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Confidential
July 12, 1923.
Subject: Revision of Policy of the Army and Navy relating to Aircraft
To: The Adjutant General of the Army.
References: (A) Policy of the Army and Navy Relating to the Aircraft. 
Section VII, G.o. 4. War Department, 1920.

(B) Joint Army and Navy Action in Coast Defense.

(C)Report of the Committee of Officers appointed on March 
27, 1923, by the Secretary of War to consider a plan of 
War Organization for the Air Service. (Approved in principle by the Secretary of War.)

1.          In 1919 the Joint Board in there No. 348 (Serial No. 81) proposed the present policy of the Army and Navy relating to aircraft. Since that time, legislation has been enacted which has vitally affected this policy and the air forces of the Army and Navy; tests have been conducted which have conclusively proven that aircraft possesses an offensive power against vessels much greater than I believe they were thought to possess by either the War Department, the Navy Department or the Joint Board when this policy was adopted; the radius of action of aircraft has been greatly increased by development of aeronautical materiel.

2. The present policy of the Army and Navy relating to the aircraft is in conflict with existing law. In Paragraph 2 of Reference (A) it is prescribed that certain operations defined therein from air stations on shore are functions of Navy aircraft.  The act of Congress, approved June 5, 1920, (Public Act No. 251, 66th Congress) ptovides that 

"***Hereafter the Army Air Service shall control all aerial operations from land bases and Naval Aviation shall have control of all aerial operation attached to a fleet, including shore stations whose maintenance is necessary for operations connected with the fleet, for construction and experimentation and for the training of personnel***"

(See last proviso on Page 644 Volume XXVI "Acts and Resolutions relating to the War Department passed during the 66th Congress, Second Session".  To assume that Naval aircraft operating from shore stations for the defense of our coastal communications are attached to a fleet or that their operations are for the maintenance of shore