Air warfare

“ All-important will be these aerial battles; granted a country wins supremacy in the air, its blows by land or sea can be delivered with a crushing force, unhampered either by attacks or spying from above. This fact is realised by every War Department of Europe. Aerial warfare is being studied closely; and the first armed craft, though they carry small guns, will pave the way for a powerful, armoured, multi-engined cruiser of the clouds. ”

“ Mistakes there were, since human beings have not yet ceased the making of them, but when America’s achievement in air warfare is considered in all its phases and as a whole the frank and fair judgment can not fail to be that her development of the air section of her fighting forces deserves to rank among the most notable of all her wartime achievements. ”

“ ARE ARMIES AND NAVIES OBSOLETE?
In view of the transcendent value of aircraft as a means of subduing the enemy will to resist, by striking at the moral objective, the question may well be asked: Is the air the sole medium of future warfare? ”

“ The methods of warfare, as now conducted, are entirely removed from those of previous campaigns; for instance, the ranging of guns to-day is most correctly determined by aeroplanes. But not only do these war scouts render this important service; from the air they are enabled to detect the disposition of troops, gun emplacements, and all other movements of the enemy, which heretofore it has been difficult to determine.
Very frequently most thrilling duels [113] take place between opposing aviators, and certainly nothing is more exciting than to watch such a struggle in mid air. ”

“ Air Tactics. It may be laid down that the independent air fleet, in order that it shall be capable of fulfilling the duties assigned to it, must be strong by virtue of numbers. In order to destroy—i.e., not merely to drive away—the active aircraft of the enemy, it must be of decisively higher speed, so that the enemy, whether reconnaissance or fighting machines, will be compelled to surrender or give battle. ”

“ If fighting went on only at ground level Bloch would win at this stage, but here it is that the aeroplane comes in. From the ground it would be practically impossible to locate the enemies' dug-outs, secondary defences, and batteries. But the aeroplane takes us immediately into a new grade of warfare, in which the location of the defender's secondary trenches, guns, and even machine-gun positions becomes a matter of extreme precision—provided only that the offensive has secured command of the air and can send his aeroplanes freely over the defender lines. ”

“ Total Defeat in the Air an Irreparable Disaster. From the foregoing it would appear to be at least doubtful whether in future warfare an army which has been deprived of its aircraft, or has to admit the air supremacy of an enemy, will find itself in a position to carry on a campaign. ”

“ It is the author's opinion that the time will come when the total and irretrievable loss of the command of the air to an enemy will be regarded as a disaster of an altogether irreparable and decisive kind, and although there may be a great deal of fighting still before the end, nothing less than an overwhelming superiority in the other arms will save an army deprived of its air service from ultimate defeat. We are thus led to the consideration of a branch of the subject of extreme importance—namely, aeroplane tactics. ”

“ In Germany airmen sought to restore mobility to the battlefield, joining aircraft and tanks to create blitzkrieg warfare. In America airmen strove for the coup de grace―strategic bombing directly against the vital centers of a nation's war-making capability. ”

“ The third peculiarity of aerial warfare was that it was at once enormously destructive and entirely indecisive. ”

“ You can easily understand what a great change the aeroplane has produced in warfare when I tell you that during the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese fought for weeks, and sacrificed thousands of men, in order to capture the top of a hill from which their observers could overlook Port Arthur. Nowadays an aeroplane can supply all the information needed in a single hour, and howitzers can be directed from the air so that their shells will drop on the required position, though the gunners cannot possibly see their targets. ”

“ Once the captured territory has been organised and the necessary preparations have been made, the attack would be repeated, and, presuming the continued supremacy of our air fleets, no resistance or defence by the enemy of a permanent character can be sustained. ”

“ We in aviation carry a heavy responsibility on our shoulders, for while we have been drawing the world closer together in peace, we have stripped the armor of every nation in war. It is no longer possible to defend the heart of a country with its army. Armies can no more stop an air attack than a suit of mail can stop a rifle bullet. Aviation has, I believe, created the most fundamental changes ever made in war. It has turned defense into attack. We can no longer protect our families with an army. ”

“ In the evolution of aviation during the war the conclusion has been reached that the most remarkable lines of development at the Armistice were in the direction of ground and night fighting, torpedo attack and long-range bombing, exemplifying respectively the three spheres of air operations—military co-operation, naval co-operation, and the strategic use of aircraft. ”

“ All of us can fly now as we never thought before the war it would be possible to fly.
"Instead of rifles and pistols in the hands of the aviators every plane now has at least one rapid-fire gun, and some have two and even three. The position of the rapid-fire gun on an aeroplane has a lot to do with the success or failure of a fight in the air. All of you want to study that question carefully.
"But most fascinating of all to the new airman at the front is the actual handling of the machines when fighting. There lies the greatest progress of all. ”

“ This aerial fighting, which will wax and wane, dying down only to be renewed with a greater fierceness, must precede the battles of land or sea; and so, while the aerial armies are struggling for supremacy, those moving upon the land, or the fleets steaming upon the water, will be manœuvring for position and creeping stealthily nearer. A conquest in the air, if it be decisive, may spell also a victory upon land and sea. A nation which has its air-fleet destroyed or crippled will lie helpless before the attacks of hostile craft, and will lose also the aid of its aerial scouts and spies. ”

“ Such a battle in the clouds is on a plane that almost beggars description. Nothing resembling it has ever been known before in all the annals of history until the present world war broke out, and the airplane was perfected as it stands to-day.
This attack was even more tumultuous than the first had been. The planes tried dodging, and several tricks were brought to bear on either side; for it seems that every pilot has his pet theories as to how best to catch an opponent napping. Everything is fair, once the battle royal has started and German wit is matched against American, or French. ”

“ The view, from the air, of a heavy bombardment, or of an infantry attack under cover of barrage fires, is a truly terrible spectacle, and in the air one has a feeling of detachment which is not easily overcome.
Yet it must be overcome, as I have said, and cannot say too many times for the benefit [188] of any young airman who may read this journal. During an offensive the air swarms with planes. They are at all altitudes, from the lowest artillery réglage machines at a few hundreds of metres, to the highest avions de chasse at six thousand meters and above. ”

“ Still was the night as yet, but it would not be for long with those opposing air forces ready for a death grapple. While the ten battleplanes, each piloted by a Yankee ace with a splendid record, engaged the flotilla of enemy aircraft, the bombers must be at their more humble but equally important business. ”

“ Lastly, the offensive powers of aircraft have been so rapidly developed, especially during the latest period of the war, that it was only the coming of the armistice that saved mankind from a hurricane of slaughter. ”

“ First, we had tended to organize the military on the basis of types of weapons or vehicles, and second, we had looked at the airplane as a weapon instead of a vehicle. Clearly, if the ground, sea, and air forces were to be held responsible for the defense of their frontiers, then each must have the implements essential to the discharge of that responsibility, and must have full authority over their design, development, and use. The ground, sea, and air forces must each have the aircraft necessary to the discharge of their responsibilities. ”

“ Our merchant seamen, in addition, are carrying supplies to them and to our allies over every sea lane.
Few Americans realize the amazing growth of our air strength, though I am sure our enemy does. Day in and day out our forces are bombing the enemy and meeting him in combat on many different fronts in every part of the world. And for those who question the quality of our aircraft and the ability of our fliers, I point to the fact that, in Africa, we are shooting down two enemy planes to every one we lose, and in the Pacific and the Southwest Pacific we are shooting them down four to one. ”

“ But we are dealing with the immediate future, and an uncertain period may elapse before aircraft can combine with their superior power of movement the radius of action, reliability and hitting power of the other weapons. In pointing out the decisiveness of an air blow at the enemy nation’s nerve system, we pre-supposed two conditions; first, a superior air force; second, a centralized objective such as a highly-developed industrial state offers. The European nations and Japan afford such a target to air attack, but not so a country as vast as the United States ”

“ Aircraft fighting has developed enormously during the war, and I saw an exciting fight between three of our aeroplanes and two of the Turks. We had got a bit used to aeroplanes, for a Taube had swooped over us and dropped a chance bomb which blew up the quartermaster’s stores. Three bombs fell about a hundred yards away, and I noticed that the noise they made when they came through the air was just like the whistle of a railway engine. In the fight I am talking about our fellows brought down one of the Turkish machines, and they made a hard chase after the other, but it got away. ”

“ The world's gone mad. Our fleet beat the Americans the night we got disabled, that's clear. We lost eleven—eleven airships certain, and all their aeroplanes got smashed. God knows how much we smashed or how many we killed. But that was only the beginning. Our start's been like firing a magazine. Every country was hiding flying-machines. They're fighting in the air all over Europe—all over the world. The Japanese and Chinese have joined in. ”

“ Once those tons of explosives have been released and the noise of their dreadful havoc has aroused the anti-aircraft gunners of the enemy, those bombing planes will find the earth an uninviting sort of region and they will be glad to spring into the protecting silence and darkness of the upper air. And this they can do easily, for, rid of their load, they possess unusual climbing powers. ”

“ Already several planes were in the air, bent on various missions. Here one had ventured over the enemy lines, and was circling high up, daring a Boche pilot to ascend and give battle. Another was striving to get above several sausage observation balloons that were rising back of the German lines, hoping to be able to drop a bomb with telling effect on one of the group.
These things always bring about fierce fighting in the air, and hardly a day passes without a number of machines on either side being shot down, the fate of their human occupants sometimes never wholly known. ”

“ Regardless of the fact that this country was at peace and our military policy a defensive one, our farseeing Air Corps leaders continued to build American air power around the heavy, long-range bomber. As the heavy bomber was primarily an offensive weapon, many Americans believed the Army’s development of it to be contrary to our declared policy. ”

“ Finally, the airman, not content with his own perpetual and deadly fighting in the air, fighting in which the combatants of all nations developed a daring beyond the dreams of any earlier world, began to take part in the actual land-battle itself, swooping on reserves, firing into troops on the march, or bringing up ammunition. ”

“ Mitchell failed to live to see his ideas at work in defeating the Nazis and the Japs. The United States Army Air Forces today represents American air power, just as he prophesied many years ago.
The very best proof of the splendid development of Army aviation is the box score built up by World War II aviators against our enemies. From December 7, 1941, to January 1, 1945, they destroyed 29,316 enemy aircraft and dropped 1,220,000 tons of bombs on enemy territory. ”

“ In modern war the mobilization period tends to shorten, and every effort will be made towards its further reduction, since mobilizing armies are particularly vulnerable from air attack.
Civil Aviation as a Factor in National Security.
The picture I have drawn may appear highly coloured for the reason that no country is likely for some time to possess sufficiently large air forces to obtain a decisive victory, or at any rate an uncontested superiority, at the outbreak of war. ”

“ The flat Asiatic airships kept high above the Germans and behind them, and fired unanswered bullets into their gas-chambers and upon their flanks—the one-man flying-machines hovered and alighted like a swarm of attacking bees. ”