US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0048/00487.txt

Text File | 1990-12-23 | 35KB | 562 lines

$Unique_ID{USH00487}
$Pretitle{59}
$Title{Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939
Chapter VII   Defense}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Maurer Ph.D., Maurer}
$Affiliation{USAF Historical Research Center}
$Subject{border
air
army
service
planes
patrol
navy
field
plane
mexico}
$Volume{}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Book:        Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939
Author:      Maurer Ph.D., Maurer
Affiliation: USAF Historical Research Center
Date:        1987

Chapter VII   Defense

     The Army of the United States had as its chief function defense of the
nation against attack from without.  It protected the nation's land frontier,
overseas possessions, and shared with the U.S. Navy responsibility for the
seacoast.  The war's end in 1918 found the Army's Air Service busy with plans
and preparations for defense against attack at sea.  During demobilization,
the Regular Army and its air arm answered a call to defend the southern border
against raids from Mexico, and to halt smuggling of aliens and dope into the
United States and arms into Mexico.

Border Patrol

     Revolution and disorder in Mexico and trouble along the U.S.-Mexican
border in March 1913 brought on the hurried organization of the 1st Aero
Squadron, the U.S. Army's first tactical unit equipped with airplanes.  In
1916 the squadron took part in General Pershing's punitive expedition into
Mexico in pursuit of Mexican revolutionist Pancho Villa.  Difficulties along
the border continued while the United States was at war in Europe.  Mexican
bandits often raided American ranches to secure supplies, cattle, and horses,
and in doing so sometimes killed the ranchers.  U.S. troops stationed along
the border shot raiders as they pursued them into Mexico.  The biggest clash
came in August 1918, when more than 800 American troops fought some 600
Mexicans near Nogales, Arizona.

     Border patrol was one of the many activities being considered for the
postwar Air Service.  However, no aviation units had been assigned to duty on
the Mexican border, when a large force of Villistas moved northward in June
1919 toward Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico (opposite El Paso, Texas),
garrisoned by Mexican government forces.  Maj. Gen. DeRosey C. Cabell,
Commanding General of the Southern Department, received orders to seal off the
border if Villa took Juarez.  If the Villistas fired across the border, Cabell
was to cross into Mexico, disperse Villa's troops, and withdraw as soon as the
safety of El Paso was assured.  The general ordered Air Service men and planes
from Kelly and Ellington Fields, Texas, to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, for
border patrol.

     American troops under Brig. Gen. James B. Erwin, Commander of the El Paso
District of the Southern Department, were on alert when about 1,600 of Villa's
men attacked Juarez during the night of June 14/15, 1919.  Stray fire from
across the river killed an American soldier and a civilian, and wounded two
other soldiers and four civilians.  Around 3,600 U.S. troops crossed into
Mexico, quickly dispersed the Villistas, and returned to the American side.

     Air Service personnel with DH-4 aircraft began arriving at Fort Bliss on
June 15.  Maj. Edgar G. Tobin, an ace who had flown with the 103d Aero
Squadron in France, inaugurated an aerial patrol on the border on the 19th.
By mid-September the force grew to 104 officers, 491 enlisted men, and 67
planes from the 8th, 9th, 11th, 90th, and 96th squadrons.

     In the summer of 1919, the Army planned to build at least nine aero
squadrons and one airship company for surveillance of the entire border from
the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.  The plan called for two observation
squadrons (the 9th and 91st) of the Western Department to patrol eastward from
Rockwell Field, California, to the California-Arizona line.  Three
surveillance squadrons (the 8th, 90th, and 104th) and four bombardment
squadrons (the 11th, 20th, 96th, and 166th) of the Southern Department were to
be distributed along the border from Arizona to the Gulf of Mexico.

     On July 1, 1919, the three surveillance squadrons organized into the Army
Surveillance Group headquartered at Kelly Field. (This group became the 1st
Surveillance Group in August 1919.) In September the four bombardment
squadrons formed the 1st Day Bombardment Group, also with headquarters at
Kelly.  In addition the 1st Pursuit Group and its squadrons (27th, 94th, 95th,
and 147th) moved from Selfridge Field, Michigan, to Kelly at the end of August
to be available if needed.  The three groups (surveillance, day bombardment,
and pursuit) comprised the 1st Wing at Kelly.  Commanded by Lt. Col. Henry B.
Clagett, the wing became responsible for aerial patrol of the border in the
Southern Department.  Also in August, work started on a large steel hangar for
an airship station at Camp Owen Bierne, Fort Bliss.

     The Army soon scaled down the plan for border patrol.  Although minor
incidents continued to occur, Pancho Villa never succeeded in rebuilding his
force.  The major threat had been dispelled by the time aerial patrol began.
From January 1920 on, the patrol in the Southern Department was handled by the
1st Surveillance Group which had moved its headquarters to Fort Bliss and
gained an extra squadron, the 12th.  The group's squadrons operated in two
flights, each patrolling a sector on either side of its operating base.  From
the Gulf of Mexico westward, the deployment was as follows: McAllen and
Laredo, Texas, 8th Squadron; Eagle Pass and Sanderson, Texas, 90th Squadron;
Marfa and El Paso, Texas, 104th Squadron; Douglas and Nogales, Arizona, 12th
Squadron.  Most of the time only one squadron, first the 9th and later the
91st, patrolled in the Western Department.

     The 8th Balloon Company moved from Brooks Field to Camp Owen Bierne in
December 1919 to set up the airship station.  Parts for a twin-engine airship
(the C-1) commenced to arrive in May 1920, and on September 28 1st Lt. John W.
Shoptaw and 1st Lt. Don L. Hutchins took the ship on its first flight.  The
C-1 made many flights around El Paso, but never played a key part in border
patrol.

     The patrol bases were hurriedly created.  One of the young lieutenants
who flew from Marfa in the summer of 1919 remembered the flying field as a
pasture at the eastern edge of town.  Its five hangars were canvas.  A double
row of ten or twelve tents served as officer and enlisted quarters and
sheltered flight headquarters and supply.  The lieutenant, Stacy C. Hinkle,
recalled his tour of duty on the border as "a life of hardship, possible
death, starvation pay, and a lonely life without social contacts, in hot,
barren desert wastes, tortured by sun, wind, and sand." The boredom was as bad
as the physical hardship and discomfort, the sole recreation being drinking
and gambling.  Even so, Hinkle thought the airmen better off than the poor
fellows at cavalry outposts up and down the border.

     The patrol started with DH-4's and Jennies, both eventually replaced with
DH-4B's.  Most of the first planes were not properly equipped for field
service. Not knowing what turn events on the border might take, the Army
wanted the planes ready for any eventuality.  Col. James E. Fechet, Air
Service Officer at the Southern Department, found it no easy task to obtain
bomb racks, machinegun mounts, cameras, and other equipment.  There was a
delay, for example, in installing synchronized Martin guns because parts
supplied with the guns did not fit the planes on the border.  The radios on
some planes could send only in code and could not do that very well.
Compasses were unreliable, maps sketchy and of little use.  The country over
which the men had to fly was wild and rough and sparsely populated, with few
places for safe emergency landings.

     The aerial patrol searched along the border for bands of men and reported
to the nearest cavalry post how many men they were, where they were, which way
they were heading, what they were doing, and how many horses and cattle they
had.  The timing of the patrols varied so raiders would not know when the next
plane would appear.

     The men generally seem to have done all that might reasonably have been
expected of them, and sometimes more.  Take, for example, the flyer
(regrettably unnamed in the story released by the Air Service) sent one
morning to find some horses and mules spirited across the border the previous
night.  Seeing a group of Mexicans and horses in a corral, the flyer sought to
notify the cavalry patrol in pursuit of the bandits.  Unfamiliar with the use
of airplanes with cavalry, the troopers could not comprehend the signals.
Flying back across the river, the airman landed at an American picket station,
borrowed a horse, swam the Rio Grande River, and chased the cavalry to tell
them what he had seen.  He then rode back, jumped into his plane, and flew to
the corral.  The Mexicans apparently had seen the plane the first time and had
turned the horses loose and driven them away.  When the plane reappeared, the
Mexicans scattered, with the plane pursuing three of them who were on
horseback.  The Mexicans ran under a cottonwood tree and kept it between them
and the plane while the flyer circled for a better look.  If he found they
were bandits (how he expected to do this is not clear), he intended to shoot
them.  He soon ran low on gasoline, however, and turned back to El Paso.  This
incident, the Air Service said, illustrated not only "the great service the
airplane can render cavalry troops in pursuit of bandits," but also "the
necessity of having better liaison between the Air Service and the cavalry."

     As time went on, air border units spent less time on patrol and more in
training with the infantry, artillery, and cavalry.  Air Service personnel
further practiced aerial gunnery and formation flying, experimented with radio
and other signaling systems, located and marked emergency landing fields, and
worked to upgrade facilities and equipment.

     Pilots flying along or near the border were under orders not to cross.
But they often got lost and strayed into Mexico.  At times they went over
deliberately, apparently on the spur of the moment.  Occasionally, they
crossed to carry out a special assignment.

     Addressing the National Congress of Mexico on September 1, 1919,
President Venustiano Carranza said U.S. military planes had crossed the
frontier several times.  While his government had protested, the incursions
had been repeated.  The Mexican president was probably not aware that one of
the flights violating Mexico's sovereignty had been made by the ranking pilot
of the U.S. Air Service.  Inspecting the border patrol in July 1919, General
Mitchell had taken Col. Selah R. H. (Tommy) Tompkins, 7th Cavalry Commander,
for a reconnaissance.

     The day President Carranza addressed the Mexican Congress, Ygnacio
Bonillas, Mexican Ambassador to the United States, protested the flight of two
planes over Chihuahua City, during the afternoon of August 28.  James B.
Stewart, American Consul in Chihuahua, had already reported the incident. Soon
Stewart was back with another dispatch and Bonillas was protesting again -
more American planes had flown over Chihuahua on September 2.  Two more planes
showed up in the morning of the 5th.  When Stewart said these incidents
embarrassed members of the American colony, Acting Secretary of State William
Phillips replied: "War Department promises to issue strict orders against
repetitions."

     Not long afterward, Ambassador Bonillas complained that the crew of a
U.S. Army airplane had fired a machinegun several times while flying over
Nogales, Arizona.  Some of the shots hit a dwelling across the border in
Nogales, Sonora, luckily without injuring anyone.  The Mexican government
wanted the guilty persons found and punished.  Several weeks later the State
Department responded that an Air Service lieutenant was being tried by general
court-martial for the shooting.

     Another incident protested by the Mexican government began with two
Americans getting lost while on a routine flight in the Big Bend area of Texas
on Sunday morning, August 10, 1919.  A flyer might easily get lost on patrol.
Lts. Harold G. Peterson, pilot, and Paul H. Davis, observer-gunner from Maria,
Texas, found it could happen while following a river on a clear day.  Their
mission was to patrol along the Rio Grande from Lajitas to Bosque Bonito and
then land at Fort Bliss.  Coming to the mouth of the Rio Conchos at Ojinaga,
Chihuahua (opposite Presidio, Texas), they mistook the Conchos for the Rio
Grande and followed it many miles into Mexico before being forced down by
engine trouble.  Thinking they were still on the Rio Grande, the airmen picked
a spot on the "American" side of the river to land.  The terrain was rough and
the plane was wrecked.  Having buried the machineguns and ammunition to keep
them out of the hands of bandits, Peterson and Davis started walking down the
river, thinking they would come to the U.S. Cavalry outpost at Candelaria,
Texas.

     When Peterson and Davis did not arrive at Fort Bliss on Sunday afternoon,
the men there assumed they had either returned to Marfa or made a forced
landing.  When they were unaccounted for on Monday, a search was begun. Flying
over the patrol route, 1st Lts. Frank Estell and Russell H. Cooper surmised
that Peterson and Davis might have mistakenly followed the Conchos into
Mexico.  The region along the Conchos almost as far as Chihuahua City was
added to the area covered by search planes.  Tuesday afternoon Peterson and
Davis saw a plane flying up the Conchos, but they were in thick brush and
could not attract the crew's attention.  The search continued until Sunday,
August 17, 1919.  Then Capt. Leonard F. ('TwoGun') Matlack, commanding Troop
K, 8th Cavalry, at Candelaria, received word Peterson and Davis were being
held for ransom.

     The flyers had been taken prisoner on Wednesday, August 13, by a Villista
desperado named Jesus Renteria.  The bandit sent the ransom note to a rancher
at Candelaria, along with telegrams which he forced the airmen to write to
their fathers and the Secretary of War, the Commanding General of the Southern
Department, and the commanding officer of U.S. forces in the Big Bend
District.  Renteria demanded $15,000 not later than Monday, August 18, or the
two Americans would be killed.

     The War Department authorized payment of the ransom, but there remained
the matter of getting $15,000 in cash for delivery before the deadline.
Ranchers in the area quickly subscribed the full amount, which came from the
Marfa National Bank.  Negotiation through intermediaries resulted in a plan
for Captain Matlack to cross the border Monday night with half of the ransom
money for the release of one of the Americans.  The meeting took place on
schedule, and within forty-five minutes Matlack came back with Lieutenant
Peterson.  Matlack then took the remaining $7,500 to get Lieutenant Davis.  On
the way to the rendezvous he overheard two of Renteria's men talking about
killing him and Davis as soon as the rest of the ransom money was paid.  At
the rendezvous, Matlack pulled a gun, told the Mexicans to tell Renteria to
"go to hell," and rode off with Davis and the money.  Avoiding the ambush,
Matlack and Davis safely crossed into the United States.  Questioned by Col.
George T. Langhorne, Army Commander in the Big Bend District, Peterson and
Davis maintained they had been captured on the American side of the border and
had not crossed into Mexico.

     At daybreak on Tuesday, August 19, 1919, Captain Matlack once again
crossed the border, this time leading Troops C and K, 8th Cavalry, in pursuit
of Renteria and his gang.  Air Service planes scouted ahead of the cavalry
seeking to spot the bandits.  They also gathered information on the condition
of the trails and the location of waterholes, and conveyed it to the troops by
dropping messages.

     While flying some twelve or fifteen miles west of Candelaria late Tuesday
afternoon, Lieutenants Estell and Cooper saw three horsemen in a canyon and
went lower for a better look.  When the men on the ground fired on the DH-4,
Estell made another pass with his machineguns blazing.  Then Cooper opened up
with his Lewis guns and killed one of the men, reportedly Renteria.

     The search for members of Renteria's gang continued until August 23. With
the Mexican government protesting the invasion of its territory, American
forces returned to the United States.

     A few months later another plane landed in Mexico after its crew followed
the wrong railroad tracks.  Patrolling on Monday, February 2, 1920, 1st Lts.
Leroy M. Wolfe and George L. Usher intended to pick up the El Paso and
Southwestern Railroad west of Douglas, Arizona, and follow it to Nogales.
Visibility was poor and the compass did not work properly.  Sighting a
railroad, Wolfe and Usher followed it for some time until it ended.  Lost and
having engine trouble, they landed and were taken into custody by Mexican
officials.  The tracks they had steered by ran due south instead of west, and
had led them to Nacozari, Sonora, seventy-five or eighty miles below the
border.  Though treated well, Wolfe and Usher were not set free until February
24.  They waited three more days for release of their airplane, shipping it to
Douglas by train.

     About the same time, a plane on patrol of the lower Rio Grande ran out of
gas over Mexico and landed some twenty miles west of Guerrero, Nuevo Leon
(opposite Zapata, Texas).  The airmen, Lts. E. E. Davis and Gerald E. Grimes
of the 8th Surveillance Squadron, were quickly released.  With permission from
Mexican officials, 1st Lt. Rex K. Stoner took gas and oil into Mexico and flew
the plane back to the 8th Squadron's post at McAllen, Texas.

     Earlier, in October 1919, two planes from Rockwell Field, California,
ended up in Lower California when the flight leader miscalculated in trying to
navigate by the sun.  In that case, the four men got out safely.  Two other
American airmen who came down in Baja California were not so fortunate.

     On border patrol with the 9th Corps Observation Squadron, Lts. Frederick
Waterhouse and Cecil H. Connolly disappeared after taking off from Calexico,
California, bound for Rockwell Field, on August 20, 1919.  A search begun the
next morning gradually extended farther and farther south in Baja California.
When three weeks passed with no trace of the missing men, the search ended.  A
month later it was learned their bodies had been found near Bahia de Los
Angeles on the coast of the Gulf of California, 225 miles south of Calexico.

     From the evidence that could be gathered, it appeared Waterhouse and
Connolly became lost in a rainstorm and hugged the coast of Baja California
southward, thinking they were headed north along the Pacific Coast.  They
landed safely on the beach about twenty miles north of Bahia de Los Angeles.
Their sole chance for survival seemed to be staying with the plane until
found.  Tortured by heat, thirst, and hunger, they waited seventeen days, but
the search never reached that far south.  Finally two fishermen came along and
took them in a canoe to Bahia de Los Angeles.  There the Americans were
murdered, apparently for the little money they had.  Their bodies, buried in
the sand, were discovered within a day or two by an American geological survey
party and rediscovered a week later by an American mining engineer.  The news,
however, did not reach Rockwell Field until October 13.  Three days later, a
Navy ship, USS Aaron Ward, sailed from San Diego with a group of Army officers
to recover the bodies.

     One of the largest manhunts conducted by the Air Service in the 1920's
was organized by Maj. Henry H. Arnold, commanding officer of Rockwell Field,
when one of his planes disappeared on a flight late in 1922.  First Lieutenant
Charles L. Webber had left in a DH on Thursday morning, December 7, to fly
Col. Francis C. Marshall on an inspection trip of cavalry posts and camps.
Thick fog appeared to be breaking up when Webber and Marshall took off from
San Diego at 0905, their destination Fort Huachuca, Arizona, with Nogales an
alternate.

     Receiving word the men had not reached their destination, Major Arnold
sent out every available plane on Friday to search.  He also sent messages
along the route to secure information.  Reports received during the day showed
the plane had flown more than one hundred miles into Arizona.  Otherwise, no
word came concerning the missing plane and men.

     Having but a few pilots and planes available at Rockwell, Arnold sought
help.  Three planes on a cross-country flight from Brooks Field, Texas, had
landed at Rockwell on Thursday.  These men, including Maj. Ralph Royce, the
Brooks Field Commander, joined the search.  Crissy Field, California,
contributed thirty-two men and sixteen planes.  Arnold further secured the
help of U.S. Navy flyers from the naval air station at San Diego.  Maj. Leo G.
Heffeman, Commander of the Air Service, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Bliss,
Texas, brought five planes and pilots to help.  By Saturday afternoon,
December 9, the Air Service was well organized for an aerial search along the
entire route between San Diego and Fort Huachuca.  The addition of planes and
pilots from Kelly Field eventually brought the number of planes engaged in the
hunt to forty-two.  Infantry and cavalry likewise participated.

     After ten days the men from Fort Bliss and from Brooks, Kelly, and Crissy
Fields gave up and went home.  First Lieutenant John P. Richter, Webber's
roommate and close friend, had been working from Nogales under Major Arnold's
orders.  He stayed on for several days to follow any clue.

     Arnold was not satisfied that Webber and Marshall had reached eastern
Arizona.  The evidence did not appear conclusive.  No one in the Imperial
Valley saw the plane.  It seemed to him doubtful whether the plane had gotten
through the clouds over the mountains east of San Diego.  Dividing this
mountain area into sections, Arnold sent fifteen planes to search each section
in detail.  The whereabouts of the missing plane and men remained a mystery.

     Arnold followed every lead.  One rumor led to a man in Los Angeles with a
reputation for seeing things, past and future.  Arnold sent 1st Lt. Frank W.
Seifert to talk to him.  Afterwards, the lieutenant reported by telegram that
the seer was "crazier than 7,000 jackrabbits."

     Unwilling to give up, Major Arnold obtained permission to send a party by
automobile to try to trace Lieutenant Webber's course by talking to and
checking the statements of the various witnesses.  Twenty-nine persons from
places scattered from San Diego to fifty miles east of Nogales, and from one
hundred miles north of Yuma to far south in Mexico, claimed to have seen a DH
on December 7.  The Air Reserve helped.  Maj. Theodore Macauley, who knew the
area from his transcontinental flights, went on active duty to head an
expedition consisting of another Reserve, Capt. H. A. Erickson, and four
Regular Army men from Rockwell Field, Lieutenant Richter, 1st Lt. Virgil Hine,
and two privates.  The group's equipment and supplies included a Dodge touring
car, a light delivery truck, camping gear, and rations for six weeks.  Major
Macauley and his men left San Diego on January 15, 1923, and did not return
until February 23.  From their investigation it appeared that Webber's plane
crossed the mountains east of San Diego, flew over the Imperial Valley of
California, and in Arizona passed south of Yuma and Wellton.  But Macauley and
his group could track it no farther.  A memorial service for Colonel Marshall
and Lieutenant Webber was held in Washington on the afternoon of February 28.
Major Arnold ordered work suspended at Rockwell Field for two minutes that day
in tribute to Lieutenant Webber.

     It was not until May 12, 1923, that the plane was found.  A man hunting
stray cattle discovered it in the mountains, just a few miles east of San
Diego.  Colonel Marshall and Lieutenant Webber apparently hit Cuyamaca Peak in
the fog within thirty minutes after taking off from Rockwell Field five months
earlier.'

     Regular patrol of the border ended some time before.  At first, units
tried to cover their sectors every day.  Later, the number and seriousness of
border violations by Mexicans decreased, and the patrols tapered off.  In the
autumn of 1920, the schedule for the 1st Surveillance Group called for flights
twice a week.  When exercises with ground forces or other activities
interfered, patrols might be canceled for days or even weeks at a time.  Brig.
Gen. William Mitchell's need for men and planes from the border for bombing
tests against naval vessels off the Virginia Capes in June 1921 brought border
patrol to an end.

Coastal Defense

     In coastal defense, the Army long held responsibility for helping to
prevent invasion, a job it shared with the Navy, and for defeating in ground
combat any force which an enemy succeeded in putting ashore.  To discharge the
first of these tasks, the Army's area of operations reached seaward the range
of artillery.  Aircraft added a new dimension.

     Before the end of World War I, the Air Service viewed its mission as
embracing patrolling the coast, helping to defend harbors and shores against
enemy attack, and assisting coastal batteries by finding targets, determining
range, and observing fire.  In fact, when the war ended, the Air Service was
establishing coastal defense stations on the east and west coasts and in the
three overseas departments.  The service estimated 15 airplane squadrons and
10 balloon companies would be needed for 10 stations at home, and 15 squadrons
and 9 companies overseas.

     Col. William Lay Patterson and Lt. Col. Leslie MacDill handled the
project for the Air Service, coordinating with the Coast Artillery.  By the
end of April 1919, they had received Coast Artillery approval for a station on
Staten Island, and the Air Service was preparing for coastal defense
operations at Langley Field.  In June 1919, Maj. Gen. Frank W. Coe, Chief of
Coast Artillery, agreed to eight more stations, the precise locations to be
determined later.  By the end of the year, sites had been chosen on the east
coast at Portland, Boston, Narragansett Bay, and eastern Long Island, and in
the west at San Francisco and Puget Sound.  General Coe, however, opposed
permanent construction "until such time as the service of coast batteries is
more fully developed."

     The Air Service moved the 14th and 24th Balloon Companies from Fort
Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco in April 1920 to work with coastal batteries
in formulating operational procedures.  The chief problem in adjusting fire
lay in tracking moving vessels.  The 14th and 24th tried triangulation, with
two balloons about 13,000 yards apart, the observer in each balloon measuring
by sextant the angle between the opposite balloon and the target at sea.  This
was not very accurate.  So from an old azimuth instrument and a small
telescope the men created a device for an observer to measure the angle.
Employing procedures and instruments stemming from experimentation, and
communicating by telephone, observers in the balloons could track a moving
target at sea, spot the splash of the shells, and report the deviation to the
battery.  This system was first successful on November 24, 1920, when
long-range guns guarding the Golden Gate used only data from balloon
observation to fire on a pyramid target towed by a tug 14,000 yards at sea.

     A detachment of the 91st Corps Observation Squadron at Crissy Field also
worked with coastal batteries at San Francisco.  Commanded by 1st Lt. Lowell
Smith, the detachment equipped each of its DH-4B's with two radio transmitters
and two sending keys.  Either the pilot or observer could send, and if one
radio failed a second was on hand.  Artillery batteries displayed panels to
communicate with the aircraft.  When the detachment received a request for a
plane, the pilot flew to the battery, where the observer asked by radio for a
panel.  When "ready to fire" appeared, the pilot proceeded to the target, some
17,000 yards at sea.  From 3,000 feet the airmen could see the splash of the
shells.  Comparing the distance of the splash from the target with the length
of the towline, the observer figured the deviation and radioed it to the
battery.  The pilot then returned to the battery to await another panel.

     A combination of planes and balloons produced the best results.  They
were so good, according to reports from the detachment at Crissy Field, that
coast defense officials had "declared artillery obsolete without the aid of
balloons for tracking and planes for observing." The detachment therefore
began experimenting with flares dropped from airplanes to illuminate targets
for tracking from balloons at night.

     Nevertheless, the coastal defense project was doomed.  Air Service
enthusiasm may have cooled somewhat when General Coe tried to place coastal
defense aviation under the administration and tactical control of the coast
defense commander.  Coordination with the Coast Artillery, Coe's insistence on
having a system of operations before going far with construction, and other
delays prevented much being accomplished before the project fell victim to
government economy.  With fewer people and less money, both the Air Service
and the Coast Artillery had to curtail their programs.  Still, coast defense
continued to be the principal mission of Air Service units in overseas
departments.

     While the Air Service was seeking to construct coastal defense stations
in mid-1919, the Aeronautical Board was defining aviation functions of the
Army and Navy.  The board, composed of equal numbers of officers from the Army
and Navy (Menoher being the senior member at this time), recommended on August
23, 1919, that Army aircraft conduct offensive and defensive operations with
the various arms of the Army, and furnish fire control for coastal defense.
Navy aircraft from coastal stations should be employed for convoy,
reconnaissance, and patrol.  Those operating from ships and bases should carry
out reconnaissance and spotting as well as offensive operations against enemy
vessels and naval bases.

     Upon receipt of the board's statement for publication, the General Staff
referred the matter to the Joint Army and Navy Board, whose senior members
were the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peyton C. March, and the Chief of Naval
Operations, Adm. Robert E. Coontz.  The Joint Board found the Aeronautical
Board's policy too restrictive of the operation of Army aircraft and virtually
prohibitive of joint Army-Navy operations.  The board recommended on December
18, 1919, that Army aircraft operate as an arm of the mobile army, against
enemy aircraft in defense of shore installations, and alone or with other arms
of the Army or Navy against vessels attacking the coast.  It further proposed
that Navy aircraft be employed not only as an arm of the fleet for overseas
scouting and against enemy shore establishments, but to protect coastal
shipping and against enemy vessels attacking the coast.

     Pointing to duplication of functions between Army and Navy aviation in
defense against enemy ships, the Joint Board laid out a plan for cooperation
and coordination based upon "paramount interest." If an enemy force
approaching the coast could be engaged by a U.S. Navy force of approximately
the same strength, the U.S. Navy assumed paramount interest and coordinated
operations of Army forces with its own.  On the other hand, if the enemy force
was vastly superior to U.S. naval forces available to use against it, the Army
held paramount interest and coordinated operations of the U.S. Navy with those
of the U.S. Army.  War Secretary Newton D. Baker and Navy Secretary Josephus
Daniels approved this scheme, thus giving it effect.

     That, however, did not settle the matter.  Over the objections of both
secretaries, Congress in June 1920 divided aviation differently.  It gave the
Army control of aerial operations from land bases, and the Navy control of
aerial operations of the fleet, and at naval stations when the operations were
for instruction, experimentation, or training.

     Tests conducted against warships in 1921 and technological advances
caused General Patrick in mid-1923 to suggest changes in the aviation
functions of the Army and Navy.  The use of naval aircraft from coastal
stations for overseas scouting and protection of coastal shipping was
uneconomical, and failed to secure effective protection for the nation's
coasts.  This work, he said, should be the sole responsibility of the Army.

     Patrick renewed the proposal in testifying before the Lampert Committee
in 1925.  Both Army and Navy planes might be scouting in the same area at the
same time, the Navy to protect coastal lines, the Army in working with coastal
defenses.  Such duplication should be eliminated.  The Army should undertake
the air defense of the nation's coasts.  How far to sea should the Army's
responsibility extend?  General Patrick thought two hundred miles under the
existing state of aircraft development.  Finding that the Army and Navy had
"never agreed on a definite air policy," the Lampert Committee suggested
Congress "settle by legislation the respective fields of operation of the Army
and Navy." But Congress did not act.

     The Air Service responded promptly when ordered to the Mexican frontier
in June 1919 to help stop raiding and smuggling.  Its chief job was air
surveillance, to keep the cavalry informed of conditions and activities along
the border.  It welcomed the assignment because it would afford men valuable
training through useful work.  However the main threat, Pancho Villa's army,
had been eliminated by the time aviation units began operations.  Further, the
mere presence of planes on the border, and the threat of surveillance, tended
to discourage raiders and smugglers.  The need for aerial operations
diminished.  Patrols became fewer and less frequent, and after two years
ceased.  Service on the border gave the Air Service experience in operating
under field conditions, in aerial observation, and in cross-country flying
over difficult terrain.  It revealed the need for better equipment and
training, especially for navigation and communications, and for closer liaison
between air and ground forces.

     On the sea frontier, the Air Service found its high hopes and elaborate
plans frustrated by government economy, coordination problems with the Coast
Artillery, and want of a clear, and favorable delineation of the functions of
Army and Navy aviation.