Tag: US Army Aviation Service

The Colonel, the Sculptor, and the Supreme Court Justice: Assessing the Failure of American Aircraft Production in the First World War – Part Two

The Colonel, the Sculptor, and the Supreme Court Justice: Assessing the Failure of American Aircraft Production in the First World War – Part Two

By Lieutenant Colonel Michael H Taint, United States Air Force (Ret’d)

Editorial note: In this two-part article, Michael Taint re-evaluates the conduct of Colonel Edward Deeds in the management of the US Army’s First World War aircraft production program and the overall aeroplane production program itself. In this second part, he examines Deeds’ conduct and evaluates the management of aircraft in the United States during the First World War. The first part can be found here.

The first part of this article described the low state of readiness of American military air power as the country entered the First World War in 1917. Congress addressed this with an enormous $640M appropriation for a fleet of aircraft. However, the automobile industry, not the aviation industry, dominated the Government body overseeing aeroplane acquisitions, the Aircraft Production Board, specifically in the person of Edward A. Deeds, who was directly commissioned a full Colonel in the US Army Air Service and placed in charge of procurement.

Colonel Deeds and the Aircraft Procurement Program

The American aircraft production program began, as large initiatives often do, with boundless optimism. After all, at the beginning of the First World War, the American automotive industry was an industrial marvel, mass-producing approximately 1.5 million automobiles per year – this made the goal of 22,000 aircraft possible. Minutes taken at an early meeting of the Aircraft Production Board capture this sentiment perfectly: ‘If the automotive industry of this country can produce 100,000 automobile engines a month, as it now does, we can see no logical reason it cannot produce 3,000 aircraft engines per month.’[1] Colonel T. Milling of the US Army Air Service summed up this optimism when he stated that the ‘idea that has always seemed to exist in the United States, namely, that money can do anything.’[2]

Deeds’ US Army Air Service Equipment Division wasted no time awarding contracts to get the work underway. On 7 September 1917, just weeks after Deeds’ commissioning, the Dayton Wright Airplane Company, then in its sixth month of existence, received a cost-plus contract to build 4,000 De Havilland DH-9 (soon after modified to DH-4) light bombers. Curtiss Aircraft and Fischer Body (later to become part of General Motors) received contracts of equivalent size. In addition to the DH-4 contract, Dayton Wright was also issued a fixed price contract for 400 ‘Standard J’ training planes; altogether, Deeds’ Equipment Division issued almost $35,000,000 in contracts to his former company in Dayton.[3]

In 1920, in a report of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Aviation’s judgment on Deeds’ conduct is truly clear:

But the fact remains that from practically the inception of the Government’s aviation activity in connection with the war, and within the sphere of Colonel Deeds’s important if not commanding influence his former business associates were placed at once through Government contracts to a position where they had the assurance of very large profits upon a relatively small investment of their own money and in addition were able to secure generous salaries which they charged against the Government as part of the cost of manufacture. That Deeds, Kettering and Talbot continued to be on the most intimate and confidential footing in the prosecution of Government work by the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company is apparent from their correspondence.[4]  

Particularly damning were two telegrams sent by Deeds to Henry Talbot, the business manager and co-founder of Dayton-Wright Airplane Company, in August and September 1917. In the first, Deeds tells Talbot that all confidential telegrams from his Government office will be addressed directly to Talbot, not the Dayton Wright Airplane Company (a highly irregular practice for Government correspondence that Deeds later defended as merely a convenience, then later a security measure). In the second, Deeds told Talbot that the Government was able to select a source without price competition, and that price would not be a determining factor. And if the price were not a determinant, the cost could be high:

For your personal information as coming from your local attorney. Judge Advocate General has ruled it legal for the Government to select one, contractor one, and the two a third [sic], as market appraisers of market value of plant at contract expiration.[5]

Deeds also gave Dayton Wright a tremendous advantage over other US aeroplane manufacturers – the only actual DH-4 aircraft in the country. The procurement strategy the Aircraft Procurement Board had endorsed was not to design an entirely new American aeroplane but ‘build to print’ from an existing, in this case British, design that had flown and proven reliable. Unfortunately, the British either lacked or failed to give the US a complete technical package of drawings and specifications for the DH-4. All the Americans had been a few top-level diagrams. Instead, in late July, an actual DH-4 was shipped to Washington, which American industry could reverse-engineer and copy. However, even that was incomplete, with missing armament and landing gear. These were parts that needed to illustrate how the whole system was constructed and worked together. Deeds, however, immediately had it shipped to Dayton Wright instead of keeping it at a Government location, where all industries would have equal access.[6]  This gave Dayton Wright an enormous head start over the other contractors because they had sole access to the only artifact documenting the detailed design. Dayton Wright immediately began ‘reverse engineering’ detailed blueprints and drawings to enable mass production, and within three months, had hand-built a ‘duplicate’ (more accurately, an American version) equipped with a prototype new US-built Liberty engine. This was impressive initial progress, but mass production proved far more challenging. 

As the fall of 1917 progressed into winter, the problems of creating a new American aviation industry became evident, as the much-ballyhooed deliveries of initial production aircraft failed to materialise. The problems began with the most fundamental issues – a lack of knowledge in the manufacturing process, and a supply chain of necessary materials. Though the automotive executives in charge, such as Deeds, had assumed that automobiles and aircraft were comparable in complexity, it was soon discovered that the aeroplanes, particularly the ones made in Europe, required far more ‘touch labor’ by craftsmen than the mass-produced automobile, built by general labour that typically only performed one function on the assembly line.[7] This lack of aviation production knowledge hindered the startup effort, but the American aviation industry eventually learned and adapted.

Material was also a significant issue. America had enormous timber resources, but only certain types of wood were suitable for constructing aeroplanes. Strong, light, and straight-grained beams long enough to form the wings and body of an aeroplane were required, and only spruce met those requirements. Eventually, the lumber industry learned to cut spruce trees for the correct finished piece, but early in the spruce program, as much as 5,000 feet of rough spruce was required for a single aircraft.[8] Labour troubles caused by the lumbering program’s crash erupted in the Pacific Northwest; in November 1917, the US Army Signal Corps created a Spruce Production Division, headed by Colonel Brice Disque, to resolve the issues and maintain a steady supply of high-quality spruce material.[9]

Another significant component of the aircraft was linen. At first, the US attempted to procure this material from the original De Havilland Company source, an Irish supplier, but they were unable to meet the demand. This forced the US Army Signal Corps to experiment and find an acceptable substitute, cotton, which they procured (15,000 bales worth) on the open market to provide to the aircraft manufacturers. Even special aviation varnish (‘dope’ in the vernacular of 1917) had to be developed by the US Army Signal Corps to support private production.[10]

These issues would surely have occurred regardless of who led the aircraft procurement program, but there were also problems internal to the Equipment Division. The scope and size of the aircraft production challenge in the First World War were precisely why men such as Deeds, with expertise in running large manufacturing enterprises, were brought into the US Army. Unfortunately, they failed to create an efficient organisation to administer the work. As a Congressional investigation report noted after the war:

The duty of providing an adequate organization for aircraft production was left to the Signal Corps. It is quite clear that this undertaking was beyond the competency of the Chief Signal Officer [General Squier], who had neither the training nor experience for such a large industrial enterprise, and those who were brought to the task in his department failed to produce an organization which was adapted to meet the exigency. (emphasis added)[11]

Specific issues identified were a lack of accountability, unclear lines of authority, and redundancy of effort. These issues, plus rising public criticism of the entire aircraft program, led to a change in the US Army Signal Corps’ organisational structure in February 1918. Deeds was relieved of his position as Chief of the Equipment Division and moved to the newly created position of ‘Senior Industrial Executive’, reporting directly to General Squier, with no apparent line authority. Nevertheless, Deeds continued to exert significant control over the aircraft program, according to the report of Charles Evans Hughes issued in October 1918 and discussed in more detail below.

Another set of issues was changes in the DH-4 configuration caused by American manufacturing. The most notable of these was the Liberty engine, one of the war’s most significant American production successes, in which Deeds played an important role. Unlike other technical aspects of American aircraft production, Deeds took a personal interest in the development of the new American engine. As Benedict Crowell recounted in his official report after the war:

Colonel Deeds had been the man of broad vision who […] determined that America could best make a contribution to the aviation program by producing her own engine […] persuaded Messrs. Hall and Vincent [two Signal Corps officers in the rank of major responsible for engine production] to forego further efforts on their individual developments and devote their combined skill and experience to the creation of an all-American engine.[12]

While there were good reasons to create the new American Liberty engine instead of attempting to adapt hand-crafted European engines to American factories, Deeds also had a very personal business interest in the Liberty. Each of the 20,000 Liberty engines used a Delco electronic ignition system and not the magneto ignition system used in Europe, so he profited from each engine sold. Deeds was careful not to sign the directive requiring the use of the Delco ignition, instead having his subordinate, Major Gray, sign it. However, as the Congressional investigation after the war found, ‘there is no satisfactory evidence that Colonel Deeds signed, prepared or directed the use of the Delco ignition, though it cannot be doubted that he desired the system to be used.’[13] Unfortunately, the change in a central aircraft subsystem such as this required a significant number of changes to other interfaces, resulting in further delays. These changes were particularly problematic as the Liberty engine evolved in many configurations.[14]

By November 1917, seven months into the war, the first significant block of DH-4 aircraft (154 planes) was supposed to be delivered; however, the total delivered was zero. The United States did not deliver its first batch of home-produced aircraft until February 1918, which consisted of only nine aircraft.[15] Critics from the small core of aviation experts and enthusiasts saw this as the natural outcome of their industry being overtaken by the ‘Detroit Conspiracy.’ Their criticisms soon found a most unusual voice.

John Gutzon Borglum: Sculptor and Aviation Enthusiast

John Gutzon Borglum, c. 1919. (Source: Wikimedia)

John Gutzon Borglum, a sculptor, was busy working on the Stone Mountain commemoration of Confederate Civil War leaders in Georgia when the US declared war in 1917 (after the war, he would take on the far more famous Mount Rushmore project). An early aviation enthusiast, Borglum was a founding member of the New York Aero Club and also witnessed the acceptance testing in 1908 of the first Wright Flyer bought by the US Army.[16]  In 1913, prominent Daytonians, including Deeds, contacted Borglum about sculpting a memorial to the Wright brothers; however, he enormous Dayton flood that year made financing the project impossible. Deeds remembered Borglum, however, and commissioned the sculptor to do a bust of his son, who tragically died of illness. Borglum completed this composition and took things further, proposing an elaborate mausoleum for the entire Deeds family. Deeds never responded to this proposal, and this rejection was later cited as the cause of Borglum’s particular animus toward Deeds in the aeroplane procurement controversy.[17]

One thing was sure:  in terms of temperament, Borglum was as far from Deeds as imaginable. Where Deeds was genial, low-key, and personable, Borglum was truculent, loud, and abrasive, truly over the top. Unafraid of making attacks on Deeds that were personal and sometimes outlandish, Borglum claimed that Deeds ‘real name’ was really ‘Dietz’ and that he had strong pro-German sympathies – a political hot-button in America in 1917. ‘Deeds powerful Teutonic personality seems to have completely hypnotised the trusting, scientific mind of General Squier, ’ posited Borglum, explaining how the aircraft program under a highly respected US Army officer had so underperformed expectations.[18] Overblown rhetoric aside, Borglum had suspicions about Deeds’ business motivations, which eventually proved well-founded. Convinced that the aircraft procurement plan led by Deeds was a scam, he handled it in typical Borglum style – he took it right to the top, writing the President of the United States’ secretary, Joseph Tumulty, and alleging gross mismanagement and waste in the aircraft program. After discussing with Secretary of War Newton Baker, Wilson wrote back on 2 January 1918. He gave Borglum carte blanche to investigate his allegations, including permission to visit various manufacturing plants, a War Department employee to act as Borglum’s assistant and an office in the War Department itself. Borglum attempted to interview the principals involved in the affair, including General Squier, but found them unresponsive.[19]  Undeterred, on 21 January 1918, Borglum sent his report to Wilson with a letter stating that he had ‘been able to connect the broken links of a chain of dishonesty and disorder that runs through our production department.’[20] By now, Borglum was not the only voice of dissent. A report from the respected Aeronautical Society of America stated that the aircraft program was devised by ‘men who know next to nothing about the art of flying or the production of flying machines.’ Numerous newspapers throughout America in the next few months began calling for an investigation into the aeroplane program; typical of these is the St. Louis Star’s observation that ‘if things are wrong they must be righted and if they are not wrong then the men responsible must be cleared of odium’ and the Philadelphia North American’s ‘the American people are sick of false promises and alluring deceptions; what they want is battle-planes on the front.’[21]  

Secretary of War Baker’s response to President Wilson on Borglum showed a clear understanding of the potential political volatility of the situation: 

My general impression of Mr. Borglum’s report is that it contains no facts beyond those frankly admitted by Government departments with reference to delays […] The charges against Colonel Deeds are unsupported by evidence. Nevertheless, I consider it would be well, in view of the charges, to have a full examination of Colonel Deeds’ record made as a matter of justice to him and the Department.[22]

Whatever plans Baker had for an internal review were quickly superseded by actions by Congress and Wilson himself. Wilson backpedalled, sending Borglum a letter claiming he had not appointed him as an official investigator but merely as an interested citizen (though interested citizens are generally not provided a full-time War Department aid plus an office).[23]

Borglum was making the newspapers almost daily as he blew the whistle as loudly as possible. By early May 1918, both houses of Congress expressed outrage and demanded a full investigation. Senator Thomas of Colorado, on 9 May 1918, stated that the aeroplane manufacturers were responsible for ‘huge profiteering’ and wanted those contracts cancelled. However, the next day, the same Senator dropped a bombshell on the Senate floor, effectively ending Borglum’s role as an aircraft program critic. An affidavit from Mr. Kenyon W. Mix, Jr., whose father held the controlling interest in the Dodge Manufacturing Company, was presented to the Senate. It stated that Mix and another aeroplane engineer, who supposedly had ties to the British Embassy, Hugo C. Gibson, had met Borglum on a train trip (whether planned or accidental is unknown), and Gibson had told him that European designs, far superior to American ones, were available for manufacture. Borglum boasted of his close personal ties with President Wilson, ties that could readily lead to a fat aeroplane production contract. Mix, suspicious, then decided to raise the issue through appropriate channels – so he forwarded the concern to Aircraft Production Board chair Howard Coffin, who in turn shared it with other Board members, including Squier and Deeds. In turn, on 20 January 1918, they raised the issue with Vice President Marshall, who notified Secretary Baker; presumably, Baker passed this on to Senator Thomas.[24] The implication was clear – Borglum was doing precisely what he accused Deeds of doing – pursuing an aircraft procurement program profitable to himself. Having placed the affidavit before the Senate, Senator Thomas ended his floor time with the stark conclusion: ‘This shows Mr. Borglum’s criticism of the airplane program to be entirely without merit.’[25] Borglum, naturally, vehemently denied all this.

Of course, this testimony from Mix did not prove that Borglum’s criticism was without merit; it simply suggested that Borglum might be a hypocrite, attempting to do precisely what he accused Deeds of doing.[26] However, another possibility is revealed by a front-page story on 11 May 1918 in the Washington Herald:

Officials for the British Embassy and the British War Mission here state that no one in the name of Hugo C Gibson has been in the employ of the British Government in this country. It is believed that Mr. Borglum may have been the victim of a confidence man who sought membership in any corporation that might be formed and put forward false claims in order to win the confidence of the sculptor.[27]

Borglum’s response to the Senate was simple – ‘a frame up, deliberately planned.’[28]  No one at the time (and for that matter, any historian later) appears to have taken that answer seriously, however. Borglum, utterly discredited, was effectively silenced. Certainly, powerful business interests and senior officers such as Deeds in the Equipment Division had strong motivations to stop Borglum. The Mix affidavit was never further scrutinised and Mix himself never called to testify. Borglum may have been personally silenced, but the calls for serious investigation had such momentum from Borglum’s polemics that they could not be stopped.

Charles Evans Hughes: Justice becomes Investigator

Charles Evans Hughes campaigning in Winona, Minnesota, on the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian, 10 August 1916. (Source: Wikimedia)

Former Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes had lost a close election (23 electoral votes) to President Woodrow Wilson just the year before. In December 1917, he paid a courtesy call on his former rival at the White House. Hughes had come to Washington not to meet the President but to argue a case before the Supreme Court, the first time since he resigned from it to run for the White House. Hughes offered at that meeting – probably just a formality – to accept any wartime assignment that Wilson might wish. On 13 May 1918, just a few days after the Borglum debacle on the Senate floor, Wilson took Hughes up on the offer. Wilson believed that Hughes, a respected jurist and political opponent, would be able to make any necessary recommendations and remain above any charges of whitewashing. Wilson asked Hughes to investigate the growing political crisis of the army aircraft program, and Hughes immediately accepted.[29]

Though Wilson gave his former rival a free hand to look wherever he wished, he would do so under supervision from Attorney General Gregory or Solicitor General Frierson. One of these men always accompanied Hughes on every interview or fact-finding mission. Hughes picked Meier Steinbrink, an up-and-coming lawyer who was eventually elevated to the New York State Supreme Court, as his personal assistant. Together they investigated the entire aircraft program from mid-May until early November 1918, conducting all their interviews and actions in private to avoid creating another Borglum-like circus.[30]

Hughes’s first task was to uncover as many facts as possible about the actual aircraft production program – specifically, how many aircraft were built and shipped to Europe, how much money had been obligated and spent on domestic contracts, and how much had been obligated and paid on the Allies. Obtaining this data proved to be far more difficult than anticipated. It became the first indication that the entire aircraft production procurement bureaucracy lacked the proper centralised control necessary for effective decision-making. Hughes and Steinbrink eventually interviewed 280 witnesses, reviewed 17,000 pages of documentation, and visited contractor facilities in Dayton, Detroit, Buffalo, and New Brunswick. At each site visit, he examined the contractors’ financial records (cost-plus type contracts require all such data to be available to the Government) and facilities and interviewed key executives. In Dayton, these interviews included Deeds and Henry Talbot Jr., President of the Dayton Wright Airplane Company.[31]

During this visit, Hughes uncovered unmistakable evidence of Deeds’ illicit communications with his former company. From the information reviewed before their site visit and the evasive answers Talbot gave to specific questions from Hughes, both investigators suspected a secret back channel had been established. Steinbrink evaluated this idea.

While Hughes was plying the witness [Talbot Jr.] with questions, Steinbrink walked over to the plant’s filing room and told a clerk that Mr. Talbot would like to have the confidential file. The clerk yielded it without question, and the attorney [Steinbrink], opening it to “Deeds” and “Talbott”, found telegrams that established a confidential relationship between the two men after Deeds had taken charge of the aircraft production program for the Army.[32]

This would form a key part of the final 104-page report by Hughes, which was completed at the end of October and submitted to President Wilson through the Attorney General on 25 October. It was released publicly on 31 October 1918, just over two weeks before the Armistice.[33]

Hughes’ Report is impressively comprehensive and delves deeply into every issue that plagued the startup of the American aircraft industry, from the large numbers of Government actors and private firms involved down to the fine points of cutting the proper amounts of spruce and mahogany.  Numbers and types of aircraft and aircraft engines built and delivered are tabulated, along with contract dollars obligated and spent, as well as the selection process for contractors. Hughes had discharged his duties well, untangling an overly complex procurement program in a few short months, despite neither he nor his assistant having any background in it.

The final report’s cover letter to the Attorney General mentions explicitly investigating ‘the activities relevant to Edward A. Deeds and his former business associates,’ noteworthy because Deeds is the only person called out by name in the cover letter.[34] Hughes intended to draw attention to Deeds, particularly senior administration officials who were likely only to read the cover letter. In addition to the unethical communications with Dayton Wright Airplane Company, the investigation uncovered other questionable conduct on Deeds’ part.

One of these was purchasing land for McCook Field, located just north of Dayton. Deeds had bought the land – after being advised by Wilbur Wright that it would make an ideal airfield. As Deeds he ‘importuned’ another US Army Air Service office to purchase the land; he no longer owned it but had sold it to his long-term business partner (and co-founder of Dayton Wright Airplane Company) Charles Kettering. Deeds also pressed for establishing other permanent facilities, such as Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton. Although he had no immediate business connection to this deal, it would surely be helpful in his post-war aviation business ventures.[35]

Hughes found still more irregularities in Deeds, such as a $104,000 payment to a Liberty engine contractor (the Packard Company) – even though no contract existed between the Government and Packard at the time.[36] On 21 February 1918, Deeds made a significant announcement through the War Department that the first ‘service’ (tactical combat) aircraft were finally on their way to France, an important milestone that the entire nation had anxiously awaited. Nothing had been shipped to France, only a handful of DH-4s to other airfields in America for testing; ‘Actual production in quantity did not begin until May.’[37] This revelation proved a severe embarrassment to the Wilson Administration, and Congressional inquiries grilled Secretary of War Newton Baker about this deception. Besides benefiting from insider Government information, executives of the Dayton Wright Airplane Company had charged exorbitant salaries since August 1, 1917, under the government’s cost-plus contracts. Deeds claimed he knew nothing about the wages (over $100,000 total) being received by some of his closest friends.[38]

Finally, in his single-page ‘General Conclusions and Recommendations, ’ Hughes blasted the US Army Signal Corps officers in charge (Squier and Deeds) for incompetence and mismanagement of the aircraft program, resulting in tremendous inefficiencies and waste. He also noted that the newly created Bureau of Aircraft Production, with entirely new leadership, had already rectified the significant problems reported. Concerning Deeds:

The evidence discloses conduct, which although of a reprehensible character, cannot be regarded as sufficient for charges under existing statutes […] The evidence against Colonel Edward A Deeds should be presented to the Secretary of War to the end that Colonel Deeds may be tried by court martial under Articles 95 and 96 of the Articles of War.[39]

The remaining points in the summary recommended criminal prosecutions for several other army officers (not named) who retained company commercial interests and suggested the Justice Department continue audits of the aircraft industry. Hughes was released from Government duty a few weeks later and never had more to say about the whole affair, resuming his distinguished career as a politician and jurist by serving as Secretary of State under the next President and eventually returning to the US Supreme Court. This time, as Chief Justice, in 1930. 

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and Court Martial

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker on 6 December 1918. (Source: Wikimedia)

News of the Hughes report appeared in the newspapers on 1 November 1918, and 10 days later, the Armistice was signed. American war planners who had expected the war to end only after a massive spring offensive planned for 1919 suddenly found themselves superfluous. Other residual tasks remained, along with negotiating the peace treaty and demobilising the army. One of these was the Deeds court martial.

With the Armistice, work stopped on all military production contracts almost immediately. The War Department undoubtedly wanted to put the embarrassing affair behind them as quickly as possible. Simply ignoring the Hughes Report was not an option – there was too much interest from both houses of Congress. Secretary of War Newton Baker decided to take the highly irregular step of not immediately court-martialing Deeds, instead having a board of review examine the allegations in the Hughes Report and determine whether a court-martial was required.

This move was itself highly irregular. Boards of Review served as the military equivalent of appellate courts. They review cases already decided in a lower court, and do not decide whether trials are necessary. Baker knew full well that there was plenty of evidence to warrant charges against Deeds, especially against the two Articles of War specified by Hughes, Article 95 (Conduct Becoming an Officer) and Article 96 (General Misconduct), which have unusually broad and extensive application.

The Board of Review, consisting of three-judge advocate officers selected by the army’s acting judge advocate general, examined the Hughes Report and took testimony from Deeds and his associates, allowing them to refute or clarify the issues Hughes raised. Neither Hughes nor Meier Steinbrink, his assistant, was ever called before the board or allowed to examine the testimony the review board heard. The army judge advocate’s report, released on 26 December 1918 (when it would garner the least attention, as Washington would be deserted after Christmas), decided that a court-martial was unnecessary. It found that the Deeds had not intended to deceive or defraud the Government and had released no confidential information. 

The report begins with several glaring factual errors, most likely stemming from Deeds’ testimony, as they contradicted Hughes’ report. Deeds was selected for his Government position because he was ‘well known in the field of aircraft development’ and Dayton Wright Airplane Company was ‘taking over the Orville Wright Airplane Company.’[40] Deeds explained away the whole issue of direct private telegrams to his former company’s President, H. Talbot Jr, by claiming fear of German sympathisers who might gather confidential information. Had the board allowed cross-examination by Hughes, they would have learned that this was not standard operating procedure between the Army Equipment Board and contractors and only extended to Dayton Wright. As far as Deeds’ subsequent telegram to Talbot, providing key information about the Government’s aircraft procurement strategy, the board conceded Deeds’ assertion to Talbot to take the provided information as ‘coming from your local attorney’ was ‘difficult to understand’ but decided that since Deeds was not a lawyer and simply trying to expedite the award of Government contracts (that being true) it was acceptable.[41]  They did not consider the information in the telegram, that a price competition was not required to award a contract, to be confidential to the government.[42] Had Hughes been present, he surely would have explained to the board that this information gave Dayton Wright carte blanche to charge the Government as much as it wished. What impressed the Board was that Deeds had sacrificed a large corporate salary (approximately $85,000 annually) to become a US Army officer and had been commended for his hard work by the Aircraft Production Board.[43]

Secretary of War Newton Baker released the Board’s results, with his concurrence, on 16 January 1919. The board, he claimed, ‘systematically examined all this evidence [the Hughes Report] and obtained all possible additional facts’ and was therefore superior to the Hughes Report in its conclusions.[44] Hughes had not been consulted or questioned by the Board, even once, on this overly complex procurement matter. The Board had not visited a single contractor facility anywhere, interviewed any other sources, or consulted any technical experts as Hughes did. Secretary Baker’s own ‘conclusion’ about what caused the Deeds scandal was not even consistent with the Board’s findings and has the distinct ring of a judgment made well before the board result:

This record undoubtedly shows that Colonel Deeds, absorbed in the activities of Aircraft Production, neglected to give personal attention to transactions involving his personal affairs, and this neglect on his part gave rise to appearances which required painstaking investigation in order to show their true character.[45]

And to make certain there was no mistaking Baker’s position on the matter, he ended with:

Inasmuch as Judge Hughes’ suggestion has been accomplished, I have directed that all records in this matter be filed in the War Department and the case be considered closed.[46]

With this, the War Department had finally put the last of the aircraft procurement scandal behind it. On 4 December 1918, President Wilson, following recommendations from Baker himself, issued full pardons to the other two army officers found by Hughes to have violated criminal statutes.[47]

Conclusion: Reassessing Deeds and the Aircraft Production Program

Readers of The Dayton Daily News opened their morning newspapers on 17 January 1919, to find the front-page story ‘ALL CHARGES VANISH UNDER LIGHT OF DAY’. The Board of Review had cleared entirely the Dee, and few locals seemed interested in a story with convoluted telegrams and company ownership details. Deeds soon received a deluge of telegrams from important Government officials such as the War Department’s Director of Munitions, Benedict Crowell, and industrialists like Henry Ford, congratulating him on the outstanding accomplishments of the aircraft production program. Feted in Dayton with banquets and other commemorations, including an ‘Ode to the Colonel’ written by his former military deputy, Deeds’ reputation suffered no lasting harm. To help ensure this, he had a July 1921 editorial from the popular business magazine The World’s Work entitled ‘The Vindication of Squier and Deeds, What Really Happened to the Billion Dollar Aircraft Appropriation’ reprinted in booklet form and distributed around the city.[48] Deeds were returned to senior management at Delco and NCR, and they continued to expand into new business ventures, such as creating a large conglomerate from various small sugar companies in Cuba. Upon his death, he bequeathed a historical park featuring a modern carillon tower that bears his name; the latter has become the de facto icon of Dayton. 

Without question, Deeds made some significant contributions to the industry and the public. Still, his actual military conduct during the war is more accurately assessed by Borglum’s and Hughes’ criticisms than by Secretary of War Baker’s excuses. All the tributes he received after the war mention his extraordinary accomplishments as head of the aircraft production program – yet fail to mention any specifics other than the Liberty engine, which was indeed a resounding success. So, what precisely did Deeds do? He did not decide which aircraft types to build (that was the Bolling Commission’s responsibility) or design or innovate any technical aspects – his days as a design engineer were long over. His primary accomplishments in uniform seem to be awarding many aircraft production contracts in the fall of 1917 and developing an American internal combustion engine for these aircraft that is more amenable to mass production.

Neither of these accomplishments is especially impressive. Awarding contracts in 1917 was a simple matter –no research to determine the best industrial sources (no industry, after all), and no technical or cost proposals to evaluate and select. Deeds’ Equipment Division decided which companies should be given contracts and awarded them; even costs were ignored. One of the first contracts, worth $35,000,000, was awarded to Dayton Wright Airplane Company, which Deeds himself co-founded just a few months before to win new war contracts, a company that had never built a single aeroplane. Deeds never seem to have been considered, even for a moment, in recusing himself from that particular contract award on the apparent conflict of interest grounds. Not only did he not recuse himself, but he also sent a confidential telegram to his old company’s president, which, in effect, told them that price would not be a determinant, almost encouraging them to price-gouge the government. Favouritism for the Dayton Wright Airplane Company did not end there. There were no government plans to ensure that one sample DH-4 aircraft was equally available to all contractors; Deeds had it shipped to Dayton and kept it under his former company’s lock and key, giving them a huge schedule advantage over other manufacturers. Exorbitant salaries were allowed under Government contracts for his old company’s executives; salaries Deeds must have been aware of, as they were his closest personal associates. Much was made later of Deeds ‘divesting’ himself of company stock and salary, but the reality was this was small beer; Deeds was farsighted enough to realize that by building a large new aircraft enterprise – constructed almost entirely with Government funds with virtually no financial risk of his own – he would have yet another large salary stream to draw from when his year or two of military service was over. He returned to his friends in Dayton. 

The Liberty engine program was one of the war’s great successes, and indeed, Deeds deserves credit here. Still, one must remember that by 1917, America had already built millions of internal combustion engines. The differences required for automotive and aviation applications were comparatively small. It was pretty evident that building a new engine for mass production was the better choice over replicating a European, handcrafted one. Even here, Deeds ensured his financial interest was addressed by requiring the Delco electronic ignition to be mandated for each Liberty, as opposed to the traditional aircraft magneto system. 

Simply put, Edward Deeds always ensured the best interests of the United States, and his best interests coincided. And he never stopped. ‘Let us not in any way commercialise our experience [in the army] here. It is quite enough that we have been able to be of some service to our country without advertising the fact’ Deeds said in a speech in Dayton after the war – yet he insisted for the rest of his life on being called ‘Colonel Deeds.’[49]

Ethical issues aside, the larger question is Deeds’s role as head of the Equipment Division in the ‘failure’ of the American aircraft production program. Certainly, he played a critical role in creating unrealistic expectations with absurdly optimistic production schedules that the nascent American aircraft industry could not have met. Deeds compounded this mistake by making frequent and overly optimistic public statements throughout 1917, thereby reinforcing the false optimism. For example, an early production plan known as ’Production Plan II’ called for 16,500 tactical combat planes (DH-4s) to be delivered by 30 June 1918, to the front (to be powered by the new Liberty engine, which had not even been designed yet); actual numbers never came remotely close to this plan.[50]

The ‘failure’ was a plan by Deeds and the Equipment Division based on a false assumption – that building a tactical aeroplane was comparable to creating one of the million-plus automobiles rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit. The reality was that building an aeroplane was far more complex. The wood needed for the airframe had to be a continuous piece of spruce, obtainable only in the Pacific Northwest, and from lumberjacks currently on strike. Wings required a special linen spun only in Ireland. Even the varnish (‘dope’) needed for aeronautical use required special development. Tolerances for fitting parts in aircraft, which had to withstand wind and vibration forces unlike those in automobiles, required a far higher level of craftsmanship and attention to detail than the Detroit assembly lines. The ‘automobile crowd’ that ran the aircraft program was unaware of this when they began, a fact that no one disputed by the war’s end. All these challenges were overcome in time, but it took a precious amount of time. The American public and Congress asked in 1918 why reality lagged so far behind what was promised just six months earlier.

The American aircraft program in the First World War was far from a failure. Showing remarkable resilience and ingenuity, the new industry overcame a myriad of design and supply chain issues and, given a reasonable production curve, began producing combat aircraft in just over a year, just as the original Bolling Commission had expected when it recommended awarding the French the 5,875 aeroplanes contract the year before. During the war’s last three months, DH-4 production in America was 653 in September, 1,097 in October, and 1,036 in November.[51] Production year. Had the war continued into 1919 as expected, aircraft production may have been regarded as one of America’s significant contributions to the ultimate victory.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Taint, United States Air Force (ret’d) is an independent historian.  He retired after a 21-year military career in the US Air Force, which included tours of duty in missile and space operations, acquisition management and headquarters staff. He also spent 15 years in the defence industry as a project manager. He received a BA in History with a specialisation in Military History from Norwich University, an MA in Political Science from Wichita State University, and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Dayton.

Header image: US Army 166th Aero Squadron personnel standing in front of licence-produced Airco DH4s, November 1918. (Source: Wikimedia)

[1] Robert J. Neal, A Technical and Operational History of the Liberty Engine (North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 2009), p. 73.

[2] John H. Morrow, The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2009), p. 268.

[3] United States House of Representatives, Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Volume 3 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 3882.

[4] Ibid., p. 3883.

[5] Ibid., p. 3884.

[6] Isaac F. Marcosson, Colonel Deeds Industrial Builder (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1947). p. 227.

[7] Neal, A Technical and Operational History of the Liberty Engine, p 77.

[8] Benedict Crowell,  America’s Munitions 1917-1918: Report of Benedict Crowell, Director of Munitions (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 240-41. Improvements in logging reduced this to about a thousand feet.

[9] Ibid. The spruce industry in the Northwest was placed under military supervision for most of the war.

[10] Ibid., pp. 247-48.

[11] Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Vol. 3, p 3929.

[12] Crowell, America’s Munitions, 1917-1918, p. 269.

[13] Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Vol. 3, p. 3886.

[14] See Neal, A Technical and Operational History of the Liberty Engine, for a comprehensive discussion of the various Liberty configurations.

[15] Colonel Edgar S. Gorrell, The Measure of America’s World War Aeronautical Effort (Northfield, VT: Norwich University, 1940), p. 34.

[16] Ann Honious, National Park Service. What Dreams We Have: The Wright Brothers and Their Hometown of Dayton, OH. 2003. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/daav/chap12.htm (accessed September 18, 2018), Chapter 12.

[17] Isaac F. Marcosson, Colonel Deeds Industrial Builder (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1947). pp 255-57.

[18] Ibid., p. 260

[19] Who, in fact, had nothing to do with the actual procurement actions, save for appointing Deeds as head of the Equipment Division.

[20]’Getting the Facts About Aircraft,’ The Literary Journal, 25 May 1925, pp. 9-10.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Marcosson, Colonel Deeds Industrial Builder, p. 261.

[23] Ibid., p. 262.

[24] Douglas Waldrop, ‘Senate and Justice Department Investigating Aircraft Situation,’ Aerial Age Weekly, 20 May 1918, p. 510.

[25] Ibid., pp. 489-510.

[26] However, Deeds’ proponents were quick to use this quotation to discredit not only Borglum but also any critic of Deeds and the aircraft program. See Deeds’ biographer Marcosson.

[27] ‘Senate Hears Army Critic Under Fire,’ The Washington Herald, 11 May 1918, p. 1.

[28] Waldrop, ‘Senate and Justice Department Investigating Aircraft Situation,’ p. 511.

[29] Merlo J. Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes, Volume I, (New York City: MacMillan and Co.,1951), pp. 374-75.

[30] Charles Evans Hughes, Autobiographical Notes, edited by Joseph S. Tulchin and  David J Danelski (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 1190.

[31] Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes, Vol. I, pp.376-77.

[32] Ibid., p. 378. Biographer Pusey obtained this information from a personal interview with Steinbrink on 24 July 1947. These are the telegrams mentioned earlier discussing the Government’s internal contracting strategy.

[33] Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Vol 3. The Hughes Report is Exhibit J.

[34] Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Vol. 3, p. 3868.

[35] Ibid., pp. 3895-7.

[36] Ibid., p. 3901.

[37] Ibid., pp. 3928-9.

[38] Ibid., p. 3950.

[39] Ibid., p. 3962.

[40] Waldrop, ‘Senate and Justice Department Investigating Aircraft Situation,’ p. 980.

[41] Ibid., p. 997.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid., p. 1009.

[44] Ibid., p. 980.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Neal, A Technical and Operational History of the Liberty Engine, p. 81.

[48] John K. Barnes, ‘The Vindication of Squier and Deeds, What Really Happened to the Billion Dollar Aircraft Appropriation,’ The World’s Work, July 1921.

[49] Marcosson, Colonel Deeds: Industrial Builder, p. 287.

[50]  Neal, A Technical and Operational History of the Liberty Engine, p. 72.

[51] Crowell,  America’s Munitions 1917-1918, pp 255.

The Colonel, the Sculptor, and the Supreme Court Justice: Assessing the Failure of American Aircraft Production in the First World War – Part One

The Colonel, the Sculptor, and the Supreme Court Justice: Assessing the Failure of American Aircraft Production in the First World War – Part One

By Lieutenant Colonel Michael H. Taint, United States Air Force (ret’d)

Editorial note: In this two-part article, Michael Taint re-evaluates the conduct of Colonel Edward Deeds in the management of the US Army’s First World War aircraft production program and the overall aeroplane production program itself. In this first part, he sets the scene to be explored in the second part.

The US Army was the first military in the world to procure an aeroplane. However, when the United States entered the First World War in the spring of 1917, its military aviation program lagged pitifully behind other belligerents. The expectation of the US government, the American public and its new allies was that American industrial might would quickly create an air force so enormous as to ‘permanently cloud  Germany’s place in the sun’ according to Major General George Owen Squier, Chief Signal Officer (the Signal Corps included all military aviation unit at that time).[1] In July 1917 – after a mere 40-minute debate – Congress appropriated an unprecedented $640 million for this purpose, with a production goal of 22,635 aeroplanes and 45,250 engines. However, at the end of the First World War, despite the benefit of having a build-to-print design for an existing aeroplane, a mere 196 aeroplanes were delivered for combat action at the front, an embarrassing failure.[2]  

The ensuing political fallout caused President Woodrow Wilson to request an informal inquiry by aviation enthusiast and artist Gutzon Borglum (better known as the sculptor of Mount Rushmore and Stone Mountain). Borglum’s accusations of impropriety, particularly against Edward Deeds, a Dayton industrialist directly commissioned Colonel in the US Army Air Service, spurred further Congressional scrutiny. Eventually, Wilson directed a formal investigation led by Charles Evans Hughes, his opponent in the 1916 presidential campaign and future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Hughes recommended Deeds’ court-martial; a court martial that never occurred. This paper re-evaluates Deeds’ conduct in the First World War aircraft production program and the overall aeroplane production program. Though often characterised as a failure, American aeroplane production in 1917-18 was more a victim of unrealistic expectations than a lack of competence.

The Pre-Bellum State of American Aviation: The Bolling Commission

Mimicking the experience of the US Army, American military aviation in April 1917 was underdeveloped due to a lack of investment. Although a few officers, such as Squier, had been advocating the potential revolutionary capabilities of military aviation for nearly a decade (Squier himself wrote the technical specification for the US Army’s first purchase of the Wright Flyer), the rest of the US Army and Congress remained sceptical, and funding reflected that scepticism. On active duty, the Aviation Section of the US Army’s Signal Corps consisted of only 52 officers (26 of whom were fully qualified pilots), 1,100 civilian and enlisted personnel, and the air fleet that consisted of 165 aeroplanes – none of which could undertake the type of aerial combat that was occurring over the Western Front – stationed at two flying fields.[3] 

Unlike America’s entry into the next world war, which had issues, at the declaration of hostilities, the USA in 1917 was no great ‘Arsenal of Democracy.’ The US aircraft industry employed only about 10,000 workers, total, at a half dozen firms, and the two largest firms, Curtiss and Wright-Martin, despite bearing the names of America’s foremost aviation pioneers, were controlled by the automotive industry, most notably Howard Coffin of Hudson and Packard’s Sydney Waldon.[4] With limited military interest (except for an order of 800 training planes the Allies placed in 1916), no airline industry, and no airmail, there was insufficient demand to motivate manufacturers. Intellectual property issues were another significant deterrent to the aviation industry’s growth. The Wright Brothers’ invention of ‘wing warping,’ which allowed an aeroplane to roll (turn) left or right, was ruled in 1914 to apply to all flight controls on all aircraft types – in other words, to anyone who built an aeroplane that did anything but fly in a straight line. The Wrights demanded a heavy licensing fee for this technology, adding significant costs and further discouraging start-up efforts.[5] The remedy was an industry steering group and forum that could wrest control of aircraft design and manufacturing from these proprietary interests. So Coffin and Waldon, among others, founded the Aircraft Manufacturers Association (AMA), modelled after the highly successful Society for Automotive Engineers (where Coffin and Waldon were also leaders). The AMA was designed to address issues plaguing early aeroplane manufacturing: intellectual property deterrents and custom parts and interfaces, to make mass production possible, just as they had for automobiles.

The creation of the AMA was timely, as once America declared war on Germany, Europeans besieged the US Government’s official steering body, the Aircraft Production Board, for more aeroplanes. Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of War and Director of Munitions, wrote in the US Army’s official history:

France and Italy had both adopted the policy of depending upon the private development of designs for their supplies of airplanes […] the United States would have to pay considerable royalties for the use of any of these European devices. As to the relative merits of types and designs, it was soon apparent that no intelligent decision could be reached in Washington or anywhere but Europe.[6] (emphasis added)

To make recommendations for this decision, Major Raynal Bolling, a corporate (US Steel) lawyer, National Guard officer, and pilot, was tasked to lead a fact-finding team that became known as the ‘Bolling Commission.’ The Bolling Commission included 12 military and aeroplane experts, plus 93 production specialists from various American factories – the cadre of the future American aviation industry.[7] The Bolling Commission arrived in Britain on 17 June 1917 and visited French, Italian and British aeroplane factories during an intensive 5-week trip and determined in its 30 July report that a handful of specific Allied aircraft, including the De Havilland DH-4, were the best candidates for American domestic production. For the coming year, however, the Bolling Commission recommended US materiel and funding be prioritised to French factories already in production while America ramped up its infant aviation industrial base. They planned for American factories to produce 22,000 tactical aircraft plus training aeroplanes.[8] Consequently, the US Army Air Service awarded a contract for delivery by 1 July 1918 of 5,875 planes manufactured in France but with mostly American materials. Almost all-American airmen flew aircraft produced by this contract.

On 18 October 1917, the DH-4, a 2-seat reconnaissance and day bombing aircraft initially designed by Geoffrey de Havilland in the UK and introduced into service the year before, was selected for American production.[9] The most recent version of this light bomber, the DH-9, was chosen. However, when production started a few months later only the older DH-4 was available to be shipped to America and a production sample – so it was used instead.

Not everyone, however, such as Colonel (later Brigadier General) Billy Mitchell, agreed with the selection of this aircraft. Bolling chose a light bomber rather than a pursuit plane because the latter needed design updates every six months to remain combat-ready; at any one time, 60 per cent of the Allied combat aircraft at the Front were considered obsolete. To all American manufacturers, the DH-4 certainly had another advantage. Unlike the French and Italian aircraft designed by private firms with heavy licensing (intellectual property) fees, the DH-4 was provided by the British government license-free.[10] However, not everyone agreed that aircraft production in America was a good idea, either. Mitchell, then commander of all American aviation forces stationed in France, had toured French factories extensively and was convinced of their superiority in capability and product. Mitchell viewed sending American materials and men to expand existing French manufacturers as the quickest way to victory. As Mitchell recalled with his characteristic bluntness:

It was the beginning of a series of blunders by those directing aviation in Washington, which culminated later in that department being virtually removed from the authority of the War Department and put into the hands of businessmen […- I am referring to the De Havilland airplane and the Liberty engine […] this one decision held up delivery of equipment to American air forces for an entire year, and constituted one of the most serious blunders.[11]

However, those businessmen in charge of aviation in the summer of 1917 had a hugely different view.

The Businessman becomes a Colonel – Edward Deeds of Drayton

Colonel Edward Deeds, c. 1917. (Source: US Library of Congress)

When the United States declared war, Edward Deeds was a wealthy 43-year-old industrialist and prominent citizen of Dayton, Ohio. Starting as an electrical engineer designing motors for cash registers with the National Cash Register (NCR) company in Dayton, Ohio, Deeds eventually rose to vice president and general manager. His pleasant personality and charm were undoubtedly key to his business success. His most famous hire was another engineer, Charles Kettering. The two became lifelong friends and business partners, often tinkering in Deeds’ barn, where Kettering invented the first automotive electronic ignition system. The enormous success of this invention led Deeds and Kettering to form another company, the Dayton Electronics Company (DELCO), in 1908, a powerhouse in the rapidly expanding automotive industry; Kettering served as chief technical officer, and Deeds focused primarily on business affairs.[12]

Deeds was well into this second successful business venture when his first one caught up with him in a shocking way. NCR had cornered over 95% of the cash register market, but not always through ethical or legal business practices. In February 1913, along with John Patterson and future IBM chief executive Thomas J Watson, Deeds was convicted in the Federal district court in Cincinnati of the first criminal violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act in US history. Along with a $5,000 fine, each man was sentenced to a year in prison. Their careers appeared ruined, but fate intervened. Waiting on appeal, the NCR executives were redeemed in the public’s eye by their extraordinary response to the Great Dayton Flood that nearly destroyed the city a few months later.[13] By marshalling all their company’s resources, Patterson and Deeds provided food and shelter, as well as a small flotilla of rescue boats that saved hundreds of lives. Two years later, on 13 March 1915, an Appeals court overturned all the convictions and ordered a retrial. However, by then, the retrial of these local heroes was politically impossible, and all charges were dropped.

By 1917, just days after the US declaration of war, Deeds and Kettering saw yet another business opportunity, yet another chance to ‘get in on the ground floor’ as they had with electronic ignition in automobiles. They met with Dayton financier H.E. Talbot and his son in the senior Talbot’s suburban Dayton home. Also present were a few original Wright Airplane Company employees, including pilot and aeroplane designer Grover Loening. Deeds and Kettering, with additional financial backing from the Talbots, proposed creating a new aeroplane company called the Dayton Wright Airplane Company, specifically to compete for the substantial number of aeroplane orders that would undoubtedly be coming from the War Department. Orville Wright would be included as a ‘non-working’ director, allowing the new company to capitalise on the prestige and credibility the Wright name would bring (Wright only rarely participated in the actual business, usually as a technical consultant). Deeds proposed that engines from the booming American automotive industry (using the electronic ignition system built by his DELCO Company) would be mated with build-to-print designs from proven European tactical aircraft (since everyone knew America had no design expertise). The solution to the aeroplane production problem would be at hand, with handsome profits. The company’s incorporators needed but $500,000 to begin operations; within a few months, large aircraft contracts would be a massive payback on their investment.[14] The one true aeronautical expert there, Grover Loening, confessed to being ‘astonished’ at these bold plans, which he considered ’shady.’[15] After the First World War, in a section of his memoirs entitled ‘The Detroit Conspiracy’ Loening noted:

the way step after step led the automobile crowd in Detroit to the ownership, control, direction and parceling out of all aircraft and aircraft-motor business, by the time we entered the war in 1917, is a pattern that much too beautifully fit together to be accidental […] Our able and efficient automobile manufacturers in Detroit, foreseeing a war production era, apparently picked on aviation as a likely field to fill their plants […] They absolutely butted into the aircraft business. Not a single one of them had any previous experience along this line […] all of this work was done at cost plus 10% or more; so one can be sure none of the automobile group lost much.[16]

Subsequent events show that Deeds’ vision from that evening in April 1917 happened largely as planned. 

Deeds’ plans progressed rapidly, starting with his appointments to several critical Government advisory and procurement boards. Through his connection with Howard Coffin, a fellow automobile executive (Vice President of the Hudson Motor Car Company), Deeds was offered a position on the Munitions Standards Board dealing with ‘matters relating to the procurement of munitions and supplies’; when that Board was disbanded shortly afterwards, Coffin persuaded him to join a new steering committee to oversee military aircraft, the Aircraft Production Board, chaired by Coffin himself.[17] Deeds considered and eventually accepted.[18] Also on the board was the US Army’s Chief Signal Officer and its foremost aviation proponent, Major General George Owen Squier. Though it had no direct procurement authority, the Aircraft Production Board was the preeminent body in making critical policies that determined which engineering specifications and standards were adopted, how and where pilot training was conducted, and even which supply depots for logistics support and flying fields were to be established. It was tasked with the creation of an American aviation industry. Far from being merely another committee, it became ‘foremost in the war program of the country.’[19] Deeds, the founder of the Dayton Wright Airplane Company in April, was, by July, on the executive steering committee for creating the new industry. And he was not done yet. 

On 15 August, scarcely a month later, Edward Deeds – with no military training or experience of any kind – became Colonel Edward Deeds, chief of the US Army’s Signal Corps Aviation Equipment Division, responsible for the procurement of all Army aviation hardware, including aeroplanes, aircraft armament, spare parts and engines. Supervising between 4,000 and 5,000 personnel, Deeds’ new division was expected to obligate over $500,000,000 in government funds over the next 9 months.[20] Though direct commissions of civilian executives were not unknown during the war, Deeds’ situation was unusual;  he was commissioned in the high grade of full colonel, and even more so, he received a Regular Army, not a Reserve (‘temporary’) commission. This was all accomplished through the intervention of Squier, chief of the Army aviation section and soon to be Chief Signal Officer of the entire Army. In the latter position, Squier had the enormous responsibility of providing all transatlantic communications and in-theatre military communications in France, plus the US Army’s whole air effort. Though highly trained as an engineer (the first army officer to earn a PhD in the field), he did not have the time to translate the $640,000,000 Congressional aeroplane appropriation into actual hardware. That enormous task was Deeds’.

Deeds later made it clear to government service that he had divested himself entirely from his recently established business interest in the Dayton Wright Airplane Company. However, this divestiture consisted only of resigning from the company, as Deeds was the only incorporator of Dayton Wright, who did not take any of the new company’s 5,000 shares of stock, an oddity for which remains unexplained.[21]  Of course, it is possible Deeds had no interest in stock because he planned to obtain an influential position in the Government all along to facilitate Dayton Wright Airplane’s growth, which would benefit him greatly when he re-joined the company after the war. Deeds flatly denied he had been promised any such quid pro quo.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Taint, United States Air Force (ret’d) is an independent historian.  He retired after a 21-year military career in the US Air Force, which included tours of duty in missile and space operations, acquisition management and headquarters staff. He also spent 15 years in the defence industry as a project manager. He received a BA in History with a specialisation in Military History from Norwich University, an MA in Political Science from Wichita State University, and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Dayton.

Header image: US Army 166th Aero Squadron personnel standing in front of licence-produced Airco DH4s, November 1918. (Source: Wikimedia)

[1] John H. Morrow, The Great War in the Air: Military Aviation from 1909 to 1921 (Tuscaloosa: Univerity of Alabama Press, 2009), p. 266.

[2] Colonel Edgar S. Gorrell, The Measure of America’s World War Aeronautical Effort (Northfield, VT: Norwich University, 1940), pp. 7-9. A build-to-print design is one where (theoretically at least) detailed blueprints and specifications allow another organization to manufacture the item.

[3] Ibid, p. 2. Other authors have slightly higher numbers, but Gorrell’s data comes from reviewing 60 volumes of raw data – he was also an active-duty Air Service staff officer at the time of the events.

[4] Morrow, The Great War in the Air, pp. 265-66.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Benedict Crowell, America’s Munitions 1917-1918: Report of Benedict Crowell, Director of Munitions (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 240-41.

[7] Gorrell, The Measure of America’s World War Aeronautical Effort, p. 3. Gorrell himself, then a captain, was a member of the Commission.

[8] Ibid, p. 5.

[9] Ibid, p. 3-4.

[10] Judy Rummerman, https://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Aerospace/WWi/Aero5.htm.

[11] Major Michael A.Macwilliam, The Development and Emergence of the American De Havilland Aeroplane (Air Command and Staff College Thesis, Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Command and Staff College, 1997), p. 11, citing Mitchell Memoirs.

[12] Isaac F. Marcosson, Colonel Deeds Industrial Builder (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1947).

[13] Lisa Rickey, ‘The court decision in John H. Patterson’s case was announced…..

[14] United States House of Representatives,  Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Vol 3 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 3883.

[15] Lieutenant Colonel W. R. Laidlaw, MSS from Lt Colonel Laidlaw to Mr Charles Kettering Dec 7, 1957, (Unpublished).

[16] Grover Loening, Our Wings Grow Faster  (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1935), pp 69-84. ‘Cost plus’ refers to the type of contract used – the aeroplane contractors were reimbursed for all their costs, plus given an additional 10% or more as profit – so in actuality a business loss was impossible.

[17] Marcosson, Colonel Deeds Industrial Builder, p. 267.

[18] Ibid, pp 216-218. Deeds’ biographer claims that Deeds initially refused to join the Aircraft Production Board, then reconsidered because of the ‘opportunity to stimulate the air program.’

[19] ‘US Aircraft Production Board: Body Which is Entrusted with Making America Supreme in the Air,’ Motor Age, 12 July 1917, p. 20.

[20] ‘E.A. Deeds Now Colonel in Regular army of the US,’ Dayton Daily News, 29 August 29 1917, p. 1.

[21] United States House of Representatives, Hearings Before Subcommittee 1 (Aviation), Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, Vol 3 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 3882.

#Podcast – The Origins of Air Power in the US: An Interview with Dr Laurence Burke II

#Podcast – The Origins of Air Power in the US: An Interview with Dr Laurence Burke II

Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

In our latest podcast, we interview Dr Laurence Burke II, the Aviation Curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We ask how did the US get from the first flight of an aeroplane in 1903 to full-fledged military-capable aeroplanes in only short few years? Burke takes us through the people that made that journey happen. He explores the different approaches to the airplane made by the US Army, Navy, and Marines Corps, and why each of them went about exploring military aviation in a unique way.

9781682477298

Dr Laurence Burke is the Aviation Curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. He earned an undergraduate degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master’s in Museum Studies from George Washington University, and, in 2014, a PhD in History and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Since then, he has taught history at the United States Naval Academy as a post-doc and then was Curator of U.S. Naval Aviation at the National Air and Space Museum for several years before starting the job at Quantico.

Header image: A Wight Model A arrives at Fort Myer, Virginia aboard a wagon for testing by the US Army, attracting the attention of children and adults, 1 September 1908. (Source: Wikimedia)

#BookReview – The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory

#BookReview – The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory

By Eamon Hamilton

Craig F. Morris, The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2017. Notes. Bibliography. Index. 272 pp.

Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory

The strategic bomber has stood as one pillar of American military strength since the Second World War, and even today, the deployment of B-1s, B-2s and B-52s to forward bases across the globe sends a strong message to potential adversaries. Serving as a true ‘Book of Genesis’ chapter to this capability, The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory by Craig F. Morris covers the period of 1916 to 1942 and explores the growth of an idea within the United States Army, rather than deal primarily in technology or personalities. By recounting how air power theory matured (and was withheld) within the United States Army, he also delivers an excellent case study on how an organisation reacts to disruptive technology.

There is a stark comparison in air power capability that comes early from Morris. The book’s introduction begins with the arrival of United States Army Air Force B-17s in England in 1942. Operationally untested, their existence still spoke of the maturity of America’s investment in technology, organisation, and air power doctrine during the interwar period. Contrast that scene with the experience of the United States Army’s 1st Aero Squadron in Mexico in 1916, which Morris covers in his first chapter. There is obviously no suggestion that the 1st Aero Squadron’s Curtis JN-3 biplanes were to be used as bombers against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa; what Morris does is illustrate the lack of intellectual depth the United States Army had with its heavier-than-air aviation capability. While the technology was relatively new, that lack of innovation remains surprising considering how the First World War had quickly illustrated the utility of aviation.

The Mexican adventure serves another purpose – it introduces several personalities from the 1st Aero Squadron who were sent to Europe when the United States entered the First World War. The most significant focus of The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory falls on 1917 to 1919, which stands to reason – it is here that the Aviation Section of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) first encountered the idea of strategic bombing from the Allied (and Central) powers. This transfer of ideas is explored mainly through the experiences of Edgar S. Gorrell, a veteran of the 1st Aero Squadron in Mexico who was sent to Europe to study how the United States would grow its aviation forces in the First World War. The AEF ground commanders wanted aviation to provide the battlefield reconnaissance and air defence, but Gorrell’s exposure to Allied air power theory led him to become a proponent of using bombers to open a ‘new front’ on an enemy’s warfighting infrastructure, effectively bypassing the war in the trenches on the Western Front.

Gorrell-Edgar-S (Harris & Ewing)
Lieutenant Edgar S. Gorrell studied aeronautical engineering at MIT following the Mexican campaign of 1916. (Source: US Air Force Historical Research Agency)

Gorrell is the personality most consistently covered in The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory, which is arguably a testament to the aviator’s recordkeeping and his early advocacy of strategic bombing. The First World War ended before Gorrell could successfully argue the case for an American strategic bomber force, but the Armistice allowed him to leave two critical legacies to the future of air power development. Gorrell was tasked with organising the official history of the AEF, an assignment which allowed him to draw together air power lessons from the AEF and Allied into an official post-War record. On top of this, he drove a post-war bombing survey that examined what impact Allied bombing made on Germany’s warfighting effort.

When dealing with the events of 1919 to 1942, The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory does not enjoy the singular narrative focus that Gorrell’s experiences during the First World War afforded it (Gorrell left the military as a Colonel in 1920 at the age of 28, worked in the motoring industry, and died in March 1945). In Morris’ defence, strategic bombing theory in the interwar period was driven by complex variables, from personalities such as Billy Mitchell and rapidly growing aviation technology; through to economic resources (like the Great Depression), along with shifting strategic and foreign policy. The main conflict affecting strategic bombing theory (and the introduction of a supporting capability) was between the US Army’s General Staff, and aviation proponents within the Air Corps, as the Air Service had become in 1926. As aviation technology grew and the Air Corps Tactical School developed its ideas for air power, the Army General Staff were justifiably worried that a strategic bombing capability would lead to an independent Air Force, and a competitor for government funding.

Air Corps Tactical School
The Air Corps Tactical School (created as the Air Service Field Officers School in 1920) went beyond its mandate of training officers to also become an engine for air power theory development in the interwar period. (Source: US Air Force Air University)

The examination of this conflict makes The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory an excellent study in how organisations react to disruptive technology (both positively and negatively). The parallels to modern disruptive technologies (for example, autonomous systems, or space-based systems) do not feel completely analogous, given the purely historical lens of this book. That being said, it gives numerous examples of both innovative and misguided thinking at different levels within the United States Army in dealing with aviation. While history arguably vindicated the strategic bomber concept, Morris does well explain Army’s reservations with this new field.

One of the most significant qualities of The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory is also the chief criticism – by covering 25 years in 207 pages, it is very concise. The narrative is clear, comprehensive, and does not feel like any essential facts have been left out. However, the quality of Morris’ writing would comfortably permit this to be a longer work, and the narrative could afford to provide further exposition to selected events, technologies and personalities (beyond Gorrell), that shaped and developed air power theory. On several occasions, this reviewer found himself looking for other resources to further his appreciation of the events in this book – especially about the limited performance of bomber aircraft during the First World War.

While remaining engaging to read, Morris’ work is academically well-presented. It both recounts history as well as briefly discussing the views of academics and historians on the subject matter where relevant. There is considerable inertia when it comes to people’s understanding of events from a century ago, and Morris is clear when he debates, debunks or reaffirms the established narratives of other authors. The introduction specifically accounts for early air power studies into strategic bombing by historians/academics including Mark Clodfelter, Stephen McFarland, I.B. Holley, and Maurer Maurer.

Martin_B-10B_during_exercises (National Museum of USAF)
First flown in 1932, the Martin B-10 was a revolutionary bomber not only for the United States Army Air Corps, but for the world. Design features such as all-metal construction, enclosed cockpit with rotating gun turrets, full engine cowlings and retractable landing gear would be standard design features for bombers over the next decade.  (Source: National Museum of United States Air Force)

Overall, The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory is clear and well-sourced and can be easily approached by anyone with no depth of knowledge of the central subject matter. This reader found it to be enjoyable and informative, providing a good account of early strategic bombing theory and American air power development. While being a self-contained work, it is likely to whet the reader’s appetite for reading works covering related subject matters.

Eamon Hamilton graduated from the University of Western Sydney with a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism). He works as a Public Affairs Officer for the Royal Australian Air Force. He lives in Sydney. He runs the Rubber-Band Powered Blog and can be found on Twitter @eamonhamilton.

Header Image: A Boeing Y1B-17 in flight. This aircraft would eventually be developed B-17 Flying Fortress. (Source: Wikimedia)