TRAINING THE MEN
Great as was the problem this country faced in the spring of 1917 on
the material side of the creation of a new branch of warfare in the
American Army--the construction of fields and planes, the development
of industries and the procuring of skilled labor--even greater was the
problem of working out a new system of training. We are accustomed
to the creation of new industries and certain nuclei already existed
around which this new one could be formed. We had trained a few
civilians and soldiers to fly, but we had not trained an aviator, and
had no means of training even one, for usefulness on the battle front.
And we were urged to send overseas at the earliest possible moment
5,000 aviators schooled in the developments and the specialties which
nearly three years of the hot-house growth of war aeronautics had
brought about.
The British, French and Italian Governments detailed to this country,
upon our appeal, a few expert fliers and teachers of flying to aid
in the early development of our effort and cadets were sent from the
United States to the flying fields of Canada, England, France and
Italy to hasten their training. Some of these joined the flying forces
of those countries and others returned after a few months to become
instructors at our own hastily established fields. The few civilians
and army men who had learned flying in pre-war days were at once set to
work as instructors at the primary fields. The most apt of the American
cadets, of whom many took to flying as do birds of the air and quickly
became expert, were used as instructors at the home fields instead
of being sent overseas for service. And so finally an expert and
capable instruction personnel was built up and a system of instruction
evolved that represents a work of such diligence, ingenuity, resource
and enthusiastic and incessant effort as to make it one of the many
memorable achievements of the war.
At the beginning of the evolution of the training system it was
necessary to organize medical boards to pronounce upon the physical
fitness of candidates. The requirements were rigid and the work was new
and therefore the highest available medical skill must be obtained.
Fifty or more of these boards were established and in the first
year examined nearly 40,000 men, of whom almost half were unable to
pass the severe tests. As the months went on, experience developed
the methods of determining the applicant’s physical fitness for
flying to a remarkable degree of efficiency. The American system of
training diverged somewhat, at its very beginning, from that of other
nations, since it demanded a higher degree of scholastic attainment,
a collegiate degree or a certain amount of collegiate work being a
requisite, as it was believed that the mental development thus obtained
would enable the student flier to advance more rapidly. As the system
was finally developed, the candidate who had passed successfully the
initial physical test had first a month of military training at a camp
devoted solely to this work to give him due regard for discipline
and for accuracy of statement in the making of reports, to inspire him
with military morale and to give to his body and spirit a thorough
testing in order that those who should fall short under its severe
demands might be sifted out at the beginning.
[Illustration: AIRPLANE AMBULANCE]
[Illustration: AMERICAN FLYING FIELD IN FRANCE]
Then came two months in a ground school, of which there were eight
located in as many universities and technical schools in different
parts of the country, where the cadet, under military discipline,
received practical and theoretical training in the study of motors,
airplane construction and other elements of aviation. By means of long
hours and close application the young men did as much work during
the two months spent at these schools as they would ordinarily have
covered during an academic year. The next step was training at a field
for primary flying under the dual control system and practice in solo
flying until the cadet could pass the requisite tests which permitted
him to be graduated as a Reserve Military Aviator, with the rank of
second lieutenant. Then he passed on to other fields where he was
taught advanced flying, acrobatics, night flying, formation flying
and aerial gunnery, and afterward to a specialized field where he
qualified to be a pursuit pilot and fly and fight his own machine, or
to be a bombing or an observation pilot, or to do reconnoissance or
photographic work.
At the close of hostilities fields for every specialty had been
constructed and equipped and the system of training was receiving
its final development in the establishment of brigades at a large
flying center where the men were formed into squadrons, trained for
work together and sent overseas as a flying unit. The signing of
the armistice found one such great center, ranking among the largest
plants the United States had constructed for the prosecution of the
war, almost completed, its several coöperating fields able to handle
over 7,000 men at a time and turn out a steady weekly installment of
air squadrons, each with its eighteen flying officers, five ground
officers and 150 service, supply, construction and repair men, trained,
organized and ready for the final two or three weeks of experience at
the flying fields overseas before being sent to the front.
The system of training thus worked out had been evolved in the face
of many difficulties. There were no text-books, no traditions, no
bodies of accepted rules and methods. As finally developed, it was
modeled somewhat on the British system, with important modifications
and differences. But the passing months saw in it, as it evolved, many
and sometimes striking changes. It was constantly in a fluid state,
subject to the results of experiment and of observation upon the cadets
in training, to the conclusions of instructors and field commanders
after comparison of experience, and to the evolving ideas of scores
of air service men. And especially was it subject to the information,
suggestions and orders that came back from the battle front in France,
where air warfare was being shaped daily and weekly by war conditions
and demands into new methods and new developments. And the training
on these fields four thousand miles away had to be kept closely in
touch with these constant developments and imperious needs and its
methods and aims changed from day to day, if necessary, to meet the
requirements.
By experiment, observation, steady thinking at high pressure and
comparison of ideas on the part of every instructor, every officer
and every cadet at every field, methods of instruction were hammered
out for each phase of the work. Each field brought its offering of
daily experience and almost every flight contributed something to
the accumulation of facts out of which grew, finally, some surety of
knowledge. Into the development of methods flowed a steady stream of
ideas, discoveries, experiences and experiments, and so day by day
the American system of training grew to better results and higher
efficiency. Text-books, for the most part, were type-written or
mimeographed accounts of results that had been gained the month, or the
week, or the day before by following certain methods, with comments and
suggestions as to their use.
Many contributions of value to the general theory and practice of
training for flying were made by these enthusiastic young men who
toiled unceasingly over the problems set by our training fields. One
young lieutenant, while studying the causes of airplane accidents and
trying to find some means of preventing them, worked out a series of
exercises which reproduce the positions that must be taken in advanced
flying and so enable the cadet early in his work to find out whether
or not he is physically unfit to undertake acrobatic work and also
give him a measure of preparation for it. Experiment showed that the
motion picture film had possibilities for the flying instructor and
when hostilities ended it had been drawn into the system of training
and was beginning to be used to hasten and to make safer the cadet’s
progress. Sitting safely in his chair, he watched whirling horizons,
skies and landscapes, pictured from an airplane going through one
acrobatic performance after another, noting the varying appearances of
the pictures and his own sensations, and so having his nervous system
educated in advance for what he would have to undergo, learning in
time whether or not it would unduly affect him and gaining quickly
and without danger valuable experience. An important development,
worked out and used at American flying fields, was a series of tests
of the flier’s physical ability to endure high altitudes. Observation
showed that accidents sometimes were the result of inability to endure
rarefied atmosphere and by placing the student in a tightly closed
room, gradually exhausting the oxygen and noting his reactions it was
speedily determined whether or not it was safe for him to attempt high
flights, either with or without a device for supplying him with oxygen.
The flight surgeon, specialized out of the army medical officer, was
one of the early developments of training for air warfare and soon
also there appeared, first devised and used at an American field,
the flying ambulance, which enabled him and his assistants to go at
once to the help of an injured airman, give him first aid and bring
him back in the fuselage of the ambulance plane to the hospital. The
end of hostilities saw at least one flight surgeon at every aviation
training field in this country and several at each of the large ones.
And there had been established a division of flight surgeons for which
medical officers could receive a special course under the direction of
the Medical Research Board of the Surgeon General’s Office. The flight
surgeon’s duty was to keep every aviator under observation, to examine
each one physically before and after flying, to note the effects of
flight, especially at high altitudes, to determine how frequently he
should fly and to discover whether or not he had physical peculiarities
which would unfit him for any special kind of air service. To aid in
this work, which was producing remarkable results in the way of both
efficiency and safety, there had been established at many of the flying
fields research laboratories which worked out new tests and special
and ingenious apparatus for using them and made examinations and
observations of the airmen in training. Associated with the work of the
flight surgeon was that of the athletic instructors who, toward the end
of the war period, were appointed for service at the flying fields.
They were former college athletes and athletic instructors who had
received special training for the work of keeping the student aviators
in the best possible physical condition.
These phases of the system of training that was worked out at American
fields aimed to lessen the chances of accident and to gain greater
speed and efficiency in the progress of the cadets. Throughout the
war period the United States made a much greater effort to lessen the
casualties of training than did any other nation. A longer period of
work under dual control and more knowledge and skill before the cadet
began solo flying were demanded by our system of training than other
nations thought necessary. This and other provisions for the safety of
the cadets made our training casualties less than half those of any
other nation among our war associates. The record of American flying
field casualties showed 278 fliers killed in training, an average of
one to each 236,800 miles flown by cadets.
The system of training had not only to produce men for work in
the air. It had also to train large numbers for a great variety of
work necessary to sustain and coöperate with the flying fighters
and observers. In addition to unskilled labor, fifty-two trades and
occupations are essential to the aviation service and men had to be
either wholly or partially trained in each of them. At first, in order
to secure skilled men with the utmost speed, mechanics were sent in
detachments to a great number of factories where special training was
given them and afterward, as experience began to disclose what would be
needed, carefully worked out courses of training were established in
nearly a dozen different schools. Government schools giving thorough
training, in operation at the end of the first year of war, were
graduating 5,000 mechanics every three months. Aerial photography had
developed during the war to an exact science, but when we entered
the conflict very little was known about it in the United States.
Instruction in it was of a threefold character, for observers had to
learn how to operate cameras in an airplane, intelligence officers on
the ground had to be instructed in the interpretation of the results
and enlisted men to be taught to do the developing, printing, and
enlarging and to keep the equipment in condition. Schools for training
in all these things soon produced the necessary instructors for the
flying fields where training in aerial photography was given.
It was a complicated and difficult problem that the United States faced
when it undertook to work out a system of air training while it was
training the men for air service. But within a year and a half it had
evolved an efficient system that set higher standards than did other
nations and also better safe-guarded the lives of the men in training,
and while doing this it had sent overseas 4,776 trained flying
officers, had as many more at home fields, and had in training at home
more than 5,000 cadets, of whom nearly half were in advanced stages of
the work. In the final test of service at the front the men who had
been trained by that system received for their ability, skill and deeds
the heartiest and highest praise.