Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps

The Aviation Section, Signal Corps, was the aerial warfare service of the United States from 1914 to 1918, and a direct statutory ancestor of the United States Air Force. It absorbed and replaced the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps, and conducted the activities of Army aviation until its statutory responsibilities were suspended by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918. The Aviation Section organized the first squadrons of the aviation arm and conducted the first military operations by United States aviation on foreign soil.

The Aviation Section, Signal Corps was created by the 63rd Congress (Public Law 143) on 18 July 1914 after earlier legislation to make the aviation service independent from the Signal Corps died in committee. From July 1914 until May 1918 the aviation section of the Signal Corps was familiarly known by the title of its administrative headquarters component at the time, seen variously as the Aeronautical Division, Air Division, Division of Military Aeronautics, and others. For historic convenience, however, the air arm is most commonly referred to by its official designation, the Aviation Section, Signal Corps (ASSC), and is the designation recognized by the United States Air Force as its predecessor for this period.Greer (1985), p. 149, Appendix 2

The Aviation Section began in turbulence, first as an alternative to making aviation in the Army a corps independent of the Signal Corps, then with friction between its pilots, who were all young and on temporary detail from other branches, and its leadership, who were more established Signal Corps officers and non-pilots. Despite the assignment of Lieutenant Colonel George O. Squier as chief to bring stability to Army aviation, the Signal Corps found itself wholly inadequate to the task of supporting the Army in combat after the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917. It attempted to expand and organize a competent arm but its efforts were largely chaotic and in the spring of 1918 aviation was removed, first from the jurisdiction of the Office of the Chief of Signal where it had resided since its inception, and then from the Signal Corps altogether. The duties of the section were not resumed following World War I and it was formally disestablished by the creation of the Air Service in 1920.

Establishment

1914

The Aviation Section, Signal Corps was created by the Act of 18 July 1914, Chapter 186 (Public Law 143, 63rd Congress), 38 Stat. 514, to supersede the Aeronautical Division, an administrative creation of the Signal Corps within the Office of the Chief Signal Officer (OCSO), as the primary agency for military aviation. Earlier legislation to make the aviation service independent from the Signal Corps died in committee after all officers connected with aviation save one, Captain Paul W. Beck, testified against it.Mooney and Layman (1944), pp. 19–20 Later provisions of the National Defense Act (39 Stat. 174), 3 June 1916, and the Aviation Act (40 Stat. 243), 24 July 1917, permitted aviation support functions to be gradually transferred from the Aeronautical Division to newly established aviation section organizations. The new law established the purpose and duties of the section, authorized a significant increase in size of U.S. military aviation to 60 officers and 260 enlisted men, increased the size of the Signal Corps by an equal number of personnel to provide them, stipulated that pilots be volunteers from branches of the line of the Army, and detailed them for four years. The Aeronautical Division then became the administrative component of the Aviation Section until its abolition in 1918. The first funding appropriation for the Aviation Section was $250,000 for fiscal year 1915.Approximately $5.9 million in 2014 dollars
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The new law also decreed restrictions that only unmarried lieutenants of the line under the age of 30 could be detailed to the section, provisions which encouraged a lack of discipline and professional maturity among the aviators that handicapped the growth of the service, hampered retention of pilots, and prevented flying officers from commanding flying units. Officers on aviation duty who were promoted to permanent captain in their branch arm were automatically returned to the line.Hennessy (1958), p. 130. Aggravating the situation, the 11 remaining pilots of the 24 previously rated as Military Aviators all had their ratings automatically reduced to Junior Military Aviator (and therefore incurred a 25% reduction in flight pay) when requirements were changed to include three years experience as a JMA before qualifying for the higher rating. This placed them on the same level as newly graduated pilots, and none of those so reduced regained their ratings before 1917.The Aviation Act of 24 July 1917 authorized those holding a pre-war JMA rating to advance to an MA rating either by the three-year rule or by "distinguished service."

At its creation, the Aviation Section had 19 officers and 101 enlisted men. The Aeronautical Division, a quasi-headquarters (Lt. Col. Samuel Reber, Washington, D.C.) with three officers and 11 enlisted men, issued orders in the name of the Chief Signal Officer (CSO). All other personnel of the aviation section were organized on 5 August 1914, by Signal Corps Aviation School General Order No. 10 into the:
* Signal Corps Aviation School (Capt. Arthur S. Cowan, San Diego),Four officers, 37 enlisted men, and seven civilians, plus airplane S.C. No. 22
* 1st Aero Squadron (Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois),A headquarters of two officers and one enlisted man
* 1st Company, 1st Aero Squadron (Capt. Harold C. Geiger)Five officers, 26 enlisted men, and three airplanes: S.C. Numbers 24, 25, and 26.
* 2nd Company, 1st Aero Squadron (Capt. Lewis E. Goodier, Jr.),Five officers, 26 enlisted men, and S.C. Numbers 20, 28, and 30.
totaling 16 officers, 90 enlisted men, seven civilians, and seven aircraft.The organization of the aero squadron into two companies lasted only until April 1915, when it changed to 12 sections, including a section for each of its eight aircraft. The companies of the 1st Aero Squadron, carried on separate rolls, were consolidated into a single entity on 17 April.

Most of the air service had just returned to San Diego from detached service in Texas for the second time in as many years to support Army ground forces in a possible war with Mexico over the Tampico Affair. The impending war was defused by the resignation of Victoriano Huerta on 15 July.Company A of the 1st Aero Squadron, led by Capt. Foulois, left San Diego 24 April with five pilots, a medical officer, thirty enlisted men and three airplanes by train for Galveston, arriving 30 April, one day after the last transport sailed for Veracruz. As a result they did no flying for four months, since their planes were never uncrated. (Pool, p. 438; and Hennessy, p. 120)

By December 1914, the Aviation Section consisted of 44 officers, 224 enlisted men, and 23 aircraft.

1915–1916

Chief Signal Officer Brigadier General George P. Scriven announced on 9 April 1915 that following the establishment of an aero company at San Antonio, three additional companies would be sent overseas, to the Philippine Department for station on Corregidor, to Fort Kamehameha in the Hawaiian Department, and to the Panama Canal Zone. The 1st Company, 2nd Aero Squadron was activated on 12 May 1915 at San Diego but not manned until December.

A small detachment with S.C. 31, a Martin T tractor airplane, returned from San Diego to Texas for the fourth time in five years in April 1915, led by 1st Lt. Thomas D. Milling and 2d Lt. Byron Q. Jones,On 15 January Jones had set a solo flight duration record with a flight time of eight hours and 53 minutes flying S.C. 31. (Hennessy, p. 135) as the Army massed around Brownsville in response to civil war between the forces of Pancho Villa and the Carranza government. On 20 April, Milling and Jones became the first American military airmen to come under fire from a hostile force.Using part of the cavalry drill field at Fort Brown as a landing strip, Milling and Jones flew S.C. 31 to observe for movements of Pancho Villa, with Jones as pilot and Milling observer. A morning flight was routine but on the afternoon sortie, while still on the American side of the border, their aircraft was fired upon by a machine gun. After landing at Ft. Brown, Jones taxied the plane into a ditch and damaged it beyond repair; the chief of the Aviation Section refused to replace it for ten days until pressured to do so. (Hennessy, p. 145)

Beginning in August 1915, the 1st Aero Squadron spent four months at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, training at the Field Artillery School with eight newly delivered Curtiss JN-2s. After a fatal crash on 12 August, the pilots of the squadron met with squadron commander Foulois and declared the JN-2 unsafe because of low power, shoddy construction, lack of stability, and overly sensitive rudders. Foulois and Milling, now also a captain, disagreed and the JN-2 remained operational until a second crashed on 5 September. The aircraft were grounded until 14 October, when conversions of the JN-2s to the newer JN-3 began, two copies of which the squadron received in early September.

Between 19 and 26 November 1915, the six JN-3s of the 1st Aero Squadron at Fort Sill (the other two were on detached duty at Brownsville) made the first cross-country squadron flight, to a new airfield built near Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

The Texas base became the "first permanent aeronautical station"The site had been approved in April 1913 but was delayed by lack of funding. on 6 January 1916, designated as the San Antonio Air Center. Ironically, the first "permanent" base was abandoned after several months and its remaining funding allocated to the establishment of a new training school on Long Island, New York. Signal Corps Aviation Station, Mineola (later Hazelhurst Field) opened on 22 July 1916.

On 12 January 1916, the strength of the Aviation Section stood at 60 officers (23 JMA-rated pilots, 27 student pilots) and 243 enlisted men (eight of whom were pilots), which figures were 100% and 93% respectively of its authorized totals. It was now organized into four subordinate organizations:
* the Aeronautical Division (Washington D.C.),
* the Signal Corps Aviation School (San Diego);
* the 1st Aero Squadron (San Antonio Air Center), and
* the 1st Company, 2nd Aero Squadron (Manila).

It had 23 aircraft: four seaplanes based overseas at Manila, two seaplanesThese Curtiss flying boats were heavier than their land-based counterparts and used as primary trainers in San Diego's gusty winds. They also provided many more takeoff and landing repetitions for new student pilots in the same training time frame. (Hennessy, p. 113) and nine trainers at San Diego, and eight JN-3s in Texas. Thirty-two other aircraft had been destroyed or written off since 1909, one was in the Smithsonian Institution, and three were too damaged to repair economically.

On 1 November 1915, the first aviation organization in the National Guard was created, the " Aviation Detachment, 1st Battalion Signal Corps, New York National Guard", later called simply the "1st Aero Company". Consisting of four officers (including its founder, Captain Raynal Bolling) and 40 enlisted men, it used two leased aircraft to train until five aircraft were purchased for its equipment in 1916.

Punitive expedition

Following Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, on 9 March 1916, the 1st Aero Squadron was attached to Major General John J. Pershing's Punitive Expedition. It consisted of 11 pilots, 84 enlisted men (including two medics), a civilian mechanic, and was supported by an engineer officer and 14 men. Eight Curtiss JN-3sFormer JN-2s S.C. Nos. 41–45 and 48; and original JN-3s Nos. 52–53 were disassembled at Fort Sam Houston on 12 March and shipped the next day by rail to Columbus, along with half of the squadron's motorized transportation: ten Jeffrey trucks, one automobile, and six motorcycles. Two other trucks were received in Columbus and all of the trucks assigned to the expedition's quartermaster. The JN-3s were reassembled as they were off-loaded on 15 March, the date the first column marched into Mexico. The first observation mission flown by the squadron, and the first American military reconnaissance flight over foreign territory, was flown the next day and lasted 51 minutes with Dodd at the controls and Foulois observing.

On 19 March, Pershing telegraphed Foulois and ordered the squadron forward to his advanced base at Colonia Dublán, 230 miles from Columbus, to observe for the 7th and 10th Cavalry Regiments. Half of the ground echelon moved forward by truck, while the remaining half and the entire squadron engineering section remained in Columbus to assist the quartermaster in the assembly of new trucks. Because of coordination difficulties, the eight JN-3s were unable to take off until 17:10. One aircraftNo. 42, flown by 1st Lt. Walter G. Kilner. developed engine problems immediately and turned back. Four, led by Capt. Townsend F. Dodd and Foulois in No. 44, flew more or less in formation at a lower altitude for better navigation. Three flew at a higher altitude and soon lost sight of the others.

None of the eight aircraft made Dublán that evening, all forced down by darkness: in addition to the aircraft that turned back, one crash-landed and was destroyed by scavengers after a forced landing near Pearson, Mexico (south of its intended landing ground) and six others landed intact. Four that landed together at Ascensión (about halfway to Dublán) flew on to the advanced base in the morning, where they arrived an hour after the plane that had been forced to return to Columbus with engine trouble, and after another that had waited out the night on a road at Janos.In order of arrival, these were No. 42 (Kilner), No. 43 (Lt. Herbert A. Dargue), No. 44 (Dodd and Foulois), No. 45 (Lt. Joseph E. Carberry), No. 48 (Lt. Thomas S. Bowen), and No. 53 (Lt. Carleton G. Chapman). Bowen crashed his aircraft while landing in a cross-wind, damaging it beyond economical repair. No. 52 (Lt. Edgar S. Gorrell) made an attempt to continue on 22 March but was damaged at an interim refueling stop. It finally reached Dublán on 26 March.


The squadron returned to Columbus on 22 April for new aircraft, where it expanded to a roster of 16 pilots and 122 enlisted men. It flew liaison missions for Pershing's force using detachments in Mexico until 15 August 1916. The 1st Aero Squadron flew a total of 540 liaison and aerial reconnaissance missions, traveling with a flight time of 345 hours 43 minutes. No observations were made of hostile troops but the squadron performed invaluable services maintaining communications between Pershing's headquarters and ground units deep inside Mexico. During this expedition, a solid red star on the rudder became the first national insignia for United States military aircraft.

Their airplanes did not have sufficient power to fly over the Sierra Madre Mountains nor did they perform well in the turbulence of its passes, and missions averaged only distance from their landing fields. The planes were nearly impossible to maintain because of a lack of parts and environmental conditions (laminated wooden propellers had to be dismounted after each flight and placed in humidors to keep their glue from disintegrating), and after just 30 days service only two were left. Both were no longer flight worthy and were condemned on 22 April. Congress in a deficiency bill voted the Aviation Section an emergency appropriation of $500,000 (twice its previous budget), and although four new Curtiss N-8sNumbers 60–63, later designated JN-4s were shipped to Columbus, they were rejected by Foulois after six days of flight testing. Foulois recommended condemnation of the N-8s but they were instead shipped to San Diego, modified, and ultimately used as training aircraft.

A new agency was also created within the Aviation Section, the Technical Advisory and Inspection Board, headed by Milling, and staffed by pilots who had completed aeronautical engineering courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and civilian engineers, including Donald Douglas. The Board recommended the squadron be equipped with new Curtiss R-2s, which used a engine.Heimdahl and Hurley (1997), p. 31.

The first two were delivered on 1 May 1916, and the remaining 10 by 25 May. They were assigned Signal Corps numbers 64 to 75. The R-2s were equipped with Lewis machine guns, wireless sets, and standard compasses, but their performance proved little better than that of their predecessors. Pilots were quoted by name in both ''The New York Times'' and ''New York Herald Tribune'' as condemning their equipment, but Pershing did not pursue the issue, noting they had "already too often risked their lives in old and often useless machines they have patched up and worked over in an effort to do their share of the duty this expedition has been called upon to perform."

The Goodier court-martial

Charges and countercharges

In August 1914, soon after the passage of the act creating the Aviation Section, World War I began. The European powers showed an immediate interest in promoting military aviation but the Army's General Staff remained apathetic regarding development of aerial capabilities, as Captain Beck had charged the year before. The Chief Signal Officer continued restrictions on development and acquisition of aircraft that were perceived by the young aviators as detrimental to flying safety and likely to prevent the Aviation Section from providing aviation support to the Army comparable to that of the European powers in the event that the United States was drawn into the war. Officers who had testified against separation of aviation from the Signal Corps in August 1913 now were for it, marking the beginning of the movement that ultimately culminated in the creation of the United States Air Force 33 years later. Considerable friction developed between the young pilots from the line of the Army and their non-flying superiors in the Signal Corps,Mooney and Layman (1944), p. 19 primarily over safety concerns the pilots felt were being disregarded in the interest of efficiency. (see Appropriations, growth, and "incipient mutiny" under Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps.)

The commanding officer of the 1st Aero Squadron's 2nd Company at San Diego, Captain Lewis Edward Goodier, Jr., was seriously injured in a demonstration accident on 5 November 1914. Flying with Glenn L. Martin in a new aircraft undergoing a required competitive slow speed test, the aircraft stalled, and when Martin overcorrected with too much throttle, went into what was described as the first tailspin. Goodier suffered a nearly severed nose, two broken legs, a re-opened skull fracture, and a severe puncture of his knee from the drive shaft. The accident occurred amidst a series of fatal training crashes, all involving the Wright C pusher airplane, that resulted in six deaths between July 1913 and February 1914, and culminated in pilots refusing to fly pusher airplanes. After a cursory review of the crashes, school commandant Captain Arthur S. CowanCowan was an 1899 graduate of the United States Military Academy and had risen rapidly in rank (1st lieutenant in two years and captain in eight) through transfers and assignments to the Service Schools. He moved from the Infantry to the Signal Corps in March 1909 (with date of rank back-dated to 1907), then in 1910 headed the Aeronautical Division at the age of 35. He personally recruited Henry H. Arnold for pilot duties. He was Signal Officer of the 2nd Division in Texas City, Texas, when Capt. Charles deForest Chandler was relieved and transferred to the Philippines over differences with his pilots. Temporarily assigned to command the provisional 1st Aero Squadron, he was made commandant of the Signal Corps Aviation School when the squadron returned to the school in June 1913. refused to discontinue use of the aircraft, dismissing the pilots as "nothing but amateurs".Cowan's statement was made to and included in the Inspector General's report investigating the crashes as justification of his decision.

While recuperating, Goodier assisted Captain Townsend F. Dodd and 1st Lt. Walter Taliaferro in an attempt to prefer charges against Cowan for fraudulently collecting flight pay when he was neither certified to fly nor on flying duty.Cowan's total flight experience was 24 minutes of "grass-cutting"—tethered flying in short, straight hops just above the ground. They were aided by Goodier's father, Lt. Col. Lewis Edward Goodier, Sr., Judge Advocate General of the Western Department in San Francisco, who also preferred charges against former squadron commander Captain William Lay Patterson for similar offenses,Before becoming squadron commander, the Canadian-born Patterson had been the aide-de-camp of Brigadier General Charles B. Hall, Commandant of the Signal School. His career began in 1901 as a lieutenant in the " Porto Rican Provisional Regiment of Infantry". Commissioned in the Regular Army in 1905, Patterson was an infantry officer who remained in the Aviation Section through World War I as a balloonist. In 1920 he received a majority in the infantry and briefly transferred in grade to the Air Service, but was soon returned to the infantry and posted to the Bureau of Insular Affairs. charging that he had been awarded a rating of Junior Military Aviator, and was drawing pay based on it, without being qualified to fly or being on flying duty.

The charges were routed to the Chief Signal Officer at a time when Cowan's superior, Chief of the Aviation Section Lt. Col. Samuel Reber,Reber was an 1886 graduate of the United States Military Academy. He was an early member of the Aero Club of America as a balloonist. Unlike his predecessor Cowan, Reber was older (48) at the time of his appointment in 1913 as Chief of Aviation. Among his classmates were the two future Chiefs of Air Service Charles T. Menoher and Mason M. Patrick. He was the son-in-law of Lt. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, retired Commanding General of the United States Army. himself an integral part of the accusations and also a non-flyer, was temporarily in command. Reber had the charges against Cowan and Patterson dismissed, then he and Cowan charged the elder Goodier with "conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline" for assisting in drawing up of charges against Cowan, specifying that he did so out of malice.

Goodier court-martialed

The resulting court martial proceedings, which began 18 October 1915, resulted in the conviction of Lt. Col. Goodier and a sentence of reprimand. Brig. Gen. E. H. Crowder, the Army's Judge Advocate General, ruled (after the preferring of charges against Lt. Col. Goodier but before his trial) that neither Cowan nor Patterson was criminally culpable of fraud because of legal technicalities.Cowan and Patterson were paid a 35% increase over their base pay by a provision of the aviation appropriations act of 2 March 1913 that allowed up to 30 officers assigned to the Aeronautical Division to do so (the division had nowhere near 30 pilots). Although neither Cowan or Patterson completed training, nor could fly solo, the 1913 act did not require a rating or actual flying to draw the pay, even though its intent was to compensate for risk, requiring only that officers be held in "readiness" for flying duties. Both retained their flight pay after passage of Public Law 143 (18 July 1914) creating the Aviation Section, because the new law did not specifically repeal the 1913 appropriations act. A ruling was made on behalf of Cowan by the JAG that he was excepted from the 1914 requirements and entitled to the pay under the 1913 act. Patterson received a JMA rating in September 1914 (in effect, from Cowan), after Public Law 143 established it as a legal requirement to draw flight pay, because no flying ability test was yet required by the War Department to acquire the rating. Reber was aware of all these facts. Although legally correct, the ruling put the Army in a bad public light for not only condoning misfeasance but failing to correct it.Hennessy (1958), p. 144Patterson was actually made commander of the first company of the new 2nd Aero Squadron, and eventually learned to fly solo. Cowan also learned to fly but never earned a Junior Military Aviator rating. Evidence also showed that at the same time Reber and Cowan had used Capt. Goodier's injuries as a pretext to have him dismissed from the Aviation Section while he was recuperating.

However the charge of malice allowed defense counsel wide latitude in its introduction of evidence, and documents including official correspondence describing numerous incidents that confirmed Capt. Goodier's original charges against Cowan became part of the court record, including support by the CSO of a pattern of retribution against officers on flying duty who fell in disfavor of Cowan.
Senator Joseph T. Robinson immediately brought the matter before the United States Senate, introducing S.J. Resolution 65 in January 1916, calling for an investigation of malfeasance in the Aviation Section involving serious mismanagement, disregard for flying safety, favoritism, fraud, and concealment of wrongdoing in the Aviation Section's chain of command. Robinson conducted hearings and released to the public all of the documents held in evidence at the court martial. S.J. Resolution 65 passed on 16 March 1916, without opposition. An acting head of section was immediately appointed pending the outcome of the investigation.

The second of these acting heads of division was Major William "Billy" Mitchell, a General Staff officer who had testified before Congress in 1913 against transfer of aviation from the Signal Corps. As a result of negative publicity regarding its airplanes in Mexico, Mitchell and the Aviation Section came under severe criticism during this period. Mitchell defended the department, insisting that the U.S. firms did not produce better aircraft, but the outcry produced several long-term results, including instructing Mitchell in political tactics, participation in which ultimately resulted in his court-martial at the end of his career.

Report of the Garlington Board

While the Senate hearings were in progress and the 1st Aero Squadron encountered difficulties with its airplanes in Mexico, Scriven issued a statement accusing the young aviators of "unmilitary insubordination and disloyal acts" in an attempt to form an air service separate from the Signal Corps. He also recommended that the age and marital status restrictions for pilots be removed to encourage older and therefore more experienced officers to volunteer for aviation duty. Brig. Gen. Ernest Albert Garlington, the Inspector general, was appointed by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Hugh L. Scott to head a board of investigation into the Aviation Section. The Garlington Board confirmed Goodier's allegations and also cited Scriven and Reber for failing to supervise the section adequately, holding them responsible for acquiring substandard aircraft. The Garlington Board's report, together with the Senate resolution and public criticism of the equipment used in Mexico, prompted Secretary of War Newton Baker to issue letters of reprimand to Scriven, Reber and Cowan. Reber was formally relieved as Chief of the Aviation Section on 5 May,Reber's "punishment" was short-lived, and he was promoted to full colonel less than two months after his relief. He went to France with the American Expeditionary Force in March 1918 as a provost marshal, and saw action on the last day of the war with the 109th Infantry Regiment. He retired at his own request in 1919 and joined the newly created Radio Corporation of America. and Cowan of his duties in July.The official history of the United States Air Force, published in 1997, is much more sympathetic to Cowan, stating ''"Cowan's subordinates were maneuvering to depose him, allegedly because he played favorites and ignored safety. Actually the root of his departure from the air arm was the mutual misunderstanding between pilots, understandably concerned with safety, and a non-flying manager determined to get the most efficient use from the obsolescent machines entrusted to him."'' (Heimdahl and Hurley, p. 30). However, the official history completely omits any mention of the court martial; the evidence of Cowan's retribution against officers he disliked, including the attempt to cashier Capt. Goodier after his crash; and Secretary Baker's official censure of Reber and Cowan as reasons for the "departure". The army in effect ignored this episode and it did not affect his career. Cowan afterwards served in a number of Signal Corps training billets, and was promoted to major in May 1917. He received a wartime promotion to colonel and served as a staff officer in the headquarters of the AEF in France. He was 14th on the 1922 promotion list to colonel (out of 669 names) and after promotion to colonel was post commander of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, the last 10 years of his career. Cowan reached mandatory retirement age in April 1939 after 40 years of service. He was recalled to active duty from the retired list on 22 November 1940, serving as signal officer of the Ninth Corps Area Service Command, and was again placed on the retired list 30 September 1942, at the age of 67. Cowan's retirement was changed to "disability incident to service" on 27 November 1943. Both were assigned non-aviation duties in the Signal Corps after extensive leaves of absence. Lt. Col. George O. Squier was recalled from duty as military attaché in London and appointed Chief of the Aviation Section on 20 May, with orders to reform it literally from the ground up.

On 24 April 1916, the General Staff appointed a committee chaired by Col. Charles W. Kennedy to make recommendations for reform and reorganization of the Aviation Section. Milling was named the representative from the section, over the objections of Foulois, who believed him to be too close to the previous Signal Corps leadership. The committee took statements from all 23 officers then on flying duty with the Aviation Section and found that 21 favored separation of aviation from the Signal Corps. Only Milling and Captain Patterson were opposed to separation—and Patterson was the non-flyer who had acquired his flying certificate through the censured actions of Cowan.

The Kennedy Committee recommended in July 1916 that aviation be expanded and developed, and that it be removed from the Signal Corps and placed under a central agency, in effect endorsing for the first time a call for a separate air arm. The recommendation was quickly attacked by Assistant Army Chief of Staff Gen. Tasker Bliss, who branded the air officers supporting separation as having "a spirit of insubordination" and acting out of "self-aggrandizement".For the next 23 years, accusations of insubordination and seeking promotion became the preferred tactic that senior ground forces officers used against pilots supporting the movement to achieve greater autonomy. The Kennedy Committee's findings were rejected by the agency that created it, but the issue of a separate Air Force had been born and would not die until separation was finally achieved in 1947.

Response to World War I

Aviation Section legislation and appropriations

On 3 June 1916, in anticipation of possible U.S. entry in the war in Europe, Congress adopted the National Defense Act of 3 June 1916 (39 Stat. 166, 174, 175), provisions of which authorized an increase in the size of the Aviation Section to 148 officers,Specifically, the act authorized the section to consist of a