Luận án của Joel E. Higley: Laurence Kuter và Sự hình thành Không quân Hoa Kỳ

The Brains of the Air Force: Laurence Kuter and the Making of the United States Air Force Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Joel E. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2016 Dissertation Committee: Professor Peter Mansoor, Advisor Professor Mark Grimsley Professor Paula Baker 1 Copyrighted by Joel E. Higley 2016 2 Disclaimer The views expressed in this work are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U. i Abstract This study examines the establishment of the United States Air Force as an independent service, through the lens of General Laurence Kuter.

Covering from his birth through the end of the Second World War, it yields five observations. First, Laurence “Larry” Kuter played an unappreciated role in shaping the United States Air Force and its antecedents. Second, the Air Corps Tactical School’s impact on its students was likely minimal, but the school’s impact on its faculty—particularly its most junior members— was almost inestimable. Third, fighter pilots dominated the senior ranks of the Air Force and its antecedents from the Interwar Period through well into the 1950s.

Fourth, the Army’s interwar personnel policies had disproportionately negative impacts on Air Corps development, but very positive impacts on Kuter’s career. The effects of those policies, combined with the massive army air corps/army air forces expansion from 1939 through 1944, provided a greater justification for service independence than strategic bombing did. Finally, the first major war that the Air Force fought, wherein it had reasonably full control over the selection and professional development of its people, all the way up to its senior leaders, was the First Gulf War in 1991. ii This dissertation is dedicated to American airmen: past, present and future.

iii Acknowledgments There is one person I wish I could thank, the late Professor John F., who agreed to take me on as a graduate advisee and thus made this Ph. Thankfully, Professor Peter Mansoor, who provided invaluable input throughout my writing, stepped in to serve as my committee chair. My sincere appreciation goes as well to my other committee members, Professors Mark Grimsley and Paula Baker. Special thanks go to Colonel Thomas Drohan from the United States Air Force Academy’s Department of Military and Strategic Studies, who sponsored me to attend this Ph.

program, and for Doctor James Titus for pointing me toward Larry Kuter. I am also deeply indebted to the Friends of the Air Force Academy Library and the Bradley Foundation for their generous funding for my research. I would not have gotten past the candidacy exams without the collective support of my fellow military history graduate students. I also owe a great debt to those in the Air Force Academy’s Clark Special Collections Branch and the Air Force Historical Research Agency for their work in helping me find valuable sources for this work.

Finally, I want to thank my family for their patience and support, while I spent countless hours staring at a computer, praying for inspiration. History, United States Air Force Academy 1995-2013 .Operational Assignments, USAF 2009. Military Operational Art and Science, Air Command and Staff College 2013 to present. Student and Candidate, USAF Sponsored, The Ohio State University Publications Higley, Joel E.

“Larry Kuter, Functional Commands and AFSOF Thwarted: The Establishment of the Air Resupply and Communications Service in 1951.” Air Commando Journal, February 2016: 22-30. Fields of Study Major Field: History Area of Emphasis: Military History Minor Field: U. Modern History Minor Field: History of Environment, Technology and Science v Table of Contents Abstract. v Table of Contents.

vi List of Tables. viii List of Figures. ix Chapter 1: Introduction—the Forgotten General. 1 Chapter 2: Flying Blind—Stumbling Toward an Aviation Career (1905-1929).

28 Chapter 3: Darwinism—Surviving Flying Training at Brooks Field and Leadership by Negation at Langley Field (1929-1934). 77 Chapter 4: Practice Precedes Theory—The 1934 Airmail Crisis and the ACTS Student Experience (1934-1935). 124 Chapter 5: Preaching the Bomber Gospel—Developing and Teaching Bombardment Doctrine at ACTS (1935-1939). 196 Chapter 6: Prepping for War—Airpower Mobilization and Organization in the War Department (1939-1942).

244 vi Chapter 7: The Learning Curve—Managing Wartime Growth in Washington, Bombing in Europe and Tactical Airpower in Africa (1942-1943). 309 Chapter 8: Graduation Exercise—Managing a Fully Grown Air Force, Making Allied Strategy, Planning for Peace and Ending the War in the Pacific (1943-1945). 404 Chapter 9: Epilogue—Implementing Hap Arnold’s Vision from the End of World War II Through the Kennedy Administration (1945-1962). 496 Appendix A: Eastern Zone Air Corps Deficiencies on 10 February 1934.

508 Appendix B: ACTS 1934-35 Academic Year Subject Breakdown. 509 Appendix C: ACTS Class of 1934-35, Arranged by Birth Year. 512 Appendix D: Early Four-Star Air Force Generals’s PME Attendance. 516 Appendix E: AAF vs.

Ground Army Personnel Statistics: June 1930 to August 1945. 519 vii List of Tables Table 1. Air Force Generals by USMA Graduation Year. Distribution by AGCT Classes of All Men Inducted into the Army, Processed at Reception Centers, and Assigned to the Various Arms and Services during 1943.

Distribution of AGCT Class I/II Recruits in 1943: AAF vs. ACTS 1934-35 Academic Year Subject Breakdown. ACTS Class of 1934-35, Arranged by Birth Year. Early Four-Star Air Force Generals’s PME Attendance.

Ground Army Personnel Statistics: June 1930 to August 1945. 520 viii List of Figures Figure 1. Interwar Army Air Corps Officer Growth. Maximum ACTS Graduate Representation.

Proportional Growth of AAF and Ground Army Officers (From 1938). Proportion Growth of AAF and Ground Army Enlisted (from 1938). Numerical Growth of AAF and Ground Army Officers. 301 ix Chapter 1: Introduction—the Forgotten General Studying General Laurence Sherman “Larry” Kuter’s life and career provides insights into one of the U.

Air Force’s more influential early leaders, and by extension the service that he helped to organize, build and lead. His career timing (including his time as a West Point cadet, from 1923 through 1962—the interwar period, the Second World War, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War and the Eisenhower and early Kennedy eras), the positions he held (as an interwar bomber advocate, prewar mobilization planner, wartime air strategist and commander, and Cold War commander of diverse commands), his role in advocating and planning for an independent air force, his record of successfully centralizing command and control of airpower, and the doctrines he promulgated all deserve greater scrutiny. No scholar or popular author has closely studied Kuter’s career, despite the substantial manuscript collection he donated to the Air Force Academy. This dissertation seeks to fill in historiographical gaps regarding Kuter’s life and career, as well as the independent air force he helped to establish and lead during its formative years.

1 Career Summary Airpower historian Philip Meilinger calls Laurence Kuter “one of the more accomplished air planners and staff officers in Air force history.”1 This is only partially correct; he was a highly successful commander, too. Regardless, Kuter seems to almost always be present during major events in air corps/air force history from the 1930s through the early 1960s. He was a key Eastern Zone Army Air Corps Mail Operations (EZAACMO) staffer during the 1934 Airmail Crisis.2 He was a member of the Air Corps Tactical School “Bomber Mafia,” teaching bombardment doctrine at the school from 1935 to 1939.3 In 1941, he was one of four coauthors of AWPD-1: the prewar strategy and mobilization planning document upon which subsequent air plans were largely based.4 In February 1942, at age 36, Kuter became the army’s youngest general (by ten years).5 A month later, he and just three other principal staff officers led the War Department reorganization that (at least conceptually) made army airpower coequal with ground power by dividing the army into the Army Air Forces (AAF), Army Ground Forces (AGF), and Army Service Forces (ASF).6 From late 1942 through mid-1943, 1 Phillip S. Meilinger, Airmen and Air Theory: A Review of the Sources (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2012), 34.

2 “Manuscript Record” (USAF Academy Special Collections, November 1978), 1, Kuter Collection, USAF Academy Library Special Collections. 3 Peter Faber, “Interwar US Army Aviation and the Air Corps Tactical School: Incubators of American Airpower,” in The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1997), 216. Gaston, Planning the American Air War: Four Men and Nine Days in 1941 (Washington D.: National Defense University Press, 1982). Kuter, Interview of Brigadier General Laurence S.

Kuter, interview by C. Williams, October 21, 1942, 251–252, Reel K1019, Air Force Historical Research Agency [AFHRA], Maxwell AFB, AL. 2 Kuter briefly commanded a strategic bomb wing in England before he went to Northwest Africa and helped lead tactical fighters and bombers in that theater. By the time he left, Rommel was defeated and the Axis was ejected from the African continent.7 When Kuter returned from his combat tour, he led the effort to publish Field Manual (FM) 100-20, airpower’s “Declaration of Independence,” which boldly and officially proclaimed that air power is coequal with ground power.8 He then proceeded to lead the AAF’s planning for postwar service independence.9 Simultaneously, he played key roles in centralizing army airpower in the Mediterranean, European and Pacific theaters.

In 1945, when a heart attack kept five star general Henry “Hap” Arnold from attending the Malta and Yalta conferences, he sent two-star general Kuter—not one of his more senior generals—to represent him.10 In May 1945, Kuter deployed overseas again, this time to the Pacific, where he served as the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Army Air Forces Pacific Oceans Area (DCINC AAFPOA).11 After the Japanese capitulated, he organized the first airlift of the U. Army troops into Japan following the armistice before making his way back to the United States.12 After the war, Kuter took command of the newly-formed Air Transport Command (ATC) Atlantic Division, consolidating three wartime divisions into one organization. While in that job, he also served in diplomatic roles. First, he served as the U.

Mortensen, “The Legend of Laurence Kuter: Agent for Airpower Doctrine,” in Airpower and Ground Armies: Essays on the Evolution of Anglo-American Air Doctrine, 1940-43, ed. Mortensen (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1998); War Department, FM 100-20: Command and Employment of Air Power (Washington D.: US Government Printing Office, 1943), http://cgsc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll9/id/933/rec/1. Smith, The Air Force Plans for Peace, 1943-1945 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970). Kuter, Airman at Yalta (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1955).

11 Kuter, Interview of Brigadier General Laurence S. 3 representative to the 1946 U. Bermuda Conference, and then shortly thereafter helped negotiate American access to an airfield in the Azores. In 1946, President Truman appointed Kuter as the U.

representative to the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO). When the organization ceased to be merely provisional in 1947, Kuter was given ministerial rank and served as the first U. representative to the ICAO, working for the State Department under his old boss, George C.13 In 1948, Kuter returned to the full-time air force fold, selected as the first commander of the Military Air Transport Service (MATS). Kuter took command of MATS just prior to the Berlin Airlift and led it through the first year of the Korean War.

From 1951 through 1955, Kuter took a leading role in air force personnel management and education. In October 1951, Kuter returned to the Pentagon, where he served for two years as Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel during a period of substantial manpower turmoil. In that job, he also temporarily held the positions of acting vice chief of staff and even acting chief of staff. In 1953, he took command of the Air University (AU), where he increased the stature of AU’s schools and drove the publication of numerous new doctrine manuals.