situation was somewhat ameliorated in August 1924 when the Chief of the Air Service authorized extended duty for instructors , most of whom afterwards served four - year tours on the faculty , with an overlap between incoming and outgoing staff . Between 1925 and 1929 the number of instructors gradually doubled to 16 but even that number proved insufficient to research the vast collection of aviation literature the school ’ s library was collecting to establish doctrine . Despite school recommendations to the contrary , class size gradually increased , reaching 40 students by 1931 . The first student from a branch other than the Air Service ( an infantry officer ) attended ASTS in 1923 – 1924 . This became standard when the 1926 – 1927 class had five officers representing the other combat branches of the United States Army and three from the United States Marine Corps assigned as students . The functioning of the school was also handicapped by a lack of permanent facilities , especially in quarters , and the school did not have a permanent academic building . When the five - year expansion program outlined in the Air Corps Act of 1926 failed to address these problems , and the creation of new units at Langley interrupted the functioning of the practical flying course , the Air Service began seeking a new location for the Tactical School . The 1930 – 1931 class was the last at Langley . In its eleven years at Langley , the Tactical School graduated 221 students . Tactical School curriculum . The academic curriculum was standardized in 1922 by the Army ’ s board tasked with preparing " programs of instruction " for all Army schools at 1 , 345 hours of instruction in 20 subjects , taught over a nine - month period beginning on or about 1 September of each school year . Approximately 900 hours covered tactics , including those of other services and combined arms tactics , although more than half ( 480 hours ) were devoted to air tactics in observation , bombardment , pursuit , and attack aviation . Approximately 290 hours involved technical subjects , including aeronautical engineering , armament and gunnery , navigation , meteorology , and photography , and 150 to administrative studies , covering staff duties , combat orders , organization of the Army , military and international law , supply and courses in equitation and stable management . The curriculum was altered in July 1923 by the newly created Director of Instruction , Capt . Earl Naiden , cutting the academic course by 500 hours to 845 total hours . 450 hours of the cuts came from the various tactics subjects , although the equitation courses were also eliminated , and all academic courses were scheduled in mornings . Naiden added courses in the history of the Air Service and map reading to the academics , and a 126 - hour afternoon course in practical flying , instituted to provide refresher training to pilots but required of all students , including those of non - aviation branches . The course structure remained the same until 1939 , with changes only in individual course subjects , averaging 25 hours per week of classroom study and 3 . 7 hours weekly of flying . The first printed texts covering air tactics replaced mimeographed texts in 1924 . This development of the tactics portion of the school led to increased emphasis , and in 1925 aeronautical engineering was eliminated from the curriculum . Theoretical use of airpower was first advanced in 1928 , and beginning in 1929 a new course was taught at the end of each class , " The Air Force " , coordinating all air topics covered during the year . Army regulations also made the commander of the 2nd Wing , as the base commander at Langley , the commandant of the Tactical School . However during its first four years this caused little disruption as Milling , first as officer in charge and then as assistant commandant , remained in actual charge of the school . In 1924 Maj . Oscar Westover became the first commandant to exercise control over school activities . The assistant commandant then became responsible for academics , assisted by the director of instruction , directors of the individual academic departments , and the school secretary ( formerly the school adjutant ) . Course instruction assumed a pattern combining both theory and practical instruction . Subjects were generally scheduled in blocks , particularly tactics , beginning with those of other branches and services , along with logistics and staff functions , from the beginning of each class until December . The courses in air tactics followed , described by one student as coming with “ bewildering rapidity . ” Practical instruction came in the form of " field problems " , initiated in the classroom , then demonstrated and practiced in the practical flying course . Annual inspection trips were also undertaken to the Engineering Division at McCook and Wright Field s in Dayton , Ohio , until 1930 , after which trips to the Infantry School at Fort Benning , Georgia , began . Annual participation in the Army War College maneuvers at Ft . DuPont , Delaware , started in 1924 , but by 1928 doctrinal disagreements between schools created a perceived misuse of airpower by the Tactical School on the part of AWC planners . Although Air Corps input resulted in some improvements , a lack of funds eliminated ACTS participation after 1933 . Maxwell Field , 1931 – 1940 . Relocation . Difficulties with dilapidated facilities at Langley were not resolved , and a proposed relocation to Staten Island was rejected by the staff for lack of year - round flying weather , urban restrictions on flying , and a lack of support facilities . Locations at Bolling Field , Washington , D . C . ; Richmond , Virginia ; San Antonio , Texas ; Fort Riley , Kansas ; and another area of Langley Field were studied before the choice was made of Maxwell Field , a depot in Montgomery , Alabama , as the site for the school . Plans were developed for a campus to accommodate a tactical school of 75 students , a squadron officers school of 50 junior officer students , and a school demonstration flying group of four squadrons . Congress appropriated almost $ 700 , 000 by July 1929 for new buildings , including Building 800 - Austin Hall to house the Tactical School , and $ 200 , 000 to purchase acreage on which to build new officer quarters . Delays in construction caused two postponements of the relocation until June 1931 , when Austin Hall was completed . On 15 July 1931 , the school completed its move , although officer quarters were not begun until 1932 . Architects commissioned by the Quartermaster Corps designed 99 residences for officers in an elegant style they deemed " French Provencial , " and placed them in a neighborhood setting that became " the showplace of the Air Corps . " The construction program at Maxwell continued until 1938 , funded primarily by the WPA and PWA . A bombing and gunnery range was also set up near Valparaiso , Florida , for Tactical School use . Course restructured . In 1934 Col . John F . Curry , ACTS Commandant , reorganized the academic structure of the school along functional lines into three principal departments : Air Tactics , Ground Tactics , and Basic and Special Instruction . Flying was a fourth department . The " Air Force " , " Attack " , " Bombardment " , " Pursuit " , and " Observation " sections were placed within the Department of Air Tactics . The next year these departments became the Department of Air Tactics and Strategy , Department of Ground Tactics , and Department of Command , Staff and Logistics . Four faculty committees were also established to administrate scheduling , the school library , and publication of doctrine . The Air Corps Board , which had been inactive since the move from Langley , was permanently relocated to Maxwell in 1933 . Restructured by the Tactical School faculty , who doubled as its members , the Board was directed by the War Department to formulate Air Corps doctrine . The Board became indistinguishable from the Tactical School and undertook 77 projects between 1935 and 1942 , a third of which dealt with tactical doctrine , and the remainder with equipment , armaments , field manuals , and training texts . After the move to Maxwell , the practice of requiring students to fly actual missions as part of the instruction process was discontinued for safety reasons . Plans for a composite school group were suspended by the Chief of the Air Corps because of a service - wide shortage of personnel and aircraft , and attempts to have demonstrations by existing combat units were mostly unsatisfactory . The demonstration group was not authorized until August 1939 and was utilized for less than a year before classes were suspended . In 1938 the Department of Flying Instruction was dissolved and its functions parceled out to the remaining departments . The Department of Air Tactics and Strategy became the dominant division at the school , and its Air Force Section the most important course , in which airpower theories were presented and explored , doctrine emerging as much from the students as from the faculty . Association with the Infantry School increased , but inspection trips formerly used at Langley first became voluntary and then were discontinued . Only a handful of graduates had gone on to attend the Command and General Staff School , and as a result the Tactical School ended its role as a preparatory school . Instead the ACTS became the equivalent for Air Corps officers of C & GSS , and increased the emphasis on air subjects to more than half of the total course hours by 1934 – 1935 , with an accompanying decrease in hours for ground and administrative subjects . Classroom studies were similarly altered . Lectures occupied only half of a classroom hour , with the remainder given over to discussion and debate of concepts presented and of alternative ideas . Short course . The limited class size at the Tactical School led the Air Corps in 1938 to study the feasibility of using a series of shorter courses to allow a greater number of officers to attend . The study concluded that a significant number of potential staff and command officers had not attended the school and was growing annually . It recommended that the nine - month course be discontinued for a year and four 12 - week courses scheduled , each having 100 students , all drawn from the group of prospective senior staff . The plan had the drawbacks of limiting the amount of detail to which students could be exposed , and would require a rebuilding of the staff and curriculum when the long course was reinstated . Nevertheless , the curriculum was changed from 712 academic hours to 298 . The short courses began on 1 June 1939 , and continued for the next year . Theory and doctrine . Ascendance of bomber theory . In its first years , the Tactical School taught that pursuit aviation was the most important of air operations , epitomized by the 1925 – 1926 class text " Employment of Combined Air Force " that compared the importance of pursuit to the Air Service to that of infantry to the Army . However , in 1926 the Tactical School modified this principle by asserting for the first time that airpower could strike at vital points deep inside enemy territory rather than merely targeting an enemy ’ s military forces in a war of attrition . By 1931 the Tactical School was teaching that " a determined air attack , once launched , is most difficult , if not impossible to stop . " This shift in emphasis from pursuit to bombardment was the result of two factors : the air war theories of the time and the state of aviation technology . Devotees of Billy Mitchell , many of whom had served with the 1st Provisional Air Brigade , dominated the faculty of the Tactical School at Maxwell . With their students , they developed a theory of warfare that invoked the superiority of the long - range bomber over all other types of aircraft . Going beyond Mitchell ’ s ideas , they de - emphasized balanced forces and support of ground troops in favor of a doctrine that heavily armed bombers could fight their way to industrial targets in daylight , unescorted by fighters , and with precision bombing ( made possible by the introduction of the Norden bombsight in 1931 ) , defeat an enemy by destroying key war production targets , rather than engaging in costly and prolonged ground campaigns aimed at destroying enemy armies . While the theory was based on tenets of strategic airpower developed by Mitchell , Hugh Trenchard , and Giulio Douhet , it rejected the concept of terror - bombing of civil populations as a means of destroying the morale and coercing the will of an enemy state . The formulators of this doctrine were relatively young junior officers , nearly all of them former reservists commissioned during or immediately after World War I . They viewed war in the abstract , admitted ( and even apologized for ) being unable to offer conclusive proof of their theories , but firmly believed that the dominance of airpower lay ahead in the future , when existing limitations of technology had been overcome . Nine key advocates , all of whom instructed at the Tactical School , became known as the " Bomber Mafia . " The unofficial leader of the group was the bombardment section chief and later director of the Department of Air Tactics and Strategy , Major Harold L . George . The doctrine brought them in conflict with the Army General Staff , which did not view airpower as a major striking arm but as an auxiliary to the ground forces . Despite the poor performance of what few bombers the Air Corps possessed , the air theorists persisted in their beliefs , testifying in favor of a separate air force before commissions set up in the wake of the Air Mail scandal . Although flawed and tested only under optimal conditions , the doctrine ( originally known as the " industrial web theory " ) became the primary airpower strategy of the United States in the planning for World War II . Four former instructors of the school , the core of the " Bomber Mafia " , produced the two airpower war plans ( AWPD - 1 and AWPD - 42 ) that guided the wartime expansion and deployment of the Army Air Forces . Failure of pursuit theory . The doctrine was not universally held among air officers , however . Claire L . Chennault , chief of the pursuit section between 1931 and 1936 , reasoned that the same technology that would increase the performance of the bomber would also eventually enable the single - engine fighter to challenge the bomber at high altitude , which it could not do in the years when the daylight bombing doctrine was formulated . Combined with a centralized early warning and control system ( which came with the development of radar ) , defending interceptors would inflict serious losses on unescorted forces . The doctrine also ran counter to the theories of Billy Mitchell , who believed that pursuit support was essential for daylight bombing operations . Chennault , however , also had a blind spot in his zealous advocacy of fighters as the offensive weapon of the Air Corps . He consciously avoided acknowledging the role of accompanying escort fighters as part of an offensive air strike . When his tour at ACTS ended , the fighter - versus - bomber controversy became a moot point among the staff , to the detriment of developing a role for escort fighters . Although the proponents of daylight precision bombing at the Tactical School had a " failure of imagination " in not expanding the doctrine to include establishing air superiority as a prerequisite for success , and thus contributed to the delay in the development of a long - range escort fighter until two years into the war , the doctrine nonetheless became the foundation for the separation of the Air Force from the Army , and the basis for modern airpower theory . ACTS graduate , instructor , and " Bomber Mafia " member Haywood S . Hansell , concurred that both the theorists and the authors of the AWPD - 1 war plan ( he was both ) made a serious mistake in neglecting long - range fighter escort in their ideas . Hansell wrote : It was recognized that fighter escort was inherently desirable , but no one could quite conceive how a small fighter could have the range of the bomber yet retain its combat maneuverability . Failure to see this issue through proved one of the Air Corps Tactical School ' s major shortcomings . However he also stated that ignorance of radar was fortuitous in the long run . He surmised that had radar been a factor in doctrine , many theorists would have reasoned that massed defenses would make all strategic air attacks too costly , inhibiting if not entirely suppressing the concepts that proved decisive in World War II and essential to the creation of the United States Air Force . Development of fighters was not ignored ; by October 1940 , over a year before Pearl Harbor , every type of piston - driven single - engine fighter used by the USAAF in World War II had made its first flight except the P - 47 . However , the press of the enormous tasks confronting the Air Corps and the primacy of strategic bombing doctrine meant that development of a long - range capability for these new fighters was not undertaken until combat losses to bombers forced the issue . School closure and legacy . Before the short courses began , President Franklin D . Roosevelt called for an expansion of the Air Corps in January 1939 . The need for experienced officers to supervise the expansion led to plans to reduce the size of the faculty and long course classes as a compromise to keep the school functioning . Six of the 24 Air Corps instructors would be returned to regular duty and class sizes would be reduced from 60 to 20 students . However World War II in Europe began on 1 September 1939 , before the staff and class reductions could be implemented . The Air Corps permitted the short courses to be finished , but suspended all instruction on 30 June 1940 . The Tactical School was reduced to a caretaker staff of seven officers , including two librarians . In June 1941 the Tactical School came under the control of the Southeast Air Corps Training Center ( precursor of the Third Air Force ) , headquartered at Maxwell . A study was completed by SACTC that recommended the Tactical School be modified as a ten - week basic course in tactics for squadron and group level officers , instructing 2 , 000 officers its first year and 5 , 000 officers thereafter . However the Air Corps Board was soon moved to Eglin Field , Florida , and absorbed by the Air Corps Proving Ground , while all remaining staff and functions of the Tactical School ( mainly the production of training literature ) were transferred to Washington , D . C . , where it continued work until 30 June 1942 . The ACTS at Maxwell graduated 870 officers , 400 of them in the short courses . During its entire history , the Tactical School trained 1 , 091 officers , 916 of them in the Air Service or Air Corps . 158 graduates from other arms included 118 Army officers , 35 Marines , and five Naval officers . The Tactical School also trained 17 officers from foreign countries . Of the 320 general officers in the Army Air Forces at the end of World War II , 261 were Tactical School graduates , including 14 of the 18 highest - ranking AAF generals . 134 officers ( including 21 from the Army and Navy ) served on the faculty of the Tactical School during its 20 years of existence , 58 of whom became general officers . The tactical school concept was abandoned for the duration of World War II in favor of development of an actual tactical center , responsible for the mass teaching of all aspects of air warfare to inexperienced officers who would become commanders of newly created units . Although commandants at ACTS had lobbied throughout its existence for the Tactical School to serve as the nucleus of such a center , the tactical center instead became the function of a new school , the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics , activated 27 October 1942 , in Orlando , Florida , both for the training of unit cadres and the continuing development of tactical doctrine . The experiences of World War II created a new impetus for professional education of air commanders , as it had after World War I , but on a much vaster scale . The expectation of becoming a separate service from the Army resulted in planning for a service - wide educational system , the nucleus of which would be the Air University . Established in 1946 , AU coordinated all professional education for Air Force officers , and " fell heir to the purpose and tradition of the old Tactical School " . " Without students " :