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[[right note]] Q 1972-81   Biog Wm.
[[right note]] Gen? Mitchell
[[image]]
AN AMERICAN AIRDROME-BOLLING FIELD, NEAR WASHINGTON, D. C.
(To be used for the defense of Washington in case of need. The Government now owns a sufficient number of well-equipped airdromes scattered through the country-- the bes of their kind in existence -- to accommodate its present and future air plans)
[[right note]] A.S_ Miss..
OUR ARMY'S AIR SERVICE
BY BRIG.-GEN. WILLIAM MITCHELL
Chief of Training and Operation, United States Air Services; formerly commanding Air Service of the First Army and Group of Armies, A. E. F.)

The one outstanding feature of military preparation in Europe since the armistice is that all the countries have put more thought, time, and energy on the upkeep an development of their air services than on any other element of national defense. France did not reduce her aviation at all. England constituted her air service into an arm coequal with the army and navy, and now considers it as her first line of defense, with the navy second and the army the third. Italy also had consolidated her aeronautics, while Germany, laboring under the terms of the armistice, looks to the air as her principal means of regaining her position lost by the war.
     The United States, on the other hand -- the country best adapted, placed, and [[??]] with all resources for aviation to [[?]] on a tremendous air-force develop -- has suffered really from an over - [[?]] of this important arm, which left [[?]] in the minds of many as to exactly what should be done for the future development of what all recognize as one of our most important defensive assets.
     The United States, at the beginning of the war, had no air service; in fact, had no plan in operation for producing an air service, and did not even know what raw materials were necessary-- such as steel, cloth, and wood, and the thousand and one accessories of airplanes. In 1914, the Europeans, on the other hand, actually had an organization which could be expanded rapidly in case that aviation worked out the way they thought it would; and, when they found that the value of aviation exceeded their expectations,  tremendous expansion immediately took place. The result was that when the United States entered the war, in 1917, we were hopelessly outclassed-- although originally, as aviation had been born in this country, we had probably the best flyers and the best machines among the few that followed this science and art.
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