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aircraft are insufficient to keep pace with the demands made on the program. Even if these appropriations are increased a sufficient amount to have the 1800 planes in service in 1932, the year in which the program should be completed, the demands made upon it are so great that planes available for tactical purposes will be at a premium, only 794 being allotted for assignment to tactical units stationed in the Unites States and our foreign possessions. It is thus clearly apparent that the plane program is not sufficiently large to provide the necessary number to fulfill current needs and to organize and maintain an Air Force of sufficient size to meet the needs of the country.
Although the Army is charged with this heavy responsibility and the means for aerial defense allotted are insufficient, it is faced with even greater difficulties, as the realization of the Five-Year Program under the Air Corps Act works a direct hardship upon the Army as a whole and upon each of its ground branches. Due to the rigid system of economy now being practiced, the additional money necessary for the increase of the Air Corps is not provided over and above the annual appropriation for the Army, but must come from the total appropriation, which, while it has been increased to some extent, has not been in proportion to meet the needs of the increase of increments required by the Air Corps and leave a sufficient amount to maintain the other branches of the Army at their normal strength.
At present, in order to obtain the enlisted personnel required by the increase of the Air Corps, the strength of the other branches must be reduced. In discussing this matter recently before the House

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