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Aspects of Anglo-US co-operation in the air in the First World War

Air & Space Power Journal, Winter, 2004 by Sebastian Cox

Editorial Abstract: The United States Army entered the First World War with an air service of just over 1,000 men and 200 aircraft, not one of which was suitable for combat. US officers quickly recognised that their new Allies possessed a wealth of resources and experience which could be of great benefit to America's Airmen. This article recounts the early steps in what was to become a long and continuing history of Anglo-American air power cooperation in the First World War.

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THE HISTORY OF co-operation between Airmen of the British and American air services in the First World War falls very broadly into three categories: training and combat operations, theory and doctrine, and production. As latecomers both to the war itself and to the organisation and operation of air forces on a large scale, the Americans were anxious to benefit from the hard-won lessons and experience of their British and French Allies. On entering the war, the United States had only 130 officers and some 1,000 enlisted men in its aviation service, together with 200 aircraft, not one of which could be deemed suitable for combat. (1) By September of 1917, Gen John "Blackjack" Pershing was already planning an air service of 260 frontline squadrons by 30 June 1919. (2) If the United States was to build an effective air arm of this size, it was obvious to American officers that they should seek to obtain the maximum benefit not only from their Allies' firsthand experience of war, but also from their military organisations themselves. In addition, of course, some spirited Americans had entered the service of the Allies before the US declaration of war in April 1917. The most famous of these served with the Lafayette Escadrille of the French Air Service, but others, as we shall see, had made their way across the Canadian border and found their way into the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

An organisation of the small size of the US aviation section clearly could not expand, using its own resources rapidly enough to produce an air arm of sufficient size to meet US wartime requirements, without drawing on the already large and well-established resources of its Allies. Furthermore, as the Americans had no aircraft suitable for war; they were also going to rely on their Allies to a large degree for materiel, and this gave further impetus to the need to train US personnel not only to fly, but also to maintain foreign equipment. While Americans made strenuous efforts to develop training programmes and facilities in the continental United States, including co-operative efforts with industry, these were never going to be sufficient to support the rapid expansion and were always hampered by lack of equipment and instructors. In these circumstances, US officers turned to their Allies for assistance. In Britain's case, this took various forms, but one of the earliest initiatives came from a remarkable British officer--Lt Col (later Brig Gen) Cuthbert Hoare, commander of the RFC in Canada at the time. Remarkably, Hoare, despite the title of his organisation and its location in Canada, reported not to the Canadian government but to the War Office in London. Hoare did not run a Canadian RFC but was, in effect, operating an entirely autonomous British military organisation in another nation, and although the Canadian government gave him its co-operation and support and was in turn kept abreast of his activities, it did not exercise any real control over these activities. With an officer less able or less diplomatic than Hoare, national sensibilities and the sometimes prickly independence, which unthinking British officers could all too readily ignite in Dominion nations, might well have created friction and conflict. Hoare's remit was to establish 20 training units in Canada, with their supporting organisation, in order to provide a steady stream of manpower for the British frontline Air Service. His organisation was to recruit the personnel and give them initial ground training and basic flying instruction. They would then be sent to Britain to complete their training before moving on to combat units. (3)

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Aspects of Anglo-US co-operation in the air in the First World War

Air & Space Power Journal, Winter, 2004 by Sebastian Cox

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