After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical rift developed between more traditional ground-based army personnel and those who felt that aircraft were being underutilized and that air operations were being stifled for political reasons unrelated to their effectiveness.

The War Department desired to implement the Lassiter Board's recommendations, but the administration of President Calvin Coolidge chose instead to economize by radically cutting military budgets, particularly the Army's.

[6][n 1] The Lampert Committee of the House of Representatives in December 1925 proposed a unified air force independent of the Army and Navy, plus a department of defense to coordinate the three armed services.

[7] However another board, headed by Dwight Morrow, was appointed in September 1925 by Coolidge ostensibly to study the "best means of developing and applying aircraft in national defense" but in reality to minimize the political impact of the pending court-martial of Billy Mitchell (and to preempt the findings of the Lampert Committee).

In accordance with the Morrow Board's recommendations, the act created an additional Assistant Secretary of War to "help foster military aeronautics", and established an air section in each division of the General Staff for a period of three years.

[12][n 4] Of the new law and organization, however, Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate in the official history of the United States Army Air Forces concluded that: The bill which was finally enacted purported to be a compromise, but it leaned heavily on the Morrow recommendations.

Patrick proposed an increase to 63 tactical squadrons (from an existing 32) to maintain the program of the Lassiter Board already in effect, but Chief of Staff Gen. John Hines rejected the recommendation in favor of a plan drawn up by ground force Brig.

Neither of the relatively modest increases in airplanes or officers was accomplished until 1938 because adequate funds were never appropriated and the coming of the Great Depression forced reductions in pay and modernization across the board in the Army.

[20] Transport aircraft used during the first ten years of the Air Corps were of largely trimotor design, such as the Atlantic-Fokker C-2 and the Ford C-3, and were procured in such small numbers (66 total) that they were doled out one airplane to a base.

Despite an embarrassing performance that resulted from numerous crashes and 13 fatalities and was deemed a "fiasco" in the media, investigating boards in 1933–1934[n 10] recommended organizational and modernization changes that again set the Air Corps on the path to autonomy and eventual separation from the Army.

The matter resulted in an impasse between committee chairman William N. Rogers and Secretary of War George Dern before being sent to the Army's Inspector General, who ruled largely in favor of Foulois.

The political struggle had temporarily alienated supporters in Congress, had been counterproductive of the development of the Air Corps in the short run, and had hardened the opposition of an already antagonistic General Staff.

But through their mistakes and repeated rebuffs, the airmen had learned what they were lacking: proof for the argument that the Air Corps could perform a unique mission—strategic bombardment—and the real threat of another world war would soon reverse their fortunes.

Though the Navy repudiated the statement when Pratt retired in 1934, the Air Corps clung to the mission, and provided itself with the basis for development of long-range bombers and creating new doctrine to employ them.

The first action to repair the damaged image of the Air Corps involved the movement of ten YB-10s from Bolling Field to Alaska, ostensibly for an airfield survey, but timed to coincide with the release of the Baker Board's report in July.

While it was later found to be unsuitable for combat because the power of existing engines was inadequate for its weight, the XB-15 led to the design of the smaller Model 299, later to become the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, whose first flight was at the end of July 1935.

[46] The War Department, seeking to stifle procurement of the B-17 while belatedly recognizing that coordinated air-ground support had been long neglected, decided that it would order only two-engined "light" bombers in fiscal years 1939 through 1941.

[35][n 20] In collaboration with the Navy, the Joint Board (whose senior member was Army Chief of Staff Gen. Malin Craig) on 29 June 1938 issued a ruling that it could foresee no use for a long-range bomber in future conflict.

[64] The moratorium also resulted from the enmity of the Navy incurred by the Air Corps on 12 May 1938 when it widely publicized the interception of the Italian ocean liner Rex by three B-17s while it was 610 nautical miles (1,100 km) off-shore of New York City.

The advent of the new generation of monoplanes and the emergence of strategic bombardment doctrine led to many designs in the mid and late 1930s that were still in use when the United States entered World War II.

[70] After the fall of France, the Air Corps in September 1940 ordered 200 untried and unproven Curtiss C-46 Commandos from Curtiss-Wright and 545 Douglas C-47 Skytrains, the forerunner of the more than 10,000 C-47s and related variants that served in World War II.

[72] However, the press of the enormous tasks confronting the Air Corps and the primacy of strategic bombing doctrine meant that development of a long-range capability for these new single-engined fighters was not undertaken until combat losses of bombers forced the issue.

[74] Bombers developed during this period were the Douglas A-20 Havoc (first flown October 1938), North American B-25 Mitchell (January 1939), Consolidated B-24 Liberator (December 1939), and Martin B-26 Marauder (November 1940).

Three other long-range bombers began development during this period, though only mock-ups were produced before World War II: the B-29 (study begun in 1938), the Consolidated B-32 Dominator (June 1940), and the Convair B-36 Peacemaker (April 1941).

[n 34][33][76] In a special message to Congress on 12 January 1939,[n 35] President Roosevelt advised that the threat of a new war made the recommendations of the Baker Board inadequate for American defense and requested approval of a "minimum 3,000-plane increase" for the Air Corps.

[81][n 38] In June 1939 the Kilner Board[n 39] recommended several types of bombers needed to fulfill the Air Corps mission that included aircraft having tactical radii of both 2,000 and 3,000 miles (revised in 1940 to 4,000).

The expansion program of the Air Corps was characterized by repeated upward revision of goals for increasing aircraft production, combat unit totals, the training of new personnel, and construction of new bases.

On 16 May 1940, with the fall of France imminent, President Roosevelt delivered an address to Congress calling for a supplemental appropriation of nearly a billion dollars and the manufacture of 50,000 aircraft a year for the armed forces (36,500 of them for the Air Corps).

After a joint U.S.-British strategic planning agreement (ABC-1) rebuffed the long-held argument that the Air Corps had no wartime mission except support of ground forces,[105] the War Department revised Army Regulation 95-5 on 20 June in an attempt to end the divisions without legislative intervention by Congress.

Assured of a free hand by Marshall, Arnold thought that it would "be a serious mistake to change the existing setup" in the midst of the crucial expansion effort,[109] which in less than five years would be more than 100 times its June 1939 size in personnel (much of it highly trained technically) alone.