"Aviation training schools in the United States graduated 8,602 men from elementary courses and 4,028 from advanced courses. More than 5,000 pilots and observers were sent overseas. The total personnel of the Air Service, officers, students, and enlisted men, increased from 1,200 at the outbreak of the war to nearly 200,000 at its close.
"There were produced in the United States to Nov. 30, 1918, more than 8,000 training planes and more than 16,000 training engines.
"The De Haviland-4 observation and day bombing plane was the only plane the United States put into quantity production. Before the signing of the armistice 3,227 had been completed and 1,885 shipped overseas. The plane was successfully used at the front for three months.
"The production of the 12-cylinder Liberty engine was America's chief contribution to aviation. Before the armistice 13,574 had been completed, 4,435 shipped to the expeditionary forces, and 1,025 delivered to the Allies.
"The first fliers in action wearing the American uniforms were members of the Lafayette Escadrille, who were transferred to the American service in December, 1917.
"The American air force at the front grew from 3 squadrons in April to 45 in November, 1918. On Nov. 11 the 45 squadrons had an equipment of 740 planes.
"Of 2,698 planes sent to the zone of the advance for American aviators 667, or nearly one-fourth, were of American manufacture.
"American air squadrons played important rôles in the battles of Château-Thierry, St. Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne. They brought down in combat 755 enemy planes, while their own losses of planes numbered only 357."
"The squadrons were of four types: Observation squadrons, whose business it is to make observations, take photographs, and direct artillery fire; pursuit squadrons, using light fighting planes to protect the observation planes at their work, to drive the enemy from the air, or to strafe marching columns by machine-gun fire; the day bombers, whose work was the dropping of bombs on railways or roads; and the night bombers, carrying heavier bomb loads for the destruction of strategic enemy works."
