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THE UNITED STATES ARMY AIR FORCES

On August 1, 1907, an Aeronautical Division "to study the flying machine and the possibility of adopting it to military purposes" was established in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, United States Army. One officer, two enlisted men and no airplanes, were assigned to the division.

Late in 1907, the Army asked for bids for an airplane capable of flying for 60 minutes and of attaining a speed of 40 miles per hour while carrying two men whose combined weight did not exceed 350 pounds. On February 10, 1908, the contract was signed for the Wright Brothers' plane.

Delivered by the Wrights, the plane crashed during trial flights at Fort Myer, Va., in September 1908. Orville Wright, the pilot, was injured, and Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge, the passenger, was killed. Until the accident, the plane had performed well. The Wrights were given a second chance. In June 1909, they returned to Fort Myer with a new biplane. It had approximately a 40 foot wing spread and a wing area of 500 square feet. It weighed 800 pounds empty. Two propellers, mounted in the rear, were chain driven by a small gasoline engine. The landing gear consisted of a pair of runners. Orville Wright piloted the plane with Lt. (later Maj. Gen.) Frank P. Lahm riding as passenger. Wright kept the plane aloft for 1 hour, 20 minutes and 60 seconds. The Army accepted it – the world's first military airplane.

When we went to war on April 6, 1917, the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps had 65 officers (35 of them fliers) and 1087 enlisted men. The total of our airplanes was 55, all of which were obsolete in comparison with the planes being used by our allies and by the Germans over the Western Front. On July 24, 1917, Congress voted $640,000,000 for the development of military aviation. At the end of World War I we had what could accurately be called an Air Force. Observation, the original concept of an airplane's military usefulness, had become a secondary function. The airplane was recognized as a weapon in itself. The Air Service had been set up as a separate branch of the Army, distinct from the Signal Corps.

In 1926 the Air Service was renamed the Air Corps. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the U. S. Army was reorganized. The Army Air Forces was established as the military air arm of the army.

In the development of the mighty American Army Air Forces from a simple section of the Army Signal Corps, to its present status of chief weapon of our National defense, one step only remains. That is the establishment of an autonomous air force, coordinate and co-equal with the Army and the Navy. This President Truman has promised.

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