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[[image: photo of bi-plane in flight]]
[[caption: First Flight, Orville Wright, September 5, 1908]]

[[image: photo of bi-plane in flight]]
[[caption: Wilbur Wright at Fort Myer, July 27, 1909]]

[[image: photo of bi-plane in flight]]
[[caption: Orville Wright in flight, Maxwell Field, 1910]]

[[image: two men standing at wings of bi-plane]]
[[caption: Major H.H. Arnold and Major T.D. Milling in 1912, when Army air strength consisted of two planes.]]

[[image: photo of bi-plane sitting on dirt field]]
[[caption: Burgess Tractor -1914.

THE OLD

With the reorganization of the aviation setup of the United States Army, on March 9, 1942, has come the latest phase of the development of the nation's military aviation from its groping, experimental days to its present status as an autonomous unit within the structure of the army. The story of the rapid growth of our nation's military aviation, from an unimportant subdivision of the Signal Corps before the first World War, through the period when it was a corps of its own, the Air Corps, and now to a degree of tremendous importance as the Army Air Forces, co-equal in prominence with all the other army combat arms combined, is a stirring saga of courage and inspirations, of indomitable will and far-sighted genius, all within the short space of 33 years.