US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0048/00484.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 36KB | 590 lines

$Unique_ID{USH00484}
$Pretitle{59}
$Title{Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939
Chapter IV    Training}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Maurer Ph.D., Maurer}
$Affiliation{USAF Historical Research Center}
$Subject{training
school
air
service
field
flying
officers
army
students
course}
$Volume{}
$Date{1987}
$Log{Pony Blimp*0048401.scf
}
Book:        Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939
Author:      Maurer Ph.D., Maurer
Affiliation: USAF Historical Research Center
Date:        1987

Chapter IV    Training

     The training of its officers and enlisted men was one of the chief
functions of the U.S. Army Air Service, consuming a great deal of money,
people, equipment, and time.  Such training encompassed pilots, observers,
mechanics, radio operators, other technicians and specialists, engineers, and
doctors.  After demobilization and the adjustments imposed by personnel
ceilings and fund limitations, the Air Service opened a number of schools.

Flying Training

     During the war, American colleges conducted ground schools for flying
cadets commencing flying training.  These schools were closed by the end of
February 1919.  Most fields where cadets received primary flying training soon
became storage depots.  For peacetime, the Air Service combined ground school
and primary training in a new primary flying course offered at Carlstrom and
March Fields.  The first classes entered in January 1920.

     Congress authorized resumption of enlistment of flying cadets in July
1919 and limited the number on duty to thirteen hundred.  To quickly eliminate
the unfit, Congress let the service discharge a cadet at any time upon the
recommendation of a board of three or more officers.  The cadet who survived
the rigorous course could serve out his enlistment or take a discharge and
enter the Officers' Reserve Corps as a second lieutenant.

     The civilian wanting flying training had to be an unmarried, U.S. male
citizen aged twenty to twenty-seven with a high school education, good
character, sound physique, and excellent health.  Those accepted were enlisted
for three years.  Regular Army enlisted men could also apply for training as
flying cadets.  Classes in Air Service flying schools likewise included, at
various times and in varying numbers, officers of the Air Service and other
branches of the Regular Army, members of the Officers' Reserve Corps and
National Guard, Air Service noncommissioned officers, U.S. Navy and Marine
Corps personnel, and students from foreign countries.

     In the National Defense Act of 1920, Congress increased the Air Service's
authorization for flying cadets from 1,300 to 2,500.  The allotment dropped to
500, however, when Congress stopped Army enlistments in February 1921.  Fund
shortages and ceilings on enlisted men made War Department allocations of
flying cadet spaces even smaller - 190 in 1923 and 196 in 1926.  Even at these
levels, the Air Service never trained the allotted number.

     There was no dearth of applicants, but many interested young men failed
to meet the high qualifications.  Further, the Air Service could not always
accept all who qualified.  Early in the new program (between July 1920 and
February 1921), when the authorization was 2,500 and the average strength
about 300, the Air Service turned down nearly one-third of the applicants.  Of
1,288 who took the cadet examination in Fiscal Year 1925, just 362 passed.  Of
these, 254 could not be appointed because the training organization could
handle no more.  Since officers of the Regular Army took priority, how many
cadets could be selected for any class depended on the vacancies remaining
after the officers had been accommodated.

     Another factor affecting the numbers trained was the attrition rate.
Though the students entering at Carlstrom and March Fields in January 1920 had
been chosen with great care, many of them fell short of the schools' high
standards.  Instructors soon reported students unsuitable for further
training.  Boards composed of faculty officers, and with authority given by
law, ruthlessly removed the unfit.  At the end of 6 months, 61 of the 202 in
the 2 classes had graduated from primary training; 43 were still under
instruction; 98 had washed out.  In the following class at Carlstrom, 51
percent graduated; in the next, 72 percent; and the one after that, 60
percent.

     Cadets of the 1920's feared the so-called Benzine Board that purged
cadets who did not measure up.  One of the first rumors Cadet Charles A.
Lindbergh heard upon reporting to primary flying school in 19 concerned the
high washout rate.  He recalled later that of his 103 fellow students in
primary training, 17 graduated with him from the advanced school.  Students
brought before a board expected to be let out.  They thought it "unprecedented
and hard to account for" when a board called 7 men and weeded out 1.

     The bulk of the eliminations stemmed from unsatisfactory progress in
learning to fly.  The rest came from academic failure, physical defects not
detected earlier by doctors, student requests to be dropped, and, rarely,
breaches of discipline.  Besides cadets, among those eliminated were Regular
Army officers, Reservists, Guardsmen, and foreign students.  General Patrick
kept a big chart in his office to tell him how many persons were in each
class, when the class started, the number relieved, the number remaining and
when they would graduate.  Over three years, the figures showed 1,235 starting
primary training and 499 commencing advanced training.

     Young men attending flying training in the early 1920's came under strict
military discipline.  They endured the drilling, hiking, setting up exercises,
and other activities common to the enlisted regimen of the Army.  When those
coming from civilian life had been processed into the military, classes
started.  Ground school covered the theory of flying, aviation motors,
navigation, radios, military administration, the manual of court-martial, and
kindred subjects.  After ground school was well under way, flying began, with
each student eagerly awaiting his turn.  Meantime he might find himself on KP
or other work details to fill his time.

     When the cadet's name came up on the flying list, he drew helmet,
goggles, and leather coat and reported to the line.  His instructor, usually a
lieutenant, explained the controls and ran him through a complete inspection
of the Curtiss JN in which he would learn to fly.  Seated in the rear cockpit,
the cadet was shown how to fasten his safety belt.  On signal from the
instructor, the crewchief swung the propeller.  The engine coughed, sputtered,
then took hold.  Satisfied it was running properly, the instructor signaled
the mechanics to pull the blocks from the wheels, opened the throttle, and
lifted off to give the cadet a joyride.

     After the first ride, the cadet was flown to a safe altitude, given the
controls, and taught to fly by means of directions coming by way of a speaking
tube from the front cockpit where the instructor was ever prepared to take
control.  A student at Carlstrom Field told what it was like to be in the
backseat when the voice from the tube said:


     "She's all yours - You take the stick and try to give her enough right
rudder to overcome the torque and by that time the nose is either up or down
or the wings aren't level, and by the time you correct those minor details she
is drifting off sideways somewhere and after you sweat blood for a while and
go from rotten to rottener, the instructor grabs the stick and sets her level
and directs you in the name of all that's holy, to keep her that way, and you
don't and he makes a few choice remarks as to the amount of gray matter you
are endowed with, and the horizon gets the St. Vitus dance, and the wings
absolutely refuse to stay put, and the instructor tells you you are a goof
which is superfluous because you've known it for some time.  Just about then
your instructor's remarks are hot enough to scorch the tail surface and you
wish you had a transmitter on the Gosport phone so you could talk back at him
. . . then you get mad and pull yourself together and manage to hold her level
for a minute or two and find it's not so bad after all.  Just then, if your
instructor nods his approbation, 'Oh, boy, ain't it a gran' and glorious
feeling?'


     So the training went, an hour a day, as the cadet learned to fly straight
and level.  After executing easy turns, he eventually learned to take off and
- what was more difficult - to land.  Then came a day when, after landing, the
instructor climbed down, pinned a streamer on the Jenny's tail to warn others,
and ordered: "Take her up.  Go once around and land."

     After his first solo, the cadet practiced taking off and landing one hour
a day.  Next he mastered a figure eight, a spiral, and other maneuvers.  Thus
flying continued in the morning with class and shopwork in the afternoon until
time for graduation.  Those who completed the four-month course (changed a
little later to six months) appeared before an examining board that classified
them for advanced training.  In one graduating class of at Carlstrom Field,
the board designated 3 for training in pursuit, 6 in bombardment, and 15 in
observation.  The graduate's assignment depended first upon his qualifications
and secondly upon his preference.

     Students destined for advanced training in observation went to the
Observation School at Post Field, Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  The Air Service lacked
money, however, to maintain similar schools for pursuit and bombardment in the
early 1920's.  The 1st Pursuit and 1st Day Bombardment Groups provided
advanced training in those branches of aviation at Kelly Field.

     Cadets arriving at the 1st Pursuit Group in the summer of 1920 had
finished primary training, but had not yet graduated from Jennies.  Their
advanced instruction at Kelly started with formation flying, stunting in
formation, combat with camera guns, observation, elements of bombing, and
elementary gunnery in JN training planes.  After flying in DH-4's the students
progressed to SE-5's.  They studied pursuit tactics; acrobatics; and fancy
formation, night, and cross-country flying.  They became proficient in landing
on small fields, aerial gunnery, individual combat, battle maneuvers, and bomb
dropping.  Training exposed them to Army paperwork and the duties of
operations, armament, radio, engineering, supply, and mess officers.  Running
about six months, the course aimed to do more than just qualify men for the
silver wings of the airplane pilot.  It sought to turn out first-rate pursuit
pilots who were confident, accurate flyers and excellent shots, possessing
quick keen judgment.

     Advanced training in bombardment and observation, like that in pursuit,
entailed work in classrooms and hangars as well as in the air.  Students
assigned to the 1st Day Bombardment Group for advanced training transitioned
to DH-45 and were schooled in flying, bombsights camera obscura, gunnery, and,
among other things, the history of the development of aviation.  After the
Army Surveillance Group became the 3d Attack Group in 1921, it accepted
students for advanced training in attack aviation.

     At the Observation School, students transitioned to and learned DH
airplanes.  There were courses on formation and crosscountry flying; visual
and photographic reconnaissance; surveillance; intelligence; liaison with
ground forces; observation and adjustment of artillery fire; mapreading;
meteorology; maintenance and operation of radio, telephone, and telegraph;
Liberty engines; and rigging.  Graduates of advanced training were rated
airplane pilots.  To be rated airplane observer, a student had to take an
additional course at the Fort Sill artillery firing center.

     Cadets completing advanced training were certified for appointment in the
Officers' Reserve Corps.  Most newly rated pilots who had enlisted as cadets
took discharges and entered the Reserve Corps.  Those who had been enlisted
men when they entered flying training reverted to their enlisted rank and
remained on duty.

     Under Army and Air Service regulations, enlisted men who went through
pilot training and were certified for or held Reserve commissions were
permitted to pilot aircraft.  In fact, there were suggestions that the Air
Service use more enlisted and fewer commissioned pilots, if for no other
reason than to save money.  Some people would go so far as to let enlisted men
be pilots in tactical units, with commissioned officers serving as their
flight leaders and commanders.  The Air Service wanted all pilots
commissioned.  The mental, moral, and physical qualifications for pilots were
extremely high.  Consequently, a person having them could easily secure a
commission in another branch of the Army if he could not get one in the Air
Service.  The pilot's degree of responsibility was that of a commissioned
officer, not an enlisted man.  Moreover, the Air Service contended, officers
with permanent commissions could be expected to stay in service longer than
men who enlisted for relatively short terms - a matter of great importance
considering the cost of training.

     The Air Service successfully defended its stand that pilots should be
commissioned officers.  Nevertheless, it always had some enlisted pilots
during the first half of the 1920's.  Sergeants in the first three grades, who
were twenty-two to thirty years of age and met cadet qualifications, could be
detailed in grade to flying school and to the same course given cadets.  Among
the few noncommissioned officers selected for this training was SSgt. Alva L.
Harvey, who had been with Maj. Frederick L. Martin on the world flight in
1924.  Having completed primary training in 1925 and advanced training the
following year, Sergeant Harvey received a Regular commission as second
lieutenant.

     Sergeant Harvey took his primary instruction at Brooks Field near San
Antonio, as did Cadet Charles A. Lindbergh and others who commenced training
after mid-1922.  A shortage of money and failure of the training program to
become as large as planned, prompted the closing of the primary school at
March Field in 1921.  The financial pinch and need for better coordination
brought on a major Air Service reorganization in 1922.  San Antonio thereupon
became the flying training center of the Air Service.

     The primary school at Carlstrom Field closed and a new one opened at
Brooks Field.  The Air Service revamped the course and extended it to nine
months but later trimmed it to six with two classes a year.  The first part
consisted of ground school, stressing military training as well as classwork
more directly related to the business of flying.  After inspecting cadets and
enlisted men at Brooks late in 1922, General Pershing, Army Chief of Staff,
commended the Commandant, Maj. Ralph Royce, on their military bearing and
aptitude for infantry drill.  Pershing "was glad to see that soldiers as well
as flyers were being made of the cadets."

     Flying training comprised the second half of the primary course. Starting
with straight-and-level flying accompanied by an instructor in a dual
trainer, the student advanced step by step until he could solo, execute a
variety of maneuvers, and deal with many of the situations arising in flight.
If the Benzine Board did not get him, he graduated with the rating of junior
airplane pilot (JAP).

     One officer was awarded a JAP rating without going to the Primary Flying
School.  After becoming Chief of Air Service, General Patrick began taking
flying lessons from Maj. Herbert A. Dargue.  He felt he should learn to pilot
to get a better idea of the skills required and a deeper appreciation of the
dangers involved.  Passing the examination given by a board of officers, the
59-year-old general received his wings during a luncheon at the Army and Navy
Club in Washington on June 26, 1923.  General Patrick skipped advanced pilot
training.

     In the reorganization of 1922, the Air Service opened an Advanced Flying
School at Kelly Field to take over training formerly performed by tactical
units and by the Observation School at Post Field.  The course at Kelly
originally ran eight months but later was reduced to six with two classes a
year.  Each student chose one of the four branches of aviation.  Sergeant
Harvey, for example, took the attack course.  Cadet Lindbergh specialized in
pursuit; 2d Lt. Otto P. Weyland (of Lindbergh's class), observation; and 2d
Lt. Elmer T. Rundquist (of the same class), bombardment.  Graduates got the
rating of airplane pilot.

     When primary training got under way at Brooks field, the dual trainer was
the JN-6H.  Brooks later accepted other planes, including VE-7's and TA-3's,
for evaluation, but JNs were used until 1926.  The beginning class in March of
that year was the first without Jennies.  Students now flew in the new
Consolidated PT-1, with tandem seats and a Wright E engine.  But the day of
the Jennies was not over; they still served the Organized Reserve and National
Guard.

Balloon and Airship School

     Demobilization in 1919 left the Air Service with balloon schools at Lee
Hall, Virginia; Brooks Field; and Ross Field, California.  Officers and cadets
trained as observers at Lee Hall and Ross Field.  Enlisted men at those two
stations were trained there, while recruits went to Brooks Field for
instruction.  There being so few observers in school during 1920, the Air
Service concentrated observer training at Ross Field.

     Cadets studied such things as aerostatics, aerodynamics, topography,
photography, meteorology, Army paperwork, and military justice.  They did
practical work in observation and artillery adjustment.  The course covered
both free and captive balloons.  Ross Field received a Goodyear Pony Blimp in
1920 for observer training and for primary training in airships.


[See Pony Blimp: Pony Blimp used for training at the Balloon and Airship
School.]

     The Air Service had no dirigibles during the war but wanted to get into
the business after the Armistice.  Col. Charles de F. Chandler, Lt. Col.
Harold Geiger, and others concerned with lighter-than-air aviation saw a
greater future in airships for regulating artillery fire, patrolling the
border and coast, protecting harbors, performing reconnaissance, and perhaps
transporting men and material.  Early in 1919 the Air Service began building
an airship station at Langley Field, Virginia, bought some small nonrigid
airships, and planned larger, semirigid and rigid ships.  Under a decision of
the Joint Board, however, the Navy undertook development of rigid ships for
U.S. forces.

     The first ships at Langley Field included two American-made blimps, C-2
and A-4, a British Mullion, and a French Zodiac.  The collapse of a wooden
hangar wrecked the Mullion.  The Air Service used the other three ships for
training and for work with coast defenses in the Chesapeake Bay area.

     The airships acquired by the Air Service in 1920 and 1921 included a
large, semirigid ship, the Roma, purchased in Italy.  Disassembled, shipped to
the United States, and erected at Langley Field, the Roma made her first
flight in America on November 15, 1921. Maj. John G. Thornell sailed her to
Washington for dedication on December 21.  Dissatisfied with the Ansaldo
engines on the Roma, the Air Service replaced them with Liberties, which were
ready for testing in flight on February 21, 1922.

     With forty-five officers, enlisted men, and civilians aboard and Capt.
Dale Mabry in command, the Roma headed out over Chesapeake Bay, passed Fort
Monroe, and crossed Hampton Roads.  She was sailing along smoothly at around
55 miles an hour, about 600 feet over the Army Supply Base at Norfolk, when
suddenly the control box at the rear of the ship broke and the nose buckled.
Plunging downward, the Roma hit high-voltage wires, exploded, and burned.
Thirty-four persons aboard, including Mabry, died.  Officers who investigated
the accident could not determine the cause, but it was generally thought that
the Liberty engines were too powerful for the Roma.

     The Roma disaster placed the airship program in jeopardy.
Lighter-than-air activities were already being curtailed because of shortages
of people and money.  Perhaps airships should be eliminated.  After reviewing
the situation, the General Staff and Secretary of War permitted the Air
Service to continue with airships.  However, outside of the lighter-than-air
branch of the service, there would be little enthusiasm or support.

     The loss of the Roma hastened the change from hydrogen to helium for Army
and Navy airships.  Helium cost more and did not have quite the lifting power,
but when mixed with air it was not explosive like hydrogen.  Helium would not
have saved the Roma from destruction, but the number of lives lost would
undoubtedly have been smaller.

     The United States started producing helium for lighter-than-air aviation
during the war, but the Navy's C-7 was the sole government airship using
helium at the time of the Roma disaster.  New ships were built with envelopes
designed specifically for helium.  But it would be some time before helium
production would fully satisfy both Army and Navy needs.

     In 1922 the Air Service centralized lighter-than-air training at Scott
Field, Illinois, where it set up a depot for balloon and airship supplies and
equipment.  At the same time it transferred experimental work in
lighter-than-air aviation from Fort Omaha, Nebraska, to the Engineering
Division at McCook Field, Ohio.  The nine- (later ten-) month course of the
new Balloon and Airship School at Scott offered free ballooning, operation of
captive balloons, and piloting of airships, leading to ratings of airship
pilot or balloon observer.  Classes were small.  The one commencing on
September 15, 1924, had 26 members and 14 graduates (9 officers and 5 cadets).

     When the school opened in 1922, it used the Air Service's newest airship
(the 180,000-cubic-foot AC-1) and Pony Blimps for training.  A little later
the school began getting ships of the TA and TC class.  The former were
130,000-cubic-foot ships controlled by one man.  The student pilot mastered
this ship before moving into the 200,000-cubic-foot, dual-controlled ships of
the TC class.  The Air Service had bad luck with its early TCs.  The TC-1
arrived at Scott Field in April 1923 and was wrecked in a storm at Wilbur
Wright Field, Ohio, in June.  Accidents soon took three more TCs.

     In 1925 the school accepted a big, new, semi-rigid airship the RS-1.
Built by Goodyear, the RS-1 featured a gas capacity of 700,000 cubic feet, a
length of 282 feet, and four Liberty engines.  The Air Service built its
hangar at Scott Field large enough for the rigid ship it wanted but never
received.  First Lieutenant Orvil A. Anderson tested the RS-1 and found it of
no military value.  With no money for a new and better ship, the Army dropped
its semirigid project.

Technical School

     The Mechanics School created at Kelly Field, Texas, in 1917 operated
after the war.  In the summer of 1920 its staff totaled nearly eighty
officers, enlisted men, and civilians; its student body about four hundred.
Courses for airplane and engine mechanics enrolled the most students.  There
were also courses in aircraft armament, auto repair, parachute rigging, and
Army paperwork and stenography.  Classes for electricians, instrument
repairmen, blacksmiths, and welders were being organized.  Kelly Field became
so crowded that the Mechanics School moved to Chanute Field, Illinois, early
in 1921.

     The Air Service wanted to send all new recruits directly to the Mechanics
School to be tested and trained for the work they seemed best fitted for.
However, there was not enough money for transportation to carry out the plan.
Most men enlisted by the various units stayed with them.  Many other recruits
went straight to units for duty and did not get to the Mechanics School until
much later - if ever.

     The Air Service saw the resumption of recruiting following the
congressional ban on enlistments in 1921 as a unique opportunity to train
recruits before assigning them for duty.  The Mechanics School received a
quota of 976 recruits and instructions to go out and get them.  Still, the
order was not accompanied by money for a recruiting campaign.  Parties
consisting of an officer, two enlisted men, and a truck driver from Chanute
Field opened offices at Danville, Kankakee, Champaign, Decatur, Springfield,
and Peoria, Illinois; and Bloomington, Indiana.  They put up advertising
boards and solicited the help of newspapers, chambers of commerce, the
American Legion, postmasters, and others.  Planes from Chanute Field flew over
in formation, dropped circulars printed by "goodhearted citizens," and gave
demonstrations of stunt flying and parachute dropping.  In one month,
recruiting parties interviewed more than 3,000 men, disqualified many for
physical or educational reasons, and accepted 700.  Although new classes
started every few days, several weeks passed before all of the recruits were
in training.

     Upon graduation of the large group recruited from Chanute Field late in
1921, the Air Service again faced the old problem of getting men to and from
school.  Funds still being in short supply, the Air Service turned to its own
peculiar resources for transportation.  It assigned a Martin bomber to the
school as a transport.  Other stations with Martin bombers (which could haul 4
or 5 passengers) sometimes flew their men to Chanute for training or came for
them after graduation.  On occasion they used DHs, though each could take but
1 passenger.  A counting in November 19 showed that during the year 165 men
had come to school or returned to duty by airplane.  This amounted to only 14
percent of the number arriving and departing.  Yet, these were men who could
not have attended if required to travel by train.  Moreover, the movement of
students to and from Chanute Field helped develop air transportation.

     Two other schools, the Communications School at Post Field and the
Photographic School at Langley Field moved to Chanute Field in 1922.  There
they merged with the Mechanics School to form a new Technical School under
Maj. Frederick L. Martin's command.  From time to time the school added a new
course, organized or dropped an old one.  One notable addition during 1922-26
was a course for crewchiefs, which graduated more students than any other in
Fiscal Year 1926.  The Technical School, like the flying schools, trained
students from the Officers' Reserve Corps, National Guard, Marine Corps, and
foreign services.  The school's chief mission, however, was the training of
enlisted mechanics for the Air Service.

Tactical School

     During the war the training of most officers for staff or command
positions in aviation was through experience.  After the war the Air Service
still depended heavily upon experience to prepare officers to command
squadrons and fill higher staff and command jobs.  But it afforded further
training in a Field Officers School that opened at Langley Field in November
1920 with Maj. Thomas DeW. Milling in charge.  The bulk of the course dealt
with tactical employment of aviation.  The seven officers in the first class
also studied navigation, meteorology, communications, photography, armament,
history of the Air Service, Army regulations, field service regulations,
military law, and hygiene and sanitation.  The course, scheduled for nine
months, was cut short in the spring of 1921, when faculty and students became
part of the 1st Provisional Air Brigade for bombing experiments against
ex-German war vessels.

     The number of graduates from the school (renamed Tactical School in 1922)
varied between twelve and seventeen in the next five classes.  Flying was
added in 1923 and it grew more and more important as the school developed.
Elimination of technical subjects in 1925 freed time for courses in aviation
tactics and techniques.  Students generally spent mornings in lectures and
conferences and in working on illustrative problems.  They used textbooks,
manuals, and other materials prepared by the faculty.  Maj. William C. Sherman
wrote the first major text, on air tactics, in 1921.

     Students usually devoted afternoons to flying and to the practical
application of classroom theories and techniques.  They also took part in
exercises and went on inspection trips.  They attended maneuvers, and
beginning in 1923 each class visited McCook Field to learn firsthand of new
developments in aeronautical equipment.

Engineering School

     In 1919 an Air School of Application was set up at McCook Field, Dayton,
Ohio, to give Air Service officers an understanding of technical matters
relating to airplanes and motors and their maintenance.  The objective of the
school, proposed by Col. Thurman H. Bane (commander of the experimental
station at Dayton), was to improve operations of Air Service flying stations.
The first class of six officers entered on November 10, 1919.  In 1920 the
name changed to Engineering School.

     Students selected for the school were rated pilots and graduates of the
U.S. Military or Naval Academy or recognized technical colleges.  High school
graduates could be admitted if they were well versed in fundamental sciences
and familiar with calculus, chemistry, physics, and theoretical mechanics. The
one-year course covered mechanics, business administration, armament,
materials, electricity, powerplants, and theoretical aeronautics.  As a rule
the classes had no more than a dozen students.  Most graduates returned to
general duty, but now and then one stayed on a while to work with the
Engineering Division.  A few went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) to take aeronautical engineering.  The outstanding student of the period
was 1st Lt. James H. Doolittle.  He entered MIT in October 1923, got a
master's degree in June 1924, and became a Doctor of Science in June 1925.

     In addition the Air Service let a few officers attend other civilian
colleges and universities: Yale for radio communications, Harvard for business
administration, and Columbia for contract law.  It also sent a few to the
Command and Staff School, the Army War College, the Army Industrial College,
the Chemical Warfare School, and the Signal Corps Radio School.

School of Aviation Medicine

     In the spring of 1919 the Air Service began training doctors to replace
wartime flight surgeons returning to civilian practice.  Doctors selected from
officers of the Army's Medical Corps went to the Air Service's Medical
Research Laboratory at Hazelhurst Field, Long Island, New York.  Established
in January 1918, the laboratory's mission was to study the medical aspects of
aviation, then shifted from research to training.

     Three classes graduated before the Air Service abandoned Hazelhurst Field
and moved the school to Mitchel Field in November 1919.  A fire on March 19,
1921, destroyed teaching materials, equipment, and administrative records.
Even so, the Commandant, Maj. Louis H. Bauer, managed to keep the school going
until new facilities were ready.  The course given to MDs in the grade of
major, captain, or lieutenant included practical work in New York City
hospitals as well as lectures and demonstrations at the school.  Besides, the
doctors were taught how to perform the "609" examination required for flying.

     By June 30, 1921, forty-six flight surgeons had been graduated and
assigned to stations throughout the United States.  Their principal job, as
stated first by General Menoher and then by General Patrick, was "the
prevention of loss of life and property through accidents attributable
directly or indirectly to the physical condition of pilots." This they did by
physical examination and close personal observation of the flyers, and by
investigation of airplane accidents from the medical point of view.

     In 1922 the Medical Research Laboratory and its School for Flight
Surgeons became the School of Aviation Medicine.  As attested by the new name,
its main job was educational but it retained a research mission.  The school's
investigations encompassed the effects of cold on respiration, circulation,
and body temperature; the amount of oxygen needed for altitude flights; and
lenses for goggles.  One study probed the temporary deafness of flyers from
aircraft engine noise.  Many flyers wore earplugs, but plugs of hard rubber,
paraffin, or wax were unsanitary and hard to keep clean.  Cotton left fibers
in the ear canal, causing irritation.  The school recommended that a lady's
powder puff (wool, or wool and cotton) be sewn inside each of the ear flaps on
the helmet.

     At first the course for flight surgeons lasted for six weeks, but later
extended to three months.  Medical officers of the Organized Reserve and
National Guard could take a basic course of six weeks and qualify as physical
examiners.  By pursuing an advanced one of six weeks, they could become flight
surgeons.  Or, after the basic study, they could achieve the same end by
completing a correspondence course.

     Flight surgeons during the war held flying status and earned flight pay.
They continued to draw the extra money until mid-1920, when cut off by Army
regulations.  General Menoher's recommendation that all medical officers
serving in the Air Service be designated for flying duty was twice rejected.
Doctors still could fly but not be ordered to do so.  General Patrick was able
to change this policy in 1922.

     Most Air Service doctors flew as passengers but some became pilots.  Out
of forty-eight flight surgeons on duty in the summer of 1926, seven were rated
(four as pilots and three as junior pilots).

     At the time of the Mitchel Field fire in 1921, Major Bauer rejected the
suggestion that the school move.  He thought it should be near the medical
facilities and libraries of New York City.  The suggestion came up again in
the mid-1920's as General Patrick and others grew concerned over the many
students washing out of flying training.  Perhaps the medical school could
help correct the matter if its work was more practical and less theoretical.
It needed to be located where pilots trained.  So the School of Aviation
Medicine moved to Brooks Field in June 1926.

     Each of these schools required specific authorization from the War
Department.  Once a school had been established, responsibility for running it
rested with the Chief of Air Service.  He had to operate within the
administrative framework laid down in Army regulations, and under the monetary
and personnel limits imposed.  But in technical training matters in the Air
Service schools, he was in control.  The Air Service Chief determined the kind
and extent of the training to be given and set standards for successful
completion.  This was true even when Air Service policies, such as those on
qualifications for flying training, affected the combat capabilities of the
Army's air arm.  Unlike individual training, unit training for tactical
operations did not come under his direction.  There he could only advise and
recommend, as will be seen in the next chapter.