America's Munitions 1917-1918

by Benedict Crowell; United States. War Department

The figure 22,000, however, scarcely indicates the size of this undertaking, as we were to realize before long. We little understood the infinite complications of fully equipping battle planes. Lacking that invaluable experience which Europe had attained in three years of production, we had no practical realization of the fact that for each 100 airplanes an equivalent of 80 additional airplanes must be provided in spare parts. In other words, an effective fighting plane delivered in France is not one plane, but it is one plane and eight-tenths of another; which means that the program adopted in June, 1917, called for the production in 12 months of not 22,000 airplanes but rather the equivalent of 40,000 airplanes.

Let us set down the inventory of the Government's own resources for handling this project.

The American Air Service, which was then part of the Signal Corps, had had a struggling and meager existence, working with the old pusher type of planes until in 1914 an appropriation of $250,000 was made available for the purchase of new airplanes and equipment. Shortly after this appropriation was granted, five officers were sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a course in aeronautics. When the war broke out in Europe in August, 1914, these men constituted the entire technically trained personnel of the Air Service of the United States. By April 6, 1917, we had 65 officers in the Air Service, an enlisted and civilian personnel of 1,330, two flying fields, and a few serviceable planes of the training type.

This equipment may be compared with that of Germany, France, and England at the time they went to war. Germany is believed to have had nearly 1,000 airplanes in August, 1914; France had about 300; and England barely 250. America's 224, delivered up to April 6, 1917, were nearly all obsolete in type when compared with the machines then in effective service in France.

No sooner had the United States embarked upon the war than the agents of the European manufacturers of airplanes descended upon the Aircraft Board in swarms. France and Italy had both adopted the policy of depending upon the private development of designs for their supplies of airplanes, with the result that the builders of each country had produced a number of successful types of flying machines and an even greater number of types of engines. On the assumption that the United States would adopt certain of these types and build them here, the agents for the Sopwiths, the Capronis, the Handley-Pages, and many others proceeded to demonstrate the particular excellences of their various articles. Out of this confusion of counsel stood one pertinent fact in relief—the United States would have to pay considerable royalties for the use of any of these European devices.

As to the relative merits of types and designs, it was soon apparent that no intelligent decision could be reached in Washington or anywhere but in Europe. Because of our distance from the front and the length of time required to put the American industrial machine into operation on a large scale, it was necessary that in advance we understand types and tendencies in aircraft construction, so that we might anticipate aircraft development in such special designs as we might adopt. Otherwise, if we accepted the types of equipment then in use in Europe, by the time we had begun producing on a large scale a year or so later we would find our output obsolete and out of date, so rapidly was the aircraft art moving.

Consequently, in June the United States sent to Europe a commission of six civilian and military experts, headed by Maj. R. C. Bolling, part of whose duties was to advise the American War Department as to what types of planes and engines and other air equipment we should prepare to manufacture. Also, in April the Chief of the Signal Corps had cables sent to England, France, and Italy, requesting that aviation experts be sent at once to this country; and shortly after this we dispatched to Europe more than 100 skilled mechanics to work in the foreign engine and airplane plants and acquire the training that would make them the nucleus of a large mechanical force for aircraft production in this country.

But while these early educational activities were in progress, much could be done at home that need not await the forthcoming reports from the Bolling mission. We had, for instance, in this country several types of planes and engines that would be suitable for the training fields which were even then being established. The Signal Corps, therefore, bent its energies upon the manufacture of training equipment, leaving the development of battle aircraft to come after we should know more about that subject.

It was evident that we could not equip an airplane industry and furnish machines to our fliers abroad before the summer of 1918; and so we arranged with France for this equipment by placing orders with French factories for 5,875 planes of regular French design. These were all to be delivered by July 1, 1918.