Chapter Thirty-Two

The Hand on the Stick

Early in 1949 the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee of the Senate, under the chairmanship of Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado, began inquiring into the ills of the airline transport industry. Senator Johnson had sat at my table at the dinner given by the aircraft manufacturers to Congressional leaders in aviation in Washington some five years earlier. A man well informed on the whole subject, he now began directing an inquiry that promised to initiate an important forward step in the formulation of American air policy. Unlike the Finletter Commission and the Congressional Aviation Policy Board, both of which had been held under the overcast produced by the cold front of fear incident to the Berlin crisis, the Johnson inquiry, following close on the brilliant success of the Berlin Airlift, focused attention solely on airline transport.

Curiously enough, the underlying significance of the Berlin Airlift was seldom touched upon in the flood of commentary that accompanied the lifting of the blockade. While it was generally recognized as a defeat for the Soviet, and served to ease the tensions and allay the fears of war, the epochal character of the operation went almost unrecognized. Paul Fisher, in the Bee Hive, house organ for United Aircraft Corporation, in a brilliant article written on the spot, hailed the victory of air freight. For the first time in world history, commercial air transports—not combat aircraft—had spearheaded United States foreign policy in a victorious action against the swashbuckling Soviet. The very forces which had once reduced Berlin to rubble with bombs had now saved the population from starvation with air cargo.

Meanwhile, rapid progress in the development of guided missiles had raised the question of the future of the airplane as a major weapon carrier. Some strictly military manufacturers had already begun giving serious consideration to the problem of whether to continue to specialize in aircraft or to shift over to the development of guided missiles. And once experimental aircraft had exceeded the speed of sound, some began to wonder if that velocity might not one day mark the division between combat aircraft and those designed for commercial purposes. In other words the Johnson Committee began its hearings against the background of a changing weather map.

Airline testimony before the Committee revealed some wide divisions within the transport industry itself. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker for example blamed the ills of the airlines on “too much coddling and wet nursing,” while Carleton Putnam ascribed them to “slow starvation.” The individual outlook reflected the color of the financial statement. And the airline operators, in making their “policy” recommendations, seldom came to grips with fundamentals but focused their attentions on revisions of administrative procedure. In this respect they reflected their long association with government agencies to whom policy so often means the detailed management of public affairs rather than a course of conduct. If the airline operators’ recommendations seemed slanted toward measures calculated to advance the special interests of their individual companies, the fact was entirely understandable.

To us aircraft manufacturers who, five years earlier, had covenanted to cooperate in the public interest where policy was concerned, while continuing to compete with each other in operations to our own—and likewise—the public interest, it appeared that a precarious existence under government economic regulation had blinded the operators to the broad public interest, and hence, to their own enlightened self-interest. Leaning on government for a guarantee of their economic security, they competed with each other for legislative or administrative advantage, and primarily before Congressional committees or government agencies. And if some of them made forays into politics and acted more like rusty railroad executives than like jet-propelled pioneers, it was in keeping with the principles under which they operated.

Yet out of the confusion of conflicting testimony it was possible, by keeping in mind certain fundamentals learned from the history of aviation, to arrive at certain conclusions. The airline operators for all their controversies were unanimous on at least two points: they endorsed the principle of “reasonable regulation” upon which the Civil Aeronautics Act had been founded, and they condemned the administration of the Act by the Civil Aeronautics Board.

Yet in the face of the airlines’ unanimous approval of the Act, an objective study of the testimony raises a serious question as to its soundness. Sifting out the wheat from the chaff, one could not help wondering whether Solomon himself, with the aid of all of his wives, could have administered such a document. Providing as it does for economic regulation of privately owned industries by political appointees, the Act flies in the face of the fundamental fact that politics and economics function under different basic precepts; in the one the ballot box calls the turn, in the other the cold arithmetic of an inescapable financial statement. But if the airlines’ endorsement of “reasonable regulation” proved open to question, the testimony before the Committee left no doubt that recent regulation had been, in fact, wholly unreasonable.

It developed that the Civil Aeronautics Board had cut the mail rates in 1945 to a point well below the actual cost of transporting the mail. Furthermore it had authorized widespread duplication of existing services and had subsidized these duplicating services in competition with those already established. And when this action resulted in crippling losses, the Board compounded its blunder by making retroactive increases in mail which had the effect of putting the whole rate structure on a cost-plus basis. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, of Eastern Airlines, voiced the position of the “Big Four” when he said, “The confused state of mail rates destroys all incentive for economy and efficiency—it discourages good management and high performance. It puts a penalty on accomplishment, and rewards the wasteful and inefficient.”

Another diagnosis of the airline ills was offered by Harold A. Jones, a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board itself, when speaking before the San Francisco Advertising Club. The airlines, he thought, were ill from a “mysterious disease known as ‘subsiditis,’” which disease he ranked “somewhere between bubonic plague and leprosy.” However his shotgun diagnosis lacked clinical confirmation before the Senate Committee by his boss, Joseph J. O’Connell, Jr., chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.

“We are not in a position,” testified Mr. O’Connell, “to give an accurate estimate as to the amount of the total air-mail pay bill which represents fair compensation for the carriage of the mail, and that portion that represents subsidy.”

Postmaster General Donaldson agreed with the Board chairman and stated that the Post Office had long held the opinion that the mail rate, if shorn of its subsidy elements, should not in any case be greater than the passenger rate. On this basis the Post Office Department would have been credited with approximately one-half its present transportation expenditures inasmuch as passengers were paying approximately 50 cents per ton mile, while the Post Office was paying more than double that amount. This over-all figure, of course, obscured the wide variations between the compensations paid airlines thought to be self-sufficient and the much larger payments to those known to be heavily subsidized.

In the absence of even the most elementary data it is difficult to see how any regulation could be called reasonable or how the government could support any subsidy charge either against the industry as a whole or against any segment of it. The situation was further obscured by the Postmaster General’s estimate of the total domestic and foreign air-mail subsidy for this year.

Using the excess of the cost of the service to the Post Office Department over the department’s air-mail revenues, he arrived at the figure of $35,000,000. The cost to the department included of course all expenses allocated to air mail including department overhead, but it did not substantiate the reasonableness of any allocation. Under questioning by one of the senators of the Committee, this all inclusive definition of “subsidy” was discounted. Under business accounting principles the figure might have been labeled “deficit” and would have been charged against the Post Office rather than pinned on the airlines as a “subsidy.” After all, the Post Office Department overhead, an item perhaps more political than economic in character, was not subject to airline control and was therefore the responsibility of the department. A subsidy is a public grant or subvention to aid an enterprise for the public convenience and not the deficit of a government department.

In the face of such fuzzy accounting the figure is interesting chiefly because of its small size. The Postmaster General, after referring to statistical exhibits, reported the total deficit incurred from the inauguration of the first air-mail service in 1918 up to 1948 as a little over three and one-half million dollars per year for the thirty-year period and added, “Probably no investment made by this government ever returned greater national benefits in commercial and cultural progress, and national security. The over-all value of air transportation system to the nation, particularly as an arm of defense, has been incalculable.”

It is interesting in passing to compare the air-mail deficit with others submitted by the Postmaster General: penny postcards, $57,000,000; fourth-class mail, $82,000,000; third-class mail, $139,000,000; and second-class mail, $237,000,000—a total of $515,000,000. And so the air-mail deficit is but one of many and the least of them all. On the basis of such approximations as have been presented by government agencies, the airlines might have argued that by absorbing a portion of the vast overhead of the Post Office Department they were actually “subsidizing” other types of mail service.

In light of the dearth of figures that would indicate an approximation to the true air-mail subsidy, if any, Carleton Putnam, of Chicago and Southern, made an exhaustive analysis of government cost records, during which he checked his assumptions with responsible persons in the government. This indicated that from the inception of the air mail down to the year 1948, the postal revenues had exceeded the added costs of air mail to the Post Office by some $54,000,000. Summing up for the Committee, in a statement which was not challenged by the government, he testified, “Hence the American taxpayer has not only gained the greatest air transportation system on earth ... plus an adjunct to the national defense which would otherwise have cost him untold millions to provide—he is $54,000,000 ahead in cash as well.”

And after charging the airlines for their share of the cost of building and maintaining the nation’s airways and airports, an expenditure which would in any case have had to be made for the Army and Navy, the airlines would still owe the taxpayer but $61,000,000, all of which relates to maintaining the national airways system. Furthermore this clear demonstration that the air mail has not been subsidized comes in the face of grievous blunders by the Civil Aeronautics Board in certifying uneconomic competing services at extravagant mail rates.

One of the most extreme cases of this kind was reported by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. The Civil Aeronautics Board had in the past two years certified twenty-one “feeder lines,” some of which had been authorized to divert mail poundage from some stations which Eastern had served for twenty years without subsidy, and to charge ten times as much to transport the same mail between the same points. In other words, the Civil Aeronautics Board, impelled by some sense of political necessity to provide competition for the major airlines, had in effect forced them to subsidize competition for themselves. Meanwhile the government had paid such niggardly rates to others that the stockholders of the enterprises had been forced to subsidize the United States.

Such “reasonable” regulation had reduced the airlines from their once proud state of self-sufficiency to a critical status, and at the very moment when their futures should have looked the brightest.

“There can be little doubt,” stated the chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, “that if our airline system were today the same size as it was in 1941 in terms of routes, points served, and service provided, it would be completely independent of government support.” It was certain additions to the service, he further pointed out, and the fixing of certain “fair” compensations by the Board that slowed all airlines save Eastern down to stalling speed and all but put them into a flat spin. He shared his responsibility with the appropriation committees of Congress and thought that if funds were provided for an adequate staff the Board might do a competent job. However the fact that the Civil Aeronautics Authority and Civil Aeronautics Board already had 18,000 employees as compared with approximately 80,000 employees for all domestic and overseas scheduled airlines rather discounted this opinion.

That the damage did not end with heavy losses imposed by arbitrary rates but was multiplied by the award of retroactive payments is evidenced in the testimony of Roger F. Murray, vice-president of the Bankers Trust Company of New York.

“The Board’s thinking,” he said, “has apparently been that rates should be set so that each carrier will break even and perhaps earn some so-called ‘fair’ rate of return on it’s ‘used and useful investment.’ Under these circumstances, enlarged payments have been made to rescue some airlines in difficulties or keep others going on a subsistence basis. While this may be reassuring to creditors of the airlines, it is the poorest kind of an appeal to potential purchasers of equity securities.”

Translating this into lay language, the private investor or his agents just cannot be interested in buying stock in enterprises which are suffering economic regulation by political agencies. And once an enterprise is denied access to the highly competitive markets for risk capital, it is indeed on the verge of bankruptcy or about to crash into the abyss of nationalization. And if the government, after having reduced the market value of the airlines by its own mismanagement, then takes possession of them, it becomes guilty of expropriating the capital of private investors, some of whom had risked their savings in an enterprise they deemed secure because it was government regulated.

Now mismanagement of the airlines was not necessarily the fault of wicked or even stupid men. As Speaker Sam Rayburn had pointed out to me in the case of Congressmen, government administrators are no smarter nor more stupid than the average. But they hold their jobs by knowing which side their bread is buttered on and making the correct estimate of what action will produce the most votes.

The Civil Aeronautics Board, in light of current public opinion with respect to the profit motive, could hardly be expected to accept public responsibility for such economic regulation as would permit any airline to make a profit, especially one such as might be subject to political attack. Nor could it be expected to muster courage to defend such an apparent monopoly as its own route pattern had created, even though the law authorized it. Although the Board was directed to so administer the Act as to prevent “unfair or destructive practices,” it must permit “competition to the extent necessary to insure sound development of an air transportation system properly adapted to the needs of the foreign and domestic commerce of the United States, of the Postal Service, and the national defense.” Its decisions, predicated on an attempt to administer such complex mandates and still keep out of hot water, brought the airlines into jeopardy at the very moment when they had established their economic self-sufficiency and faced the brightest futures of their turbulent careers. In other words, economic regulation by political agency is an anachronism.

Meanwhile, with the real solution to the Board’s competition problem ready at hand, the Board even messed that up. This drama was unfolded before the Committee by a group of enterprising young veterans who, having participated in such wartime miracles as the transportation of air cargo over the Himalayan Hump, had concluded that this and other services as yet unexploited by the certificated passenger carriers offered unique opportunities for their postwar reconversion. Perhaps the gist of their testimony can be extracted from the statement of Amos E. Heacock, executive committee chairman of the National Independent Carriers, and president of Air Transport Associates.

“Let me review briefly,” he said, “the near miracles that have been wrought in the development of air transportation by United States veterans.... In the international contract air carrier field, Transocean Airlines, Seaboard and Western, Pacific Overseas Airlines, etc., have found an entirely new market for air transportation, formerly practically untouched by the scheduled airlines.... I want to point out to you an additional and perhaps the greatest air transportation feat performed by the veterans of World War II. I am referring to the amazing record of the Pacific Northwest-Alaska nonscheduled carriers.... The scheduled carriers that were subsidized to do the job of developing air transportation to Alaska were a miserable failure. The bulk of the cargo, 73.6 per cent of the northbound and 83.5 per cent of the southbound, was transported by the much maligned nonscheduled air carriers.... The records show that the non-skeds pioneered a wealth of new business.”

After referring to Section 2(d) of the Act, which provides for competition, the witness stated, “With an unprecedented opportunity to preserve competition to develop the air transportation system and so provide adequate and economical service, the Board’s actions have provided for just the reverse.”

One explanation of the Board’s action might be derived from the statement of C. R. Smith, chairman of American Airlines, one of the largest of the “Big Four.”

“If the law of the land is to be enforced against the certificated air carriers,” he said, “it should have similar enthusiasm of enforcement against the irregular carriers who compete directly for the same business of air transportation. We cannot live with economic health in an atmosphere half legal and half illegal. If this business is to be regulated, all should be regulated.” It would be interesting to know just what significance attaches to the use of the word “against” in this statement.

“If the Civil Aeronautics Act is to mean but little,” continued “C.R.,” “then let us return to the rules of the road which obtained before the Act was passed, when competition was direct and unregulated.” Had “C.R.” gone on to urge this course, he might have given a demonstration of the rugged individualism for which he is credited; instead he summed up, “We were in favor of the Act, we are in favor of the continuation of the Act, but if we are to abide by the terms of the Act, we ask that our competitors be bound by the same rules of public conduct.”

Juan Trippe, president of the Pan American Airways System, stated the issue in similarly clear terms:

“The fundamental problem, both domestically and internationally, is that although Congress intended to place the airline industry in the category of regulated public utilities, the airlines, while treated on one hand as public utilities, have, at the same time, been made subject to all of the competitive pressures proper and appropriate only in an unregulated industry. There is no precedent in American industry that I know of for such a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde arrangement.”

After developing the principles under which public utilities are regulated and financed and suggesting that Congress should make up its mind as to whether or not they want to return the airline industry to its intended status as a regulated airline industry, Juan, like “C.R.,” mentioned the alternative of eliminating the relative provisions of the Civil Aeronautics Act and exposing the airlines to the full competitive force which exists and should exist in ordinary commerce.

“There will be no real progress in the solution of the airline problems,” he summed up, “until this issue is met squarely. An airline can’t be a regulated public utility and a free enterprise at the same time.”

However, the witness did not waste further time on this alternative but, acting on the assumption that the doctrine of regulating the airlines as a public utility would be preserved, went on to develop his own case with all the unique persuasiveness that had helped him pioneer Pan American in one of the most impressive displays of self-reliance, individual initiative, and private enterprise of modern times. His discussion led up naturally to the merger of Pan American with American Overseas Airlines which he and “C.R.” had earlier submitted to the Civil Aeronautics Board. In justifying this, Juan expounded his well-known thesis of the “chosen instrument” advocating a government policy of maintaining one American-flag system—Pan American Airways—in the international field, supported with frank outright subsidies such as those paid under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. He justified his position by citing its benefits to the stockholders of the company and argued that the higher wages thus made available to American workmen employed in international aviation would constitute a subsidy to them.

With the major certificated airlines mobilized solidly in support of the “chosen instrument” policy, the Committee received a clear statement of the opposing point of view from Raymond A. Norden, president of Seaboard and Western Airlines, Inc. One of the independents who had been characterized by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker as “irregulars,” “latecomers,” “interlopers,” “pretenders,” and so forth, Mr. Norden undertook to support Eddie’s contention that the airlines were suffering from too much coddling. In perhaps the outstanding statement to be made to the Committee, he put his finger on the crux of the airline controversy.

“The Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938,” he said, “is unusual among regulatory statutes in one very important respect. Other forms of transportation have not customarily been subjected to comprehensive regulation until the pattern of growth has been assured and until the industry has become so highly developed competitively that there is need for rigid controls and restraints in order to prevent destructive practices.” Out of the background of the airplane story to date, one might argue the other way around, namely that once the rigid controls and restraints are imposed, the growth pattern becomes stabilized. Mr. Norden went on to argue with persuasion:

“Aviation is relatively a new business. Air freight, as distinguished from other forms of aviation business, is in its infancy. Yet the entire aviation industry is hedged about with red tape, the like of which has never been encountered in any other form of American industry. One has merely to look at legal payments made by some of the certificated carriers. TWA, for example, in 1948 alone, paid a single law firm the sum of $340,000. My own small company spent in excess of $50,000 in legal expense. Sometimes I feel as though I had more lawyers than pilots.”

When the Russians blockaded Berlin in June, 1948, according to the witness, the Air Force, lacking reserve planes, called upon three certificated, subsidized North Atlantic carriers, Pan American, TWA, and American Overseas Airlines, to lift essential material between this country and Germany. Those carriers failed miserably; of the three irregular international carriers called upon to assist, Seaboard and Western lifted more than twice as much tonnage over the North Atlantic in the next six months as Pan American, TWA, and American Overseas combined. Yet under pressure from the certificated carriers, the Civil Aeronautics Board revoked Seaboard’s authority to fly under its Letter of Registration, as of May 20, 1949, along with all other large irregular airlines in this country. In his indictment of the certificated carriers the witness said, “In their zeal to keep the air transportation field to themselves and to obviate the chance that a measurement will be set up against their operational efficiency, the North Atlantic carriers are doing a great disservice to the country. To put it bluntly, they are sabotaging the development of airlift which is vital to national security.”

Mr. Norden then went on to quote from an article by J. A. Durham and M. J. Feldstein in the Virginia Law Review entitled “Regulation as a Tool in the Development of the Air Freight Industry”:

“But where an agency is charged with creating new national wealth by developing an infant industry, the consequence of permitting established interests to employ the forms of justice to obstruct the attainment of statutory objectives may well destroy the value of the administrative process.”

A less reasoned but even more revealing statement was that of Charles F. Willis, Jr., president of Willis Air Service, Inc., one of the “irregulars”:

“Consequently it is with great bitterness that we have seen ourselves singled out by the Civil Aeronautics Board for denial of a certificate of public convenience and necessity.... It is even harder to accept the decision because the only reason we are given for it is that we don’t have a million dollars. We never had a million dollars and we never needed a million dollars to perform our operations, but we do have almost all the dollars we started with. We feel that we have successfully demonstrated that an airline can be kept going, at a profit, if hard work, ingenuity, and a desire to make a profit are substituted for lavish spending of other people’s money.”

In such a sketchy review of the reams of testimony submitted to the Committee it is quite impossible to do more than attempt to summarize the major points of view and try to pan out the nuggets that reveal the vital issues. After sluicing away the rubble and uncovering bed rock, my own impression is largely one of intense sympathy for the Civil Aeronautics Board. Charged with an almost impossible task, it has been subjected to terrific forces by organizations skilled in the art of influencing public opinion. I also come away with a feeling of regret that airline management could not have approached the problem under the precepts adopted by the Aircraft Industries Association.

Most American early birds will recall with a nostalgic smile a cartoon that once adorned the walls of many a pioneer flight school. Entitled “His First Solo,” it depicted a forlorn fledgling perched out on the end of a bare limb. Near its root poised an impatient mother bird from whose beak floated the command, “Come on, kid! Give ’er the gun!”

One day, while studying the conflicting testimony of airline operators in an endeavor to predict the next twist of the slipstream, I recalled this early masterpiece of contemporary art. The fledgling on the end of the limb seemed now to have feathered out; he appeared, in fact, almost overgrown. The mother bird cocked her head questioningly, “I wonder if he’s got what it takes?”

* * * * *

From the days of Wilbur and Orville Wright on down to the present, aviators have groped for an understanding of the airplane’s destiny. Charles A. Lindbergh, in his book Of Flight and Life, has stated the problem:

The tragedy of scientific man is that he has found no way to guide his own discoveries to a constructive end. He has guarded none so carefully that his enemies have not eventually obtained it and turned it against him. He has developed a system in which his security today and tomorrow seems to depend on building weapons which will destroy him the day after. He has become so hypnotized by his search for knowledge that he must go on discovering and experimenting even though it leads to his own annihilation. With the key to science he has turned loose forces which he cannot re-imprison.

In the closing paragraph of his book Lindbergh states, “Our salvation, and our only salvation, lies in controlling the arm of western science by the eternal truths of God.”

Igor I. Sikorsky, in The Invisible Encounter, goes back two thousand years for his solution. In a chapter called “Kingdoms of the World,” he quotes from the Gospel according to Matthew: “Again the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them and saith unto Him. All these things will I give Thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”

Mr. Sikorsky then goes on to say:

The crown and recognition as Messiah the king were offered to Christ. But He refused to accept them. However, He offered his spiritual leadership to the whole Jewish nation but his offer was disregarded.... The real cause of the tragedy was the irreconcilable conflict between the Divine ideology of Christ and the supremely evil spirit of the impending revolution.

After drawing an apt parallel in current history, Mr. Sikorsky remarks, “If the world is to be controlled by spiritually dead men, it is as if an unconscious crew were placed at the controls of an airliner.”

* * * * *

Civilization stands today at the same crossroad. It need but accept the proffered leadership to commence an era of spiritual and material progress such as it has not yet known.

A single characteristic differentiates America from all other lands. Ours is a nation created by God-fearing men and women in search of liberty. Liberty is a force more explosive than atomic bombs. It created America. America stands today both as God’s living proof of the power of human freedom and as the negation of conflicting human doctrine.

As we have seen from the record, the airplane is one of the miraculous creations of liberty. No result of human foresight or planning, it is a Divine revelation. And though, as yet, largely prostituted to the folly of war, it embodies in itself the potential of world peace and freedom.

For always the hand on the stick has been the Hand of God. The Berlin Airlift, hastily improvised amid the rubble of war, contrived out of dire necessity, uncertainty, and fear, gave the world an American answer to that eternal question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The unequivocal answer came, not in a rain of destruction but on a flood of life-giving necessities.

“Yes, I am his keeper. I am the keeper of the peace!”

The triumph of the airlift was not one of men and machines but of the Christian spirit.

Index

Aeromarine Airplane and Motor Corporation, 18, 32-33

Aeromarine Inertia Starter, 33, 40-41

Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce, 213, 264, 268-269 Personal Aircraft Council, 273 reorganization of, 269-270

“Affair Fleet,” 47-48, 99

Air cargo (see Air carrier service)

Air carrier service, 280, 296, 306 certified, 303-304, 306-307 international, 303-304 uncertified, 304, 307 (See also Air transport; Airlines)

Air Coordinating Committee, 282

Air Corps Act of 1926, 69, 72, 244-245

Air Force, appropriations for, 293-295 and Berlin blockade, 307 created by Navy, 10, 20, 148 mobility of, 292 independent, 10, 25-26, 58-70, 107, 278-279, 291 and procurement, 282, 293 seventy-group, 293 and strategic bombing, 293 unification of, 293 (See also Army Air Corps; Aviation, naval)

Air France, 208

Air freight (see Air carrier service)

Air mail, 280 ocean, subsidies for, 187 revenues from, 300-301

Air-mail contracts, canceling of, 181-182, 186, 209

Air-mail rates, 298-299, 301 cut in, 298 and subsidies, 298-301

Air Policy Commission, temporary, 289

Air power, 5, 267-268, 285, 293 American, Lindbergh’s influence on, 103-104 economics of, 279-282 and foreign policy, 288 new concept of, 276-277, 287-288 public relations program for, 270, 283-284 and sea power, 267 studies of, 279-283

Air Power for Peace, 287-288

Air transport, commercial, 97, 186-187, 255, 267, 285, 288, 291, 294-296 and foreign policy, 295 military, 279-280, 291 veterans’ development of, 303-304 wartime importance of, 287-288 (See also Air carrier service)

Air Transport Association, 294, 303

Air Transport Command (ATC), 255, 279

Aircraft, 4 carrier, 21-22 combat, 195 experimental, 297 foreign, 95-96, 204 personal, 96, 273, 277 rigid, 10, 56, 58, 67, 70, 181 styling of, 110 and world freedom, 310 (See also kinds of aircraft, as Bombers)

Aircraft carriers, 5, 21-22, 127-128, 182, 190, 257-258 deck landings on, 116, 122, 125, 249-250 number of planes on, 116, 194 in relation to battleships, 134-135, 141-142, 147-148 vulnerability of, 292

Aircraft Industries Association of America, 283, 287, 290, 295, 308

Aircraft industry, 16, 23, 29-36, 51, 66-67, 72, 109-111, 183, 197, 199-203 air-power policy of, 276-277, 295, 297 assembly line in, 240-241 conference of, 1938, 213-216 consolidations in, 153-154 foreign, 196 and foreign markets, 188-192, 204, 220-222, 229 and foreign policy, 195 importance of, 275-276 investigations of, 181-182, 187, 249, 258, 270-287 nationalization of, 23 postwar difficulties of, 285-286 and public relations, 262-271, 283-284, 297 reconversion in, 260-262, 272 and red tape, 306-307 unification of, 262-263 and the unions, 249-251, 273 wartime criticism of, 242

Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet (FLEET AIR), 111-112, 117-118, 121, 123-124, 126, 129-130, 137, 151-152, 157, 183, 187, 202

Airfoil, wing-flapped, 179

Airline operators, policy recommendations of, 297

Airlines, 280 “Big Four,” 298, 304 feeder lines for, 301 legal fees paid by, 306-307 mismanagement of, 302 monopoly in, 303 number of employees in, 302 overseas, 294, 305-306 private investment in, 302 reasonable regulation of, 280-281, 294, 298, 303-308 and subsidies, 299-301, 306 (See also Air carrier service; Air transport)

AIRONS (see Aircraft squadrons)

Airplane, The, 91, 188

Airplane catapults, 5-6, 21, 49

Airplane engines, 9, 27, 222 air-cooled, 18, 30-31, 35, 38, 44-45, 49, 50-51, 78-80, 119, 134, 147, 188, 196-200, 203, 206, 217-218 commercial, 14 cost and price of, 243-244 early history of, 13-18 government building of, 231-232 Japanese, 193 licensing production of, 232, 239 liquid-cooled, 13-14, 18-19, 30-31, 35, 50-51, 74-75, 78-79, 134, 147, 196-200, 202-203, 217-218 military, 14, 22 precision tools for, 247-248 types of, 12-13, 16-18, 49, 193 variations in, 243 (See also kinds of engines, as Liberty)

Airplanes (see Aircraft)

Airports and airways, 301

Aktiebolaget Aerotransport, 207

Akron, dirigible, 70, 181

Alabama, battleship, 25

Alaska, air transportation to, 304

Allison Engineering Company, 197

Allison liquid-cooled engines, 217, 238

Altitude, high, research on, 257

Alvis, Limited, Coventry, 171

Amphibians (see Sikorsky planes)

American Airlines, 304

American Export Airlines, 183

American Overseas Airlines, 305, 307

American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 93

Anacostia Naval Air Station, 99, 104

Andrews, Frank, 214

Annapolis, 2, 142, 268 (See also U.S. Naval Academy)

Approved Type Certificate (ATC), 176-177

Argentine Navy, 189-190

Argus, carrier, 5

Arkansas, battleship, 4, 121

Arklight, The, 259

Armed forces, 295 procurement for, 66, 187, 232 reorganization of, 290 (See also Army; Navy)

Arms Embargo Act, 210, 218, 221-222 repeal of, 222

Army, 19, 25, 35, 41, 58, 72, 147, 290, 292-293 and aircraft industry, 23, 65, 172, 213-216, 243, 262 General Mitchell’s attack on, 58-59 Personnel Procurement Branch, 251 and procurement, 66, 187 war plans effort of, 213-216 war schedule of, 241

Army Air Corps, 196, 203, 214, 216-218, 229, 278, 292

Army Air Service, 9, 23-24, 71, 98, 148

Army Engineering Division, 33, 39, 191, 197

Army-Navy rivalry, 10-11, 24-27, 34, 43, 278, 290-292

Army Ordnance, 24

Army planes, C-54’s, 256 DH’s, 17, 29, 110 F4B’s, 134 Jennys, 14, 43 Lightnings, 257 PT’s, 44 Thunderbolts, 195 (See also kinds of aircraft, as Bombers)

Army Reorganization Act of 1921, 213, 233

Arnold, Gen. “Hap,” 213-214, 217

Arnold, Les, 118, 147-148

Arnold, Milton, 294

Aroostook, mine planter, 122

ATC (see Approved Type Certificate; Army Transport Command)

Atkins, Capt. A. K., 17

Atom bomb, 288, 293, 310

Aunt Lucy, 85-86, 90, 92

Automotive industry, 237 and aircraft engines, 14-16, 238-240, 249 and foreign markets, 205 reconversion in, 272

Aviation, 270

Aviation, 9-10, 298 civil, 69, 76, 206 commercial, 110, 174, 179, 212, 276, 279 foreign, 205 overseas, 180, 183, 208-209 (See also Air transport) government agencies concerned with, 279-282, 284, 297 government control of, 205-206 investigations into, 60-62, 181-182, 187, 289-290, 293-298 Lindbergh’s influence on, 103-108 and mass production, 14-15 naval, 5-8, 10, 19-20, 26-27, 68, 70, 278, 291-296 naval, five-year building program for, 71-72, 95 proposed advisory committee for, 276-277, 282, 284-285 appointment of, 289 opposition to, 278-279 service rivalry in (see Army-Navy rivalry) (See also Aircraft; Aircraft industry)

Aviation Game, 28

Aviation mechanic schools, during World War I, 5-6

Aviation Writers’ Association, 270

Baker, George P., 290

Balchen, Bernt, 207

Baldwin, Hanson, 149

Ballanca, Giuseppe, 96

Bankers Trust Company, New York, 302

Battle of Britain, 171

Battle fleet, 151 morale of, 132-133 organization of, 130

Battleships, 134-135, 141-142, 147-148, 152

Bavarian Motoren Werke, 208

Beach, Joe, 251-252

Beatty, Adm. Sir David, 4, 259, 266

Beaverbrook, Lord, 222, 233

Bee Hive, 296

Beisel, Rex, 186

Belgium, 207

Bell, Larry, 97

Berle, Adolphe, 294

Berlin Airlift, 296, 310

Berlin blockade, 307

Bermuda, 208, 266

Berrien, Capt. Frank D., 127

Bethpage, Long Island, 199

Beverly Hills, California, 265, 268

“Big Four” airlines, 298, 304

Bingham, Hiram, 61

Biplanes, passing of, 170, 190

Black, Hugo, 181, 187, 263, 271

Bloch, Capt. Claude C., 29, 138

Boeing, William E., 66, 76-77, 105, 110, 153-154, 182, 185, 200-201

Boeing Airplane Company, 48, 73, 76-77, 153, 169, 182-183, 194, 200-201, 251 fighters, 73, 75, 76, 134, 147 mail planes, 40-B’s (Monomail), 76, 169 Stratocruiser, 180 training planes, 98 transports, 169, 171, 208

Bogan, Gerry, 125-127

Bogusch, Harry, 89, 141, 147, 152

Bolling Field, 99

Bomb rack for Corsairs, 257

Bomber escort planes, 195

Bombers, 202 heavy long-range, 194, 251 twin-engined, 198

Borrup, Jack, 55

Boston, Massachusetts, 33

Botta, Lt. Ricco, 23, 38, 48, 78

Brainard, Morgan B., 264

Breck, destroyer, 144-145

Bremerton, Washington, 153

Brereton, Louis, 214

Brewster, Owen, 285, 289

Brewster Bill, 285

Bridgeport, Connecticut, 164, 172

Bridgeport, destroyer tender, 7, 11, 145

Bristol airplane factory, 188

Bristol Jupiter engine, 56, 193, 196

British Air Ministry, 10, 170, 266, 291

British Committee of Inquiry into Civil Aviation, 206

British Grand Fleet, 4-5, 21, 207, 259, 266

British National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 94

British Purchasing Commission, 224-225

British Spitfire fighters, 171

Brown, Admiral Moffett’s messenger, 60

Brown, Donald L., 55, 182, 185, 213, 216-220, 229, 239, 249

BUAERO (see U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Aeronautics)

Buffalo, New York, 35, 43

Buick, 232, 237, 241, 252, 254

Buivid, Mr., 179

BUNAV (see U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Navigation)

Burbank, California, 201

Burden, William A. M., 278

Burns, Colonel, 213, 216

Business cycles, 163

Businessmen vs. professional men, 163-164 on United Aircraft board, 264

Butler, Admiral, 151

Butler, Congressman, 71-72

Byrd, Dick, 96, 104

Cadillac, 232

Cadman Report, 206

Caldwell, Frank, 78, 155, 165-167, 169-171, 256

California, battleship, 152, 182

Camp Perry, 2

Canadian Pratt and Whitney, 253

Carburetors, 42

Carriers (see Aircraft carriers)

Champion, Lt. C. C., 38, 73, 96

Chance Vought Corporation, 17, 43, 47, 153, 170, 182, 185, 187, 190, 193, 196, 205, 230, 241, 265 (See also Vought-Sikorsky; United Aircraft Corporation)

Chatfield, Hugh, 73

Chevrolet, 232, 237, 241, 252

Cheyenne, Wyoming, 168-170

Chicago-San Francisco contract air mail route, 76

Chilton, Roland, 32, 40-41

Chourré, Emile, 117

Christianity, 7, 88, 209-210, 212, 309-310

Churchill, Winston, 171

C.I.O., 273-275

Civil Aeronautics Act, 70, 298, 303-306

Civil Aeronautics Authority, 302

Civil Aeronautics Board, 298-299, 301-305, 307-308

Clerget engine, 17

Clippers, 176-177, 180, 200, 255 (See also Transports)

Coco Solo, 151

Coffin, Howard, 61

Colbert, M., 205

Cole, Francis W., 264

Collective bargaining, 249-250

College Point, Long Island, 173

Collins, Capt. Harry, 218-219, 224

Colorado, cruiser, 143

COMAIRONS, 124, 127, 134-135, 138, 140

Combustion, principle of, 3

Command of the Air, 10

Competition, 24, 95, 97, 111, 161, 191, 230, 262, 276, 278, 297, 303-305 and foreign markets, 188 international, 205-208, 294 subsidized, 301 in transport planes, 202, 295, 297 unfair, 164-165

Conant, Hersey, 28

Congress, 71-72 appropriation committees of, 302 aviation appropriations from, 20, 53, 55, 95, 216-217, 229, 293-294

Congressional Aviation Policy Board, 289 report of, 294-295

Congressional committees, public hearings before, 271

Congressional investigations, 181-182, 187, 263

Connecticut State War Finance Committee, 246

Consolidated Aircraft, 43, 183, 202 army trainers, 43-46 Catalinas, 195 NY’s, 44, 84, 91

Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Corporation, 273

Cook, Capt. Arthur B., 127

Coolidge, Calvin, 8, 61, 69, 79, 94-95

Cowl-flaps, 188

Coyle, Mr., 241

Coyne, Bob, 246

Crane, Henry, 238

Curtice, Harlow, 241, 254

Curtiss, Glenn, 113

Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company, 16, 34-37, 51-52, 73-74, 97, 153 Hawks, 73-74, 99 TS’s, 43 (See also Curtiss-Wright)

Curtiss engines, D-12’s, 35-36, 73, 75 R-1454’s, 35-36, 52, 56, 74

Curtiss-Wright, 153-156, 191, 230 (See also Wright Aeronautical Corporation; Wright Martin)

Curtiss-Wright Flying Service, 172

Davis, Art, 141

Davis, Bill, 150

Davison, F. Trubee, 104, 168

Dayton, Ohio, 23, 34 (See also Wright Field)

de Chevalier, Godfrey de Courcelles, 5, 21, 268

Defense Plant Corporation, 253

de Havilland Aircraft Company, Ltd., 171 DH’s, 15, 17, 110

de la Verne Machine Shop, 17

Delco Company, 39

Demobilization, 277

Dennison, Arthur C., 62

Depression, 163, 220

DESRONS (see Destroyer squadrons)

de Steiguer, Adm. Louis R., 121

Destroyer Squadrons (DESRONS), 130, 140

Detroit, cruiser, 145-146

Detroit, Michigan, 134

Dexter, Mrs., 229-230

Diamond, Jimmy, 42

Dickinson, Arnold, 173, 175

Diesel engines, 197

Dive bombers, 147, 193 Corsairs as, 258 monoplane, 190, 198 two-seat, 188-190

Dive bombing, 121, 123, 193

Donaldson, John W., 267

Donaldson, Postmaster General, 299-300

Doolittle, Jimmy, 98, 214

Douglas, Don, 47, 97-98, 194, 198, 201-202, 251, 255, 265, 267-268

Douglas, Lt. Robert, 106-107

Douglas transports, DC-3’s, 194, 207 DC-4’s, 194, 256

Douhet, General Jiulio, 10, 206, 212

Douhet doctrine, 206, 293

DuBose, Lieutenant Commander, 62, 68, 71

Duralumin, 78, 155, 165

Durant, William F., 61

Durham, J. A., 307

East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, 126

East Coast Aircraft War Production Council, 269

East Haddam Fish and Game Club, 198

East Hartford, Connecticut, 192, 234

Eastern Airlines, 298, 301-302

Eberstadt, Ferdinand, 292

Echols, Gen. Oliver P., 286-287

Eclipse Machine Company, 41

Edgar, Graham, 42

Egtvedt, Claire, 48, 76, 134, 185, 200

Engineering, 2, 8 intuitive, 177 and politics, 19

Engineering Thermodynamics, 3

Engineers, professional, 3, 177

Engines (see Airplane engines)

England (see Great Britain)

English Voyages, The, 288

Ethyl Corporation, 42

Ethylene glycol, 197

Export permits, 189-190

Fagan, Tom, 39, 42

Fairchild Aviation Corporation, 273

Farley, James, 181

Farmington, Long Island, 195, 199

Fechet, Jim, 134

Feldstein, M. J., 307

Fighter bombers, 134, 147, 193-194 long-range, 195

Fighter planes, 22, 73, 75-76, 99, 121-124, 127, 134, 140, 147, 191-192, 194, 195 single seat, 199 two-seated, 123, 187-188

Finland, 208

Finletter, Thomas K., 289-290

Finletter Board, 290, 293-294

Finletter Board, report of, 293-294

Fireside chat, on airplane production program, 229,233

Fisher, Paul, 296

Five freedoms, 294

Fleet, Reuben, 43, 195, 202, 250

FLEET AIR (see Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Fleet)

Fletcher, Adm. Frank J., 61

Flight Manual, 87, 98

Flying boats, 248-249

Flynn, “Tiny,” 252

Fokker, Anthony, 43, 47, 95

Fokker Universal, 96

Ford, Edsel, 239

Ford, Henry, 96, 256

Ford Motor Company, 232, 239-241, 252

Ford Trimotor, 153, 155, 204

Foreign policy, and aviation, 195, 288

Forrestal, James V., 260-263, 290, 292-293

Foster, Cedric, 242

France, 205-208, 210-212, 218-219 declares war on Germany, 221

Fraser, Peter M., 264

French Purchasing Commission, 218-219, 224-225

Fuel, aviation, 42

Fuel pumps, 42

Gamble, Ted, 246

Gates, Artemus L., 277

General Electric Company, 39-40

General Motors, 67, 197, 217, 237, 241

George-Murray Bill, 273

German High Seas Fleet, 4

German Lufthansa, 208

Germany, 196, 204, 208, 210-212, 293 attack on Russia by, 247 invasion of Poland by, 221 war production in, 235

Geuting, Joseph T., Jr., 273, 277

Gibson, Professor, 34

Gilman, “Pop,” 197

Gluhareff, Michael, 179

Gluhareff, Serge, 179

Gnome-Rhone engine, 17, 193

Goering, Hermann, 195, 210

Goldsmith, Mr., 42

Goodyear Rubber, 241

Gordon Wyman, 240

Grand Fleet, British, 4-5, 21, 207, 259, 266

Great Britain, and American aircraft, 222, 224-225 before World War II, 206-208, 211

Great Lakes Naval Training Station, 5-6, 25, 151

Great Seal of the Navy Department, 39

Green, Fitzhugh, 108

Green, Joseph, 189

Grey, C. J., 94, 188

Griffen, “Squash,” 141, 147

Gross, Bob, 194, 201-202, 251

Grumman, Roy, 199

Grumman Wildcats, 193

Guam, 151

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 6

Guggenheim, Harry, 108

Guided missiles, 296-297

Gunnery, 1, 4, 8, 21

Hakluyt, Richard, 288

Hall, Charles Ward, 80

Halligan, Capt. John, 127

Halsey, Bill, 127

Hamilton, Thomas, 96, 154-157, 160, 192, 204-207, 209-212, 218

Hamilton, Ohio, 51

Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company, 154-156, 160, 204

Hamilton Metalplane Company, 154, 204

Hamilton-Standard, 165-166, 168-172, 177, 179, 182, 196, 204, 229, 241

Harbord, Maj. Gen. James G., 61

Harding, Warren G., 8, 94

Hartford, Connecticut, 51-52, 203, 206, 242

Hartford Times, The, 242

Harvard School of Business, 282

Hawaiian cruise, 1928, 122, 125-128

Hawthorne, California, 201

Heacock, Amos E., 303

Helicopters, 184, 241, 248

Herbster, “Spig,” 113

Herron, Sam, 34

Hillman, Sidney, 249-251

Himalayan Hump, air-transport service over, 256, 287, 303

Hirohito, 209

Hispano Suiza engines, 12, 16-17, 30, 43, 50, 53

Hitler, Adolf, 204, 209-212, 221

Hobbs, Leonard S., 42

Hobbs, Luke, 42

Holland, 207

Hoover, Herbert, 69, 104, 246

Hoover, Mrs., 106

Hopkins, Harry, 216

Horner, Jack, 192, 229, 243, 253, 263

Hoyt, Dick, 50

Hoyt, Palmer, 290

Hubbard, Eddie, 76

Huff-Daland training planes, 98

Hughes, Admiral, 64

Hughes, Howard, 249

Hull, destroyer, 2

Hunsaker, “Jerry,” 22-23

Hurley, Pat, 168

Hurley, Roy, 42

I.A.M.-A.F. of L., 277

Ickes, Harold, 216

Indianapolis, Indiana, 197

Inglewood, California, 201

Inspection, in war production, 258

Institute of Electrical Engineers, 93

International Civil Aviation Conference, Chicago, 294

International free rifle matches, Milan, Italy, 7

Invisible Encounter, The, 209

Iris, destroyer tender, 219

Isthmian Airways, 204

Italy, 207-208

Jacquin, Col. Paul, 219, 224-225

Jap Zeros, 192

Japanese pilots, 192

Jet propulsion, 257

Jeter, Tom, 134

Johnson, Capt. Alfred W., 22, 29

Johnson, Edwin C., 296

Johnson, Louis, 213, 217, 220, 233

Johnson, Phillip G., 76, 182, 185, 201, 230, 251

Johnson Committee, 296-297

Joliet, Illinois, 2, 6

Jones, Ed, 34

Jones, Harold A., 298-299

Jorge Luro y Cia, Argentina, 189

Joyce, Temple, 74

Jugoslavia, 208

Kahn, Albert, 222

Kaiser, Henry J., 248-249

Kansas City, Missouri, 253

Kartveli, Mr., 195, 200

Kauffman, Freddie, 89

Kennedy-Purvis, Vice Adm. Sir Charles E., 266-268

Ketcham, “Dixie,” 91

Kettering, “Boss,” 110

Keyes, C. M., 65-66

Keyes, Roy, 36

Keyport, New Jersey, 18, 32

Kimball, Dr., 104

Kindleberger, Dutch, 47, 97, 194, 201-202, 214-215, 251, 254

King, Adm. E. J., 128, 136, 141-142, 181-182, 189

Kinney Manufacturing Company, 18, 33

KLM, 207

Knerr, Hugh, 214

KNILM, 207

Knudsen, Bill, 233, 237-241, 247, 252

Kraeling, Harry, 156, 160, 165

Kraus, Comdr. Sidney M., 17, 50, 54, 66, 72, 75

Krug, Julius, 286

Labor, 207

Labor unions, 249-251, 273

Lakehurst Naval Air Station, 56, 82

Lampert, Congressman, 60

Land, Capt. Emory S., 22

Land, Adm. Jerry, 65, 104-105, 294

Lang, Antone, 7

Lang, Frau, 7

Langley, carrier, 21, 111-128, 135, 265

Langley, Professor, 74

Lansing, Raymond P., 40-42

Lawrance, Charles Lanier, 17, 36, 39, 50, 286-287

Lawrance engines, 12-13, 17, 30, 38-39, 41

Lawrence, David, 277

Lebensky, Bob, 179

Lee, John G., 198-199, 256, 265, 267, 269

Leighton, Lt. Comdr. B. G., 9, 12-14, 17-20, 22-27, 29-38, 98, 123, 194

Leloir, Guillermo, 190

Lenin, 209

Lewis, Fulton, Jr., 242

Lexington, carrier, 21 new, 49, 77, 119, 121, 127-129, 135-136, 143-145, 152

Liberty, 310

Liberty engines, 12, 15, 17-18, 30, 35, 53, 95, 98

Licenses, to build aircraft engines, 231-232, 239

Limitation of Arms Conference, 9, 21, 64, 67

Lindbergh, Charles A., 40, 103-108, 134, 149-150, 176, 178, 256-257 address to Nazis, 210-211 Pacific mission of, 257 quoted, 309

Lindbergh Field, 133

Lobbying, 271

Lockheed, 194, 202

Lockheed fighters, Lightning, 194

Loening, Grover, 66

Loening amphibians, 138

Long Beach, California, 117, 129-130

Long Island City, New York, 17, 47

Los Angeles, 133-134, 153, 201, 265

Los Angeles, dirigible, 10, 56, 67

LOT, 208

Lowry, Jimmy, 84-85

Lucke, Charles Edward, 3, 5-6, 8, 92, 142, 158, 256

Luro, Jorge, 189

Lyman, Deac, 270

MacArthur, Gen. Douglas, 59

McCain, Adm. J. S., 258

McCarthy, Charles J., 77, 185-186, 229

McCarthy, Joseph F., 161, 164, 175, 229, 243

McCone, John A., 290

McCook Field, 23, 33-34, 42

McCracken, Bill, 104

MacIntyre, Marvin, 65, 71

MacMahon, Brian, 285

Macon, dirigible, 181

Magnesium, 167

Magnetos, 39-40

Mahan, 149, 287 on sea power, 129-130, 288

Mail planes, 76, 154, 169

Maile, Lt. Frank, 23

Maintenance crews, 132

Manly, Charles M., 74, 93

Manly engine, 74

Marcus, Charles, 40-41

Mare Island Navy Yard, 114, 121, 151

Marines, 67, 121, 257

Marks, Charles, 55

Martin, Glenn L., 47, 79-80, 97, 104, 195, 200, 214-216

Martin Company, 183, 200 Thunderbolt, 195 torpedo bombers, SC’s, 77-79 torpedo bomber scouts, T4M’s, 104-106, 134, 140

Mason, Mr., 241

Mayflower, yacht, 78-79

Mayo, William, 96

Mead, George J., 30-32, 37, 42, 55-56, 74, 93, 140, 185, 232-233, 238, 241

Mellon, Andrew, 95

“Memoranda for file,” 39

Memphis, cruiser, 103, 106-108

Menasco Company, 154

Merchant Marine Act of 1936, 306

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 156, 160

Mines Field, 133

Mississippi, battleship, 5-6

Mitchell, Billy, 9-10, 25-27, 46, 56-59, 109, 213, 278-279 court-martial of, 70 and independent air force, 60-69, 291

Mitchell, Hugh B., 284

Mitchell, Gen. J. B., 148

Mitchell, Bill, 285

Mitscher, Pete, 98-99, 115, 146

Mobilization, 216, 235 for drill purposes, 214-215

Moffett, Rear Adm. William Adger, 1, 4-6, 8-11, 17, 19-20, 24-27, 45-46, 52-53, 55-57, 60, 62-68, 70-71, 80-81, 89, 93-95, 98, 101, 104, 109, 111, 119, 123, 128, 137, 142, 149, 151, 181, 278, 291-292

Mongolia, liner, 112

Monoplanes, 96, 169-170, 190, 204 metal, 154

Monopoly, 164, 207, 303

Montgomery, Monty, 115

Morale, 259

Morgan, John E. P., 286

Morgenthau, Henry, 218, 223-228, 230

Morrow, Dwight, 61

Morrow Board, 61-71, 95, 186, 188, 276-277, 285

Moulton, Bobby, 115-117

Mullinix, Henry, 38, 48, 96

Murphy, Francis S., 242

Murray, James E., 271, 273-274, 277-278

Murray, Roger F., 302

Mussolini, 209

Mustin, Capt. Henry C., 21, 68

Mustin plan for naval aviation, 68, 71

Nash-Kelvinator Company, 232, 241, 252

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 232-233

National Air Races, Los Angeles, 133-134 Philadelphia, 96

National Aircraft War Council, 269

National Association of Manufacturers, 242

“National Aviation Policy,” 294

National City Bank, New York, Bulletin, 274-275

National Defense Advisory Committee, 216

National Independent Carriers, 303

National Planning Association, 279, 282

National Rifle Association of America, 7, 24

National rifle matches, 1909, 2

NATS (see Naval Air Transport Service)

Naval Air Stations (see names of stations, as Pensacola)

Naval Air Transport Service (NATS), 255

Naval Aircraft Factory, Philadelphia, 23, 80, 124, 200 Aero Engine Laboratory, 38

Naval Operation (OPNAV), 20

Naval War College, Newport, 129

Navy, 19, 76, 202, 290, 292-293, 295 and air-cooled engines, 18, 31 and aircraft industry, 23, 52, 65-68, 172, 243, 260-262, 274-278 feuds in, 63 General Mitchell’s attack on, 58-61 growth of, 142 Hawaiian cruise of, 121-125 leadership in, 131-132 Panama maneuvers of, 135-148 procurement for, 66, 187 proposed reduction of, 25-26 public relations for, 291

Navy, and sea power, 129-130 war schedule of, 241 (See also U.S. Navy Department)

Navy lend-lease, 252

Navy planes, Boeing fighters, 73, 75, 76, 134, 147 Catalinas, 195 Corsairs, 124, 140, 156, 187, 193, 257-258, 265 C-54’s, 256 F-5-L’s, 84 N-9’s, 43-44, 84, 91 P12’s, 134 SBU’s, 187-191 SC’s, 77-79 T4M’s, 104-106, 134, 140 UO’s, 43, 48, 50, 117 (See also Kinds of aircraft, as Bombers)

Nazis, 210-212, 235

NC boats, 22

Nelson, Arvid, 160

Nelson, Donald, 286

Neutrality proclamation, 1939, 221

Neville, Leslie, 270

New Deal, 186

New Knowledge, The, 87

New York, New York, 3, 6, 60, 67, 93, 172

New York Central, 282

New York Times, The, 149, 270

Niles Tool Company, 51

Nimitz, Chester, 268

Noble, Warren, 33-34

Norden, Raymond A., 306-307

Norfolk Naval Air Station, 119, 121

North American, 194

North American Mustangs, 195

North Island Naval Air Station, 37, 128-129

Northrup, Jack, 169, 191-192, 201-202

Northrup Company, 154

Northrup-Vought fighter plane, 191-193 sold to Japan, 192

Norway, 207

NRA, 273

Nulton, Adm. Louis M., 151-153

Nutt, Arthur, 36, 42

Nye, Gerald P., 181, 187, 263, 271

Oberammergau, Passion Play at, 7

O’Connell, Joseph J., Jr., 299, 301-302

Of Flight and Life, 309

Old Ark (see Arkansas)

Omaha, light cruiser, 136, 140, 143, 145

Oman, C. W. C., 250

OPNAV (see Naval Operation)

Oregon, 112

Pacific air bases, 182

Pacific Northwest-Alaska carrier service, nonscheduled, 304

Pacific Overseas Airlines, 303-304

Pacific Torpedo Flotilla, 2, 112

Packard engines, 75, 78-79

Packard Motor Company, 16, 34-35

Palm Beach, Florida, 6

Palm Springs, California, 265, 267

Pan American Airways, 149, 174, 208, 294, 305-307 (See also Clippers)

Panama Canal, 1929 maneuvers at, 135-150

Parker, James S., 61

Parkes, John, 171

Parsons, Lt. Ralph M., 23, 38

Passion Play, Oberammergau, 7

Patents, 41-42

Paterson, New Jersey, 29

Patrick, Maj. Gen. Mason M., 168

Patterson, Bill, 255

Patterson, Robert P., 277

Pearl Harbor, 29, 120-121, 125-127, 191, 219, 252, 267-268

Pensacola Naval Air Station, 38, 45, 81-96, 98, 112, 119, 130

Plant depreciation, 225, 227-228

Plevin, M. René, 222, 224

Ploesti oil fields, bombing of, 293

Poland, 208 invasion of, 221

Polish Airlines (LOT), 208

Pownall, “Baldy,” 89

Pratt, Admiral, 138-139, 148, 151-152

Pratt and Whitney engines, 216 1830’s, 193, 222, 241, 255 Hornet, 78, 80, 96, 104, 140, 187, 204, 208 2800’s, 194 two-row radial (R-1535), 188, 192 standardization of, 254-255 Wasp, 72-78, 98, 140, 154, 169, 187, 193, 196, 285 Wasp, Jr., 241 Wasp Major, 285

Pratt and Whitney Tool Company, 51, 66, 72-75, 154, 170, 177, 182, 196-198, 200, 202-203, 216-217, 219, 229, 251, 258, 263, 285 American addition for, 234, 238 British plant of, 224-228 as charge of Navy, 243 French plant of, 222, 226 War Plans Division, 218, 222, 226, 234

Press, the, 59-60, 67, 270, 274, 276, 290

Prestone, 197

Price Adjustment Act, 246, 274

Price Adjustment Board, 254

Profit control, 221, 246

Profiteering, 163, 210, 228, 245, 249, 265, 273, 275

Profits, 161-162, 274-277, 303

Propellers, 77-78, 154-157, 160, 204, 208, 241 controllable-pitch, 166-171, 174, 179 metal, 78, 164-165, 186

Public speakers, 283

Pursuit planes, 217-218

Putnam, Carleton, 297, 300

Putnam, George Palmer, 104

Queen Elizabeth, flagship, 4, 259

Quisenberry, Alma, 23

Radford, Vice Adm. Arthur, 63, 292

Radio commentators, 242

Railroads, early expansion of, 280 government subsidizing of, 280-281

Ramsey, Vice Adm. de Witt C. (“Duke”), 63, 291

Ramspeck, Bob, 294

Rantoul, Illinois, 25

Rayburn, Sam, 271, 284, 302

Ream Field, 117

Reconversion, 256, 260-262, 272, 275-276

Reconversion Act, Section 102, 286

Reed, Sylvanus, 155-156

Reed Propeller Company, 155

Reeves, Rear Adm. Joseph M. (Bull), 111-112, 114-129, 131-133, 135-143, 145-146, 148, 151-152, 182-183, 193, 252

Reeves, Mrs., 118

Renegotiation, 246

Rentschler, Frederick B., 29-32, 36, 50-55, 66-67, 75, 77, 109-112, 153-157, 164, 167, 172-174, 182, 185, 205, 219, 229, 237-239, 247, 260-264, 278

Republic Aviation, 199

Rescue craft, 22

Reuther, Walter, 247-248

Richardson, “Captain Dick,” 174, 177

Richardson, Capt. H. C., 22

Richardson, Comdr. L. B., 243

Richthofen, Baron von, 58

Rickenbacker, Capt. Eddie, 191, 297-298, 301, 306

Ripley, Joseph P., 264

Roberts Board, 252

Rolls Royce engines, Merlin, 194 racing-plane, 196

Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis, 211-212

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 181-182, 186, 221, 229, 246, 249, 256 airplane program of, 229, 233, 237, 251

Roosevelt, Theodore, quoted, 1

’Round the world flight, first, 98

Rowe, Gordon, 118, 122

Royal Aeronautical Society, London, 94, 208

Russell, Frank, 80, 269

Russia, 211-212, 289 attacked by Germany, 247 blockade of Berlin by, 307 (See also Soviet)

Ryan, Claude, 105

Sabena, 207

San Diego, California, 2, 112-113, 117-119, 128, 130, 133-134, 152, 156, 193, 202

San Diego Union, 113

San Francisco, 265

San Francisco Advertising Club, 299

San Pedro, California, 117-118, 126, 138, 153

Santa Monica, California, 198, 201, 268

Saratoga, carrier, 21

Saratoga, carrier, new, 49, 77, 119, 127, 129, 135-141, 145-149, 152

Savoia Marchettis, 207

Schneider Trophy race, 98

Schwoble, Jake, 199

Scouts, long-range, 22

Sea Cow, SC-6, 77-79

Sea power, 4-5, 129-130, 288

Seaboard and Western Airlines, Inc., 303, 306-307

Seaplanes, 21, 43-44, 77-79, 84, 91

Seattle, Washington, 48

Secretary of the Navy, 40, 59

Selection Board, 9

Selective Service, 251

Self, Sir Henry, 222, 224, 226

Seligman, Mort, 134

Senn, Adm. Thomas J., 122, 136, 140

Service rivalry (see Army-Navy rivalry)

Seven Roman Statesmen, The, 250

Seversky, Alex P. de, 191, 199-200

Shenandoah, dirigible, 56-58

Sheppard, Edgar W., 56-57

Sherman, Vice Adm. Forrest, 63, 268, 292

Shipbuilders, 248

Sidney, New York, 40

Sikorsky, Igor, 47, 96, 173-174, 177-180, 183-184, 200, 208, 248 quoted, 309

Sikorsky Aviation Company, 164, 170, 172-175, 182-183, 196, 200, 204-205 reorganization of, 176-179 (See also Vought-Sikorsky)

Sikorsky planes, amphibians, S-39’s, 167, 173 clippers, S-40’s, 176-177 S-42’s, 180, 208

Sims, Admiral, 115

Sixth Battle Squadron, British Royal Fleet, 4

Slater, John, 183

Smith, C. R., 304

Smith, Karl, 112

Snyder, John W., 278, 286

Social security, 166 corporate, 273

Society of Civil Engineers, 93

Soleure, Switzerland, 39

Sorenson, Charles, 239-240

Soviet, 296 (See also Russia)

Southampton, light cruiser, 266

Southern California, wartime migration to, 272

Spaatz, Gen. Carl, 214, 292

Spark plugs, 42

Speer, Albert, 235

Speer, Genevieve, 2 (See also Mrs. Wilson)

Sperry Gyro Compass School, 74

Spirit of St. Louis, 103-106

Squadron commanders, selection of, 131-132

Stalin, 295

Standard Steel Propeller Company, 155-156, 160

Standley, Adm. William H., 189

Stark, Capt. Harold R., 136, 140

Starters, 33, 40-42

Stearman, Mr., 96, 172

Stewart, Sidney, 229

Stinson, Mr., 96

Stock-market crash, 1929, 158, 160, 172-173, 186

Stock-market speculation, 97-98, 154

Stoddard, Harry G., 264

Storrs, Put, 150

Strategic Bombing Surveys, 287

Stratford, Connecticut, 170, 173, 175

Strohm, “Matchew,” 142

Stromberg, 42

Studebaker, 232

Studley, Lt. Barrett, 87, 90

Stunt flying, 103

Submarine divisions (SUBDIVS), 130

Submarines, 292 German, 248, 287

Subsidies, 187, 280-281, 298-301, 306

Sullivan, Tiny, 117

Sulzberger, Arthur, 270

“Survival in the Air Age,” 290, 294

Sweden, 207

Sylph, yacht, 104, 106

Symington, Stuart, 292-293

Taxes, 95 excess profits, 245, 274 income, 160, 221, 227-228

Teal, sweeper, 122

Thomas, “Woody,” 89

Three Musketeers, 134, 150

Three Sea Hawks, 134, 141, 150

Tillinghast, “Tilly,” 214

Time magazine, 265

Tomlinson, Tommy (“Injun Joe”), 126, 133-134, 150

Torpedo bombers, 22, 77-79, 97-98, 104-106, 140

Torpedoplanes, 104-106

Towers, Rear Adm. John H., 113-115, 119, 121, 124, 127, 267

Trade associations, 271, 273

Training planes, 98-99, 241

Trans-Canada Airlines, 182, 201

Transocean Airlines, 303

Transport planes, 95-96, 202 four-engined, 194, 255-256 (See also Air transport; Clippers)

Trippe, Juan, 174, 294, 305

Truman, Harry S., 258, 278, 282, 286

Truxtun, four-piper, 219

Turbines, 4

Turner, Comdr. Richmond Kelly (“Spuds”), 168, 171

TWA, 306-307

Unemployment, postwar, 272, 274

Unemployment compensation, 272

Union League Club, Chicago, 254

Unions (see Labor unions)

United Aircraft Corporation, 182, 192, 204, 216, 229, 251-253, 256-257, 259, 260-264, 275, 285 board of directors of, 264 Kansas City plant of, 253 licencees of, 252-253

United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, 77, 153-154, 156, 161, 169-170, 172-175, 177-178, 180, 185-186

United Airlines Transport Corporation, 182, 255

U.A.W. of C.I.O., 277

U.S. Bureau of the Budget, 279

U.S. Department of Commerce, 69, 176, 180

U.S. Department of Defense, 290

U.S. House of Representatives, Naval Affairs Committee, 71 Report on War Department Appropriation Bill, 299

U.S. Naval Academy, 2, 112 (See also Annapolis)

U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Aeronautics (BUAERO), 1, 19-24, 29, 32, 38, 45, 47, 57, 59-60, 62, 70, 72, 94-95, 109, 122-123, 137, 139-140, 149, 157, 168, 181, 183, 187, 189-190, 194, 196, 216, 243-244, 253 Design Section, 22-23, 48, 180 Engine Section, 9, 12, 16-18, 22-23, 27, 32, 38, 44-45, 47-56, 77-78, 96, 186, 200 Matériel Division, 22, 65 need for, 6, 10 Plans Division, 123, 168 Stress Analysis Department, 185

U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Engineering, 4 Bureau of Navigation (BUNAV), 19-20, 80-81, 131 (See also Navy)

U.S. Post Office Department, and air mail, 281, 299-301 deficits in, 300

U.S. Senate, Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, 296 Military Affairs Committee, 284 War Contracts Subcommittee, 270, 272

U.S. State Department, 189, 294

U.S. Treasury, 218, 225-228 Internal Revenue Bureau, 221, 227

U.S. War Department, 61 (See also Army)

Upham, Rear Adm. F. Brooks, 81-84, 86-89

Upham, Madame, 86-89

Vanadium, 165

Vandenburgh, Clyde, 269

Vaughan, Guy, 37, 39, 50, 103-105, 112, 230-231, 239

Vaughan, Helen (Mrs. Guy), 104

V.D.M. propeller, 208

Veterans, and air-carrier service, 303-304

Vincent, Col. Jesse G., 35

Vinson, Carl, 61, 64, 295

Vinson-Trammel Act, 1934, amendment to, 245

Virginia Law Review, 307

Vought, Chance Milton, 47-48, 54, 66, 72-73, 109-112, 124-125, 140, 164, 185-186

Vought, Russell R., 265, 267

Vought airplanes, Corsairs, 124, 140, 156, 187, 193, 257-258, 265 dive bomber, SBU, 187-191 UO, 43, 48, 50, 117

Vought-Sikorsky Division, United Aircraft, 229 (See also Chance Vought Corporation)

Wagner, Frank D. (Honus), 118, 123-124, 131-133, 137-138, 141, 144, 150-152, 182

Walsh, Raycroft, 168, 170-171, 205, 214, 229, 263-264

War contracts, 273-274 canceling of, 15-16, 237, 275, 286 escalator clause in, 250

War debt, 95

War Investigating Committee, 258

War production, 237, 247 and private industry, 235-236

War Production Board, 249, 277, 286

Ward, J. C., 273, 277

Warner, Ed, 104

Warner, Seth, 118

We, 104-108

Webb, Lt. L. D., 78

West Coast Aircraft War Production Council, 265, 269

Westover, General, 213, 216

Wheat, George S., 52, 67, 168, 185

White, Capt. R. Drace, 8, 145-147

Whiteside, Arthur D., 290

Whiting, Kenneth, 21, 145-146, 151

Wick, Skinny, 140, 147

Wilbur, Curtis D., 64, 103-104

Wiley, Admiral, 150

Willgoos, Andy, 30, 55

Williamson, Fred, 282

Willis, Charles F., Jr., 307-308

Willis Air Service, Inc., 307

Wilner, Mort, 286

Wilson, Charles E., 277, 286

Wilson, Eugene E., address before Union League Club, Chicago, 254 on Admiral Nulton’s staff, 151-159 airplane crack-up of, 100-101, 186 assigned to Langley, 111 as author, 93, 287-289 automobile accident to, 198 education of, 2-4 elected president of United Aircraft Corporation, 229 at Great Lakes, 5-6 on Hawaiian cruise, 122-128 joins Pratt and Whitney, 198 joins United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, 160 made president, 178 made senior vice-president, 182 as Lindbergh’s technical adviser, 104-108 made chief, Airplane Design Section, 93 made chief, Engine Section, 9 made president, Chance Vought Corporation, 164 made president, Sikorsky, 164 marriage of, 2 before Murray Committee, 274 on Panama maneuvers, 135-148 at Pensacola, 82-92 poem by, 83 private office of, 226-227 resignation from business, 289 resignation from Navy, 158

Wilson, Mrs., 2, 7, 27, 81, 92, 101, 109, 125, 158-159, 266

Wilson, Woodrow, 247

Wind tunnels, 188

Wing flaps, 174

Wing loading, 180

Woodhead, Harry, 273, 277

Woodring, Harry, 233

Woolson, Capt. Lionel, 35, 42, 78

World War I, 4, 14-16, 58, 95, 101, 115, 123, 208, 210, 213, 222, 246-247, 259, 266

World War II, 168, 171, 178, 191-192, 194, 195, 209, 222, 246, 288, 295

Wright, seaplane tender, 6, 22, 82, 84, 135

Wright Aeronautical Corporation, 16-17, 29-32, 43, 50-52, 54-55, 73, 106, 153, 197-198, 238-239, 285 fraud accusation against, 258 wartime plant of, 252 (See also Curtiss-Wright; Wright Martin)

Wright Apache, 73

Wright brothers, 13-14, 113, 184, 308

Wright engines, 77 Cyclone, 49, 80, 193 1510 two-row, 191 Hispano E-4’s, 17, 30, 33, 43 radial, 196 P-1’s, 30 P-2’s, 35, 49, 54 (See also Wright Cyclone) R-1200’s, 50, 54 (See also Wright Simoon) Simoon, 50, 54, 73 T-3’s, 77 Whirlwind, 49, 54, 78, 96, 99, 103, 107, 200, 286-287

Wright Field, 191-192, 197-198, 217

Wright Martin Aircraft Corporation, 16

Yarnell, Capt. Harry E., 136

Young, James, 253

Zar, Capt. Marco, 190

Zeppelins, 10

Zeros, 192

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 5 Changed: some thought, had helped pursuade to: some thought, had helped persuade

pg 5 Changed: one of the few battleships with an airpline to: one of the few battleships with an airplane

pg 58 Changed: wiley as the famous German Baron von Richtofen to: wiley as the famous German Baron von Richthofen

pg 82 Changed: while the old seaplane tender and kite-ballon to: while the old seaplane tender and kite-balloon

pg 82 Changed: this fault immediately they would loose to: this fault immediately they would lose

pg 98 Changed: But aften Don had produced a masterpiece to: But after Don had produced a masterpiece

pg 103 Changed: make capital of it by pursuading to: make capital of it by persuading

pg 123 Changed: during tactical exercises, using Voughts to stimulate to: during tactical exercises, using Voughts to simulate

pg 155 Changed: To match Tom Hamilton’s propellor-design to: To match Tom Hamilton’s propeller-design

pg 159 Changed: professional slaves to every officier to: professional slaves to every officer

pg 184 Changed: When the final account is cast up, Igor Ivanovitch to: When the final account is cast up, Igor Ivanovich

pg 237 Changed: It would take some doing to pursuade to: It would take some doing to persuade